Annieglass offers tours, shopping and DIY workshops.
“Come get your hands dirty with us,” says Annie Morhauser. This is how the artist and entrepreneur behind Annieglass greets guests at her Watsonville studio and factory, which has been handcrafting high-end glassware since 1983. Natural light streams into the warehouse, which feels warm and inviting despite the heavy-duty machinery and endless sheets of glass filling the space.
Ava Reinhold, our instructor for the day and Morhauser’s daughter, welcomes us to the studio’s Craftbar by offering a glass of local wine or beer. The she walks us over to two long communal tables set up as workstations with paper, stencils, wax crayons and 13-inch sandblasted glass discs. We’re here for November’s Make-a-Plate workshop — the first in a series of holiday-focused sessions and the perfect opportunity for DIY gifting.
Annieglass is sold at luxury retailers like Gump’s and Neiman Marcus. Celebrities like Sofía Vergara and Sarah Jessica Parker are loyal customers; two pieces from the still-inproduction Shells collection are on permanent display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. But the company, which has long hosted free weekly behind-the-scenes studio tours and biannual open houses, only started offering workshops earlier this year.
Morhauser launched Craftbar so fans could see firsthand where all the action happens and flex their creative muscles at the same time. “As people become increasingly stressed by technology, they find more of a need to make stuff with their hands,” she says. Sessions — including plate painting, tea towel decorating and succulent gardening — take place every weekend at the production studio and are led by Morhauser, Reinhold and other local artisans.
“My mom and I went on a factory tour, and that’s when I found out about the Make-APlate workshop,” says Los Altos resident Marla McCormack. After light instruction on how to use stencils and wax underglaze crayons to draw designs onto the glass, Morhauser floats from station to station checking in on everyone’s progress and the room buzzes with friendly chatter. Once participants have finished decorating their serving dishes, the plates are kiln-fired overnight and shipped back to them.
“I might gift mine to my daughter-in-law, who loves Annieglass, or I might keep it for myself and use it the next time I host book club,” says McCormack of the plate she’s decorated with a Christmas tree.
Workshop attendees come from Monterey, Carmel, San Jose and other surrounding areas, but Morhauser points out that the Craftbar workshops attract fans who aren’t always regular customers. “There’s a different draw for them,” she says. “They might be familiar with Anniglass but don’t necessarily own our products.” Workshops can even be gifted to family and friends as an introduction to the brand.
Since everyone who visits Annieglass is fascinated by the glassmaking process, Craftbar workshop participants can tag along on a tour of the 16,000-square-foot factory before they get their hands dirty. On the tour, we learn that Morhauser came across glassblowing while attending university in California.
“At art school, I realized how badly I drew, so glassblowing started to look really good,” she jokes. She learned how to build furnaces and ovens at San Francisco State, which came in handy for the 30 kilns now at the factory. She later studied under Martin Lipofsky, a pioneer of the glass art movement in America, at California College of the Arts, having no idea at the time that she’d make a career out of it. Morhauser worked at a glass gallery after graduation to learn the practical skills they don’t teach at school — sales, shipping, accounting — but it wasn’t until after she crafted a set of plates for her friend’s wedding that she decided to go into business.
Now, the Annieglass team of 24 puts out two collections each year, and they spend as much time on research and development as on designing and producing glassware. “For every piece we sell, there are about a dozen that didn’t make the cut,” she says. Morhauser’s face brightens as she points out the water jet, a very large, expensive piece of industrial equipment that’s rare to find at an independent factory like Annieglass. The computer-controlled jet is used to cut glass precisely and in a way that minimizes waste. The tour continues through stations used for molding, cleaning, slumping, firing and engraving, ending at the onsite retail shop, where visitors can buy Annieglass goods, including seconds (finished products with small defects or inconsistencies that can’t be sold to merchandise buyers) for up to 40 percent off.
“There’s a lot of local pride around Annieglass,” Morhauser says. “People love to show off the gifts they’ve gotten from and for friends.”