Blenko celebrates its art with first-ever glass festival

When you´re one of the last glass factories in West Virginia, surviving and thriving in a shrinking economy and in an increasingly hostile business climate - every day is a celebration of hand-blown glass.

But this coming weekend, Blenko Glass Company is going to have a festivus for the rest of us, to borrow a saying from "Seinfeld."

The first Blenko Glass Festival runs Friday and Saturday, Aug. 22 and 23, at the family-owned factory in Milton. This will be an interactive celebration of Blenko that features a full slate of glass-making workshops, demonstrations of everything from glass-blowing to jewelry fusings, as well as a special vintage sale and a limited edition piece sale.

The festival will be held in conjunction with the sixth annual gathering of the Blenko Collectors Society.

More than 100 of those hard-core collectors from around the country are expected to come to Milton to take part in the festivities on site at Blenko´s Visitor Center, museum, garden and factory.

For the fourth straight year, Karin Alonzo and her husband Tim will be making the 17-hour drive to Milton from Dallas.

Alonzo, who is president of the Collectors Society, said she loves to come to Milton and add to her 1,435-piece Blenko collection.

"One of the main reasons my husband and I drive to West Virginia is for the ability to shop from Texas all the way there," said Alonzo, who began collecting Blenko glass seven years ago. "It´s great that we all come from different areas of the country: Texas, Oregon, Michigan, Florida and California just to name a few, but we are all unified by our love for Blenko Glass."

Christy Gibson, a spokeswoman for Blenko, said the festival will be a great chance to welcome in collectors from around the country and to extend an invitation to everyone in the Tri-State to come out to Blenko and see first-hand - and even hands-on - the ancient, amazing art form of glassblowing.

"There are so many people from here who have never been over and don´t really know what we do," Gibson said. "We´d like to really open the doors and get more people interested."

While in years past the collectors have met at the nearby West Virginia Pumpkin Park, this year, all of the events will be on site, except for a giant antique sale at the adjacent VFW Post.

Bringing everything on site, including a food vendor, gives Blenko a chance for folks to really get up-close to the process at one of West Virginia´s last hand-blown glass factories.

Friday, there will be glass-blowing demonstrations, classes, jewelry fusing and beading demonstrations.

As an added bonus, there will be a visit by a distinguished fellow West Virginia glass artisan, Ron Hinkle of Dying Art Glassworks in Buckhannon, W.Va.

Hinkle, whose works are sold at the Blenko Visitor Center, as well as around the world, will be demonstrating from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Friday.

Hinkle´s piece, "Jewels of the Nile," just won "Best of Show," this spring at the juried exhibition, "Modern Interpretations Contemporary West Virginia," at Tamarack in Beckley, W.Va.

While Blenko´s expansive gift shop used to be Blenko exclusive, in the past year there´s been a complete makeover of the shop. It has expanded to become a full-blown mini Tamarack of sorts, selling a number of other West Virginia glass artists other hand-crafted items.

"We sell his stuff like hotcakes," Gibson said of Hinkle. "So this is a chance for people to come and see what he is doing. That will be a neat thing for people because he is up in Buckhannon and a little bit out of the way."

In addition to hosting Hinkle, the new Glass Fest will also have four different classes allowing folks to make everything from carved glass sun catchers and mobiles to learning how to cast and chip Dalle - the famous, inch-thick slab glass used in cathedrals around the world.

"It kind of gives people more chances to get hands-on with us in different ways," Gibson said. "We´ve always done the Dalle class before, but this is the first time we´ve done the other classes."

Those classes will be conducted with master craftspeople such as Charlie Harshbarger, who is doing the mobile class and Mendy Miller, a Blenko worker who is the daughter of veteran Milton-based glass-maker, Charlie Gibson.

Saturday, there will be more classes, but really it´s all going to be about the sales.

At 9 a.m., the Visitor Center will put on sale the first "Blenko Celebration Vase," a 20-inch high piece called "Mistral" in Seabreeze, a new color being introduced with this piece with a swirled optic and inspired by the ´60s color called peacock blue.

Like Blenko´s famous West Virginia Day pieces, these celebration pieces will be part of a limited run to build buyer buzz and increase the value.

Each piece will be hand-numbered and signed by company president, Richard Blenko. There will be a total of 300 of these vases created with #1-150 available at the Blenko Gift Shop on Saturday while the remaining vases will be available to order online and by phone starting Monday, Aug. 25. The mold will be struck after all 300 have been made. Cost is $150.

Alonzo said the collectors are ready to see in person the new piece designed by Arlon Bayliss, who created the 2007-2008 lines of Bravo! Strata and Victoria, as well as the basketball trophies for the Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic between WVU and Marshall.

"Some collectors are talking about camping out and spending the night," Alonzo said. "We don´t have a chance to be there for the anniversary sale so this will be the first in a series and we´re interested to see the piece and to see what the next piece will be."

From 9 a.m. until noon Saturday, Blenko will also host a vintage glass sale next door at the VFW.

Alonzo said they´re happy to see all of the new changes including the increased involvement with Blenko, the fact that festivities are going to be on-site, the addition of the hands-on classes, and the special celebration pieces.

"Blenko is really doing a lot to help us organize and to promote the festivities," Alonzo said. "I think it´s great opportunity for people to learn things behind the scenes and see how things can be done, and who knows maybe even think of it as a career."