A Morning in Seattle Part One; Glass Eye Studio's Fall Sidewalk Sale

Each year in April and October, Glass Eye Studio, a wholesale only creator/importer of cool glass stuff,  strews the parking lot of it's production facility with gorgeous glass priced at one half of wholesale prices.  The sale includes the studio's own production of vases, ornaments, paperweights, pumpkins, and more. Seconds, non standard pieces, prototypes for future production possibilities  and experimental pieces are all there.  Glass Eye also imports quite a bit from China and when there is overstock, a nice variety of those items are in a different part of the parking lot.  In the late seventies, the studio was floundering a bit financially.  Two things saved them, one was the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 which yielded a great deal of ash which they used to make the once very popular (I still have several) Mt. St. Helen's ash ornaments (glass is simply silica and ash heated to about 3000 degrees which is why, if you're cremated, you can have your remains become part of a glass production if you wish.  Interesting article here.) ; the other was a genius idea - allow the glass artists who work at the studio to use the furnaces after hours in exchange for a lower wag.  Once the furnaces are heated, they must be kept hot 24/7.  Renting a hot shop by the hour is quite costly so artists having the opportunity to use the space to create their own work was a great benefit!  Sorry for the digression but the sale also includes tables set up by individual artists from the studio with their own work.  As if that weren't enough, some independent glass artists set up on the street outside (Probably frowned upon as they reap the benefit of Glass Eye's publicity costs.)

The sales are quite an event which begins with the owner coming to the closed gate, greeting the crowd and making announcements about the particulars of each season's offerings.  Giddy with glimpses of shimmering objects and armed with bags, baskets, and boxes of all kinds, the crowd listens and at the opening of the gate, surges in to discover treasure, heedless of the pouring rain. (So Pacific Northwest - shopping for glass in the rain, many clutching coffee.)  It's a good opportunity to start Christmas shopping and get beautiful things at extremely low prices.

These ornaments make great floats in water features/pots and at eight bucks apiece, who could say no?

How unusual to see these items so casually placed on the pavement. 

A table of experimental pieces.

 Planet paperweights. 

Individual artist's work.

Loved this one!

And these!

In the spirit of the season. I've started a glass pumpkin collection.  They last forever, are relatively light, and there are no messy rotting pumpkin carcasses to deal with after thanksgiving is over.

Sand dollars.

Starfish or, as they want us to teach now, sea stars.  (Because they aren't fish. Really? Were you ever confused about that?  BTW, seahorses aren't really horses, either.)

Paperweight hearts. With everything on thumb drives, and in the cloud (not really a cloud - all about the clarity.) most people don't have piles of paper that need to be weighted.  Were offices once much breezier than thy are today?  My stacks of paper (because I'm a Luddite) are usually so high that these things fall from atop the towers.  Perhaps we need a more accurate moniker but pretty lumps of glass isn't very elegant.  Suggestions?

Flowers.

Ofkap?  (Objects formerly known as paperweights.)

Ride the wave!

 "Raindrop" vases.

"Celebration" ornaments are a limited production item.  These must be seconds but they look great to me!

XO!  Look even better without the rain all over them. 

Bright orange "sun" ofkap.  Crazy cool!

Our fragile island home.  You could literally have the whole world in your hands.

In addition to making each of the planets and the sun as individual orbs, G.E. makes these gorgeous ofkap (okay, I don't like it either. How about Poogfkap? pretty objects of glass formerly known as paperweights?) with a view of the planet(sun) floating in the vast expanse of interstellar space.

The bluest pumpkins you'll ever see, in Seattle.  No wait, the song doesn't go like that.  I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to the colors of squash.  What do you think?

Come on, blue is for summer and winter, Hanukkah, Christmas (if you must veer from red, green, gold, and/or silver) but autumn is a time to celebrate warm colors. To each his own though so if you love blue pumpkins it's okay. Wrong but okay.

The "International Village" section. 

Soaking wet, we wait in line to pay for our finds.  Fortunately we're in the hot shop which feels especially nice on such a wet day.  The shining elegance of the glass pieces create quite a contrast with the shop where they're created with great heat and skill.

A few of the many annealing kilns and tool storage.  Is there a life lesson to be learned from intense heat and working under pressure (time is of the essence when dealing with molten glass.) creating such beauty?

Shelves of exemplars to which trained eyes compare each piece.  When one is a wholesaler, consistency is important.

Luckily for us many pieces don't quite meet the standard and are available at ridiculously low prices at this bi annual sale.  For more on The Glass Eye, including mouth-watering images of their work, look here. You can also check them out on facebook and pinterest.  If you're interested, you can place your information on their mailing list and you'll get a nice postcard twice a year about a month before each sale.  If you like this type of glass and low prices, it's worth a trip!