Great Places for Your Glass Sculpture

So, you’ve purchased a hand blown glass sculpture – well done! The team at Anchor Bend Glassworks salutes you for your magnificent tastes. Now that you have this amazing work of art, you may be asking yourself, “Where should I display this piece of art?” That’s a great question and we have answers for you:

• On Your Desk – Impress your clients and co-workers with one of our pieces of art. We have great paperweights to keep everything orderly on your desk and make anyone who steps into your office smile!
• In a Lighted Display Cabinet – Show off the beautiful glass art you have purchased in a lighted display cabinet at home. Your house guests will enjoy seeing the light reflected through your art pieces.
• On a Windowsill – If you have no children or cats to worry about, you can put one of our great art pieces on display on the windowsill at home. This is a wonderful idea for beach properties.

This is just a start – the options are endless! Whether you have ordered one of our wave sculptures or are showing of one of our seascape bowls, we are sure you’ll have no problem finding the right place to put your piece of hand blown art glass on display.

Hand Blown Glass Art as Corporate Gifts

Giving a corporate gift or trophy is very meaningful to people who take their job seriously. Anchor Bend Glassworks creates amazing custom pieces of hand blown glass art that you can give to your employees, bosses, and others as a memorable corporate gift. We offer a wide array of options for your needs, including customizing an existing design or creating a unique piece of hand blown glass that is made specifically for your business.

When you come to us, we ask a variety of questions to make a perfect creation for you. Our artists will want to know what you would like your focal point to be, how you want them to incorporate your local or personalized inscription, and what kind of stand you would like the glass piece to be displayed upon. Once we have an idea, we will get to work creating an original piece for you. Some of our past creations include the Boat of the Year trophy for Sailing World magazine, the OSTAR trophy for the Royal Western Yacht Club of England, and the Keeper of the Dream Award for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center.

Are you interested in procuring one of these amazing pieces of hand blown glass art for your business? The team at Anchor Bend Glassworks is ready to help you. Contact us today at (401) 849-0698 to inquire about our custom designs today and discuss the creations you need for your business.

The Mill at Shady Lea – Home to Anchor Bend Glassworks

The artists at Anchor Bend Glassworks are dedicated to their craft and it shows in each piece of hand blown art glass that they create. They are fortunate enough to be headquartered at The Mill at Shady Lea, a studio in Rhode Island that houses more than 40 different studios for creative and talented artists. At this place, we have a chance to enjoy the antiquity of an old mill full of local history and flavor while we work hard making our art!
The Mill at Shady Lea was founded to provide artists with an affordable and safe place to learn about art, work on creative projects, and share their amazing pieces with other artists. They foster a haven for dreamers and creator who are looking for solace in a warm environment. Unlike traditional rentals, all rental agreements are sealed with a gentleman’s handshake. There’s no need to bring ink and paper into the process, unless that’s the artist’s medium!
If you are interested in becoming part of the artist community at The Mill or just learning more about the community in general, you can find more information on their Website. We love working here and are pleased that our community has such a wonderful haven for artists!

Crystal Clear Music – An Art Glass Playlist

It’s important to be creative when you are working on hand blown glass art. From our glass vessels to our ornaments, the team at Anchor Bend Glassworks always works hard to create amazing art pieces out of glass. Because we love working with glass so much, we decided to put together a playlist of exciting music that is connected to glass in one way or another:

1. Glass Candy – Candy Castle
2. Blondie – Heart of Glass
3. Phillip Glass Ensemble – Opening
4. Bloc Party – Like Eating Glass
5. Glass Animals – Gooey
6. Bat for Lashes - Glass
7. Glasser – Apply
8. Annie Lennox – Walking on Broken Glass
9. Looking Glass – Brandy
10. Tame Impala – Half Full Glass of Wine
11. Glass Tiger – Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone
12. Julian Casablancas - Glass
13. Glass Towers – Jumanji
14. Glassjaw – Ape Dos Mio
15. Black Hills - Glass

Build this great playlist in the music player of choice and enjoy the clear and concise sounds we have picked out for you! Once you are done listening, you can check out the hand blown glass art from Anchor Bend Glassworks. Our business offers a wide array of handmade designs, including bowls, custom corporate art, and other beautiful creations.

How Do You Know?: Some Characteristics of Hand Blown Glass

By this point, you know that hand blowing glass is a complex and technical art that requires specialized training and skill. With that in mind, it should be pretty easy to distinguish hand blown glass from other types of glass, right? Here we have some of the unique characteristics that make hand blown glass a true treasure.

• Pontil marks, also called pontil scars or punt marks, are left on pieces of hand blown glass. This is a glass blowers way of “signing” his work. 
• Slight irregularities are common in hand blown glass, as well. After all, the human hand is not as precise as a machine. But isn’t that the beauty of hand blown glass? Slight irregularities give hand blown glass a truly distinctive charm that you can’t get any other way.
• A large number of hand blown glass pieces contain small air bubbles. The bubbles get trapped inside the heated glass during the blowing process, and they stay there. It’s a matter of taste -  but it’s certainly something that helps some hand blown glass pieces stand out.

 Bring some art into your home with Anchor Bend Glassworks. Explore our selection today!

Hand Blown Glass: A Proud and Time-Honored Tradition

Our passion here at Anchor Bend Glassworks is making beautiful hand blown glass pieces. And with that in mind, we’re proud to be part of a long and time-honored tradition. You see, hand blown glass is nothing new. In fact, the art of making glass actually originated sometime around 2500 BC in Mesopotamia. And all these centuries later, we’re still just as intrigued and impressed by the craft.

Handmade glass started as something primarily for practical use, but it entered the “decorative” sphere somewhere around 50 BC with the Romans. Ancient glassmakers in this time wrapped molten glass around a clay frame. 

During the Middle Ages, stained-glass windows really came into the fore. Fun Fact: The Venitian Glassmakers Guild was founded during this time in order to protect the art and prevent fires from the hot furnaces.

By the time the 18^th and 19^th centuries rolled around, glassmaking became more of an industrialized process – hearkening back to its practical roots. Luckily for us, glass reemerged as a popular art form in the 1960s, and is still going strong to this day.

Experience the joy of hand blown glass art with the pieces at Anchor Bend Glassworks. We’re so proud to be part of this long tradition.