Falls couple fire up new glassblowing studio
They’ve been burned. They’ve been scorched. Nevertheless, they persisted.
For Claire Anderson and Steve Woodruff, there’s the usual pain of starting a new Niagara Falls business. Then there’s the physical pain involved with glassblowing — an art form with little room for error.
During one session, Woodruff had a “fresh glob” of melted glass fall on his right arm: “It sizzled like bacon.” Another time, some hydrochloric acid got on his left arm, which he didn’t realize until 15 minutes later. Had he not put a calcium cream on it, it would have burrowed into his bones.
Anderson flinches recalling the time she picked up the wrong end of a glassblowing pipe. “I seared my entire hand,” she says. “I’ve never experienced this before … it was so much pain, it scrambled your brain. I had to sleep with my hand in a bowl of water.
“I’d rather be cut than burned any day.”
Sound glamorous? The end result certainly is for the Niagara Falls couple who opened their Studio Vine Glass enterprise last month. Located in a former garage on Slater Avenue, the space specializes in unique wine glasses, beer steins and shot glasses in addition to stunning bowls and sculptures.
As Woodruff works near the stifling oven, Anderson works the phones, building the company’s client base. They already ship to about 40 galleries, restaurants and wineries across the country.
They aren’t clients who want ‘Made in China’ on their products, says Anderson. They want Canadian art made by — Woodruff believes — the first new glassblowing business in Ontario in 10 years.
“Currently, we live in the age of glass,” he says. “The Stone Age, the Bronze Age … this is the Glass Age we live in. “It’s a real 21st-century art form.” “I think people are drawn to it,” adds Anderson.
“Everybody’s downsizing, it seems, so we chose functional (items) as our bread and butter stuff. Even people our age, while there’s not a lot of wealth going around, they’re looking for that one thing instead of a million things that will just break and be disposable.”
The engaged couple met at Saint Paul high school and both attended Sheridan College. They remained friends for four years, living in a hay loft and “working for tips,” before their mutual love of art brought them together. “We led parallel lives for a while,” says Anderson.
They started their business in Mississauga before returning to Niagara Falls last year to capitalize on the wineries. An intense year of work went into the studio, building the oven from scratch, before it was unveiled during a grand opening June 17.
They both migrated to glassblowing not because it was easy. It was the opposite of easy.
“You break everything for two years, depending on how quickly you pick it up,” says Anderson. “Some people never do.”
“It’s kind of like music — the only limitation is your imagination,” adds Woodruff.
With the doors finally open, the couple are adjusting to their decidedly non-artistic neighbourhood. Some curious residents have wandered in, wondering what’s up. The studio is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Tuesday.
“One lady just wandered in by accident,” Anderson says with a laugh. “She was looking for parking, and said, ‘I remember there being a glassblowing studio somewhere.’ I said, ‘Well, we weren’t the one, but you found us.’”