If you’re hitting the road this fall for color, try a new perspective: glass.
A collegial fraternity of artisans awaits on the Pennsylvania Glass Trail, an arts venture established in 2006 that connects the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading — the largest and most comprehensive interactive arts center of its kind in the country — with numerous glass studios along Route 222 or side roads from Lancaster to the Lehigh Valley.
In the next couple of years, five more artists in nearby Bucks County and Philadelphia may be added to the trail.
On the first weekend in December, tourists can watch artists work in their studios, purchase glass and learn about the various techniques used to create art from a hot, soupy liquid or fusing strips of glass together in a process called slumping and flame working, which is done with a lamp.
The best place to start on the trail is the GoggleWorks, a large campus of six brick buildings that house a hot glass shop, a darkroom, a ceramics studio and a kiln.
The center’s name comes from its earlier life as the Wilson Goggles factory, which made optical glass for eyewear, including sunglasses, safety goggles and high-altitude oxygen masks for military pilots. After it closed in 2002, Al Boscov, the department store founder, decided that restoring the brick buildings could spark a renaissance of Reading’s blighted downtown.
Several years ago, Boscov took Diane LaBelle, who was running an arts center in Bethlehem called the Banana Factory, on a tour of the buildings, which offer 145,000 square feet of space.
“He saw what the Banana Factory had done to revitalize South Bethlehem,” said LaBelle, who holds a degree in architecture from Carnegie Mellon University.
After a $15 million restoration, the GoggleWorks opened in 2005. Its rooms crackle with activity as 300 children arrive for classes and 34 artists work in second- and third-floor studios that they rent.
From the GoggleWorks, here are some other high points on the trail.
Drive east from Reading to the picturesque community of Boyertown where Will Dexter works at his hot glass studio Taylor Backes.
An amiable man with a youthful face, blue eyes, red hair and an engaging grin, Dexter has blown glass since 1974. His studio created 600 basket weave style glass blocks for the lights at the new Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, where the Academy Awards are handed out each year.
“They didn’t understand the word budget. It was so cool,” he said.
Dexter makes large, sculptural pieces in rich blues and greens that echo his boyhood by the water.
With a team of three full-time assistants, he is creating 138 architectural glass blocks for Aliana, a new, 2,000-acre community being built south of Houston, Texas. Aliana will have eight residential buildings, two golf courses, the Houston Polo Club and commercial office buildings.
He and his team also are making 68 glass lantern panels with the letter A. By day, the A in the glass blocks will be yellow and surrounded by aqua; at night, the A will turn gold and be surrounded by a field of pink.
These optical effects are created by dichroic glass, which was invented for NASA and used in the aerospace industry. Dichroic glass has a transmitted color and a different reflected color because certain wavelengths of light pass through ultra-thin layers of metal oxides inside the glass and the hues change depending on the angle of your view.
Drive about an hour north and east to Bethlehem to meet Peter Wayne Yenawine, whose broad, handsome face is topped by a mane of silvery hair. Founder of Crystal Signatures, Yenawine started his career as a designer for Steuben, where he insisted on learning to blow as well as design glass.
“Process was very critical to me,” Yenawine said, adding that he knew he could not become an accomplished designer unless he worked with glass.
He eventually went to work for Baccarat and the Franklin Mint. He has created pieces for most of the fine crystal companies in the world and seven White House administrations.
“Crystal is alive. To me, crystal is the only material that’s truly kinetic,” he said, because it reflects light through prisms.
The Lehigh River flows through Bethlehem and you must cross it to reach South Bethlehem. Pittsburgh’s South Side attracts the young, hip and creative; so does South Bethlehem.
That happened after the Banana Factory, a restored banana warehouse that’s now a mecca for artists, opened in January 1998.
Famed for its First Friday evening open houses, the Banana Factory opened its glass shop in 2006. It features a 350-pound pot inside a natural gas furnace, three work benches, large cylindrical reheating chambers, four annealers that are used to cool glass and a kiln for slumping and fusing glass. A jewelry studio just opened at the factory and there are 28 artists in residence on the building’s second and third floors.
Be Smart, a program for 100 middle school students, teaches youngsters ceramics, glass blowing, graphic design and video production. Four interns from Temple’s Tyler School of Art arrive each year to learn how to teach, run a glass studio, care for equipment and acquire college credit.
“Our main goal is to cultivate future glass artists,” said John Choi, who manages the Banana Factory’s glass studio.
At its fire and ice gala on Oct. 17, the Banana Factory will highlight the work of Paul Marioni, a cerebral Seattle artisan whose work is inspired by his dreams.
Jeff Parks, president of ArtsQuest, which owns and operates the Banana Factory, likes the concept of a glass trail, although awareness about the effort appears to be limited.
“I cannot honestly say we have seen a marked number of people coming to the Banana Factory because they have heard about the glass trail.”
But there are artists well worth your time, such as the stained glass work of Karen Lesniak at the GoggleWorks; Greenwood Stained Glass, which makes glass for churches and buildings in its Topton studio; and Neff-Chattoe Co., founded in 1903, the oldest stained glass studio in Allentown. Stephen Rich Nelson, whose studio is called The Glassman, is known for jewel-toned art glass and stunning glass goddesses.
Looking to buy 90 or 96 COE dichroic glass for making dichroic jewelry? If so, you should take a moment to visit with the world’s leading source of dichro products – DichroicGlassPortal.com where you can locate all standard colors, patterns, and textured dichroic sheets, plus equipment, such as glass kilns and other tools.