Art in the making

Friday
We are away for a long weekend, staying on a campsite in the region of Marietta, Ohio, a historic town on the Ohio River in the east of the state. Across the river in West Virginia is the small town of Williamstown, the home of the Fenton Art Glass company, a century old, family owned company producing handcrafted glass items. Just over a year ago in April 2007 they had announced they would have to close, victim to cheap imports and increased fuel costs, amongst other things. But then they received a surge in orders from loyal customers, enough to keep them open, though with a much-reduced work force - at one time they employed around 400, now it is more like 70. We took a factory tour and looked around their small glass museum, watched a film and browsed the shop, making a couple of minor purchases - some of the pieces are really expensive, as they are very labor-intensive. This shot shows one of their master craftsmen creating a multi-colored vase, the guy at the left is adding a molten solid-colored strip to make the rim. We were fortunate to visit on a gorgeous, unusually cool day for August - as you can imagine if the temperature outside is in the 90s which it often is, the temperatures inside, with all the furnaces can get pretty unbearable. It was a really interesting tour and I think its great to see a family company now in its fourth generation, managing to hold on against mass production.

After we were done there, we crossed back over the river to Marietta, and had our picnic, overlooking the river, and watching one of the huge barges that ply the river, carrying bulk material such as coal. Then we walked around the town of Marietta, and crossed the old B & O (Baltimore and Ohio) railroad bridge, now a pedestrian bridge, to the village of Harmar.