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52 STAINED GLASS |SPRING 2017 GLASS STAINED PHOTO: COURTESY OF OCEANSIDE GLASSTILE IMAGE: J. MCNEVEN, ARTIST; WILLIAM SIMPSON, LITHOGRAPHER; ACKERMANN & CO., PUBLISHER Editorial note: SGAA members, Stained Glass Quarterly subscribers, and glass workers everywhere have been anxious for news of Uroboros, Spectrum, and Oceanside Glasstile. SGAA member Megan McElfresh recently undertook the monumental task of researching and writing the story, and we present it here in the following three articles. Thank you, Megan! PART I History and Innovation in Twentieth Century Window Glass Making By Megan McElfresh e’ve gotten spoiled by the incredible quality The “Opalescent Age” began to die out in the 1920s with and accessibility of our art glass here in the changing aesthetics and the onset of the Great Depression, United States. The days of ‘testing your glass for but the drive for better window glass and the technology that Wcompatibility’ have faded, some of us missing them effort required was only amplified by the industry which came entirely—our youth makes us even less aware of what was with the two World Wars. It was also in the 1920s that one of once an excruciating process! What has been the achievement the most important technological advances in the history of of a lifetime for the founders of Bullseye, Uroboros, and sheet glass making took place: the development of “continuous Spectrum, is something only recently possible at all. It’s ribbon” production. This system takes four separate time and interesting to look at the advances in window glass making labor intense phases of sheet glass production (raw material that led to a fabulous period of unparalleled creativity in introduction, melting, sheet forming and annealing) and stained glass manufacturing. combines them into one continuous flow, making possible For centuries, the only way to make sheet glass was the production of large quantities of glass with a uniform the crown and cylinder method. In the 1840s, industrial design. This development allowed manufacturers to actually glass companies began pioneering a method of cast, rolled improve quality while boosting volume and lowering costs. sheet glass. This allowed larger format sheets, but could Without continuous ribbon production, float glass would not not overtake the efficiency and possibility of longstanding have been possible. (Nor would Spectrum Glass have been methods. Over the next 130 years, glass sheet making received possible 50 years later.) considerable technical and engineering attention as architects In the 1950s, the studio art movement was gaining sought to utilize glass in ever more daring structures, and momentum across a multitude of craft media, especially automobile manufacturers needed not just flawless glass, but ceramics. The conduit for the studio glass movement, Harvey much more glass than had ever been produced. Glass needed K. Littleton and his historic Toledo workshops of 1962 are practically legend, surpassed only by the stories of some of to be bigger, safer, and more efficient to meet the demands his early students—Dale Chihuly, Marvin Lipofsky, Fritz of the modern world, as well as the demands of glass artists. Dreisbach, Boyce Lundstrum, Dan Schwoerer, and more— The late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century glass all artists who played prominent roles in shaping the North color experiments and successes of John La Farge, Louis C. America studio glass movement. Tiffany, and glass chemists like Arthur Nash, are famous. By the late 1880s, American Opalescent Glass as they pioneered it—ladled and rolled out with its vibrant colors and often FACING PAGE, TOP: Interior of the Crystal Palace, a cast-iron and plate-glass structure iridescent sheens—had a global reputation. While numerous built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The opalescent sheet glass companies started up during that elaborate construction was inspired by new innovations happening in time, only two companies born during the ‘Opalescent Age’ sheet glass manufacturing at the time and still stands as an inspiration to architectural innovation today. of Tiffany and La Farge are still operational today: Kokomo BOTTOM: Opalescent Glass Company, founded 1888, and The Paul Oceanside Glasstile factory in Tijuana, Mexico, where Uroboros and Wissmach Glass Company, Inc., founded 1904. Spectrum glass will now be produced. SPRING 2017 | STAINED GLASS 53 PHOTOS, THESE PAGES: COURTESY OF UROBOROS GLASS Over the next 10 years, the studio glass movement picked 40 years would have looked like without the vibrancy of the up increasing speed, hampered only by a desperate need for Uroboros Glass palette. The one-of-a-kind pieces they have material. In 1973, when Bullseye, Uroboros, and Spectrum created are coveted by glass artists worldwide. were beginning their sheet glass making journeys, there Uroboros Glass was founded in January, 1973 as a hot glass were only two glass supply purchasing options: Wissmach studio by Lovell. After studying glass blowing at Portland and Kokomo. While both created incredible product, they State University, he took it up as a career and began creating could not meet the new demand from the sudden bubble of multicolored sheet glass on the side for artists and hobbyists. studio artists. Stories abound of people lined up for blocks He was asked about creating specialty sheet glass often at the doors of their local glass companies due to rumors of enough that he sat down with his dad (a PhD economist) and a shipment expected that day. Even wholesale suppliers with laid out a plan for starting a sheet glass studio. After looking “buying rights” to Wissmach and Kokomo were waiting six at the numbers, the investment that would be required, and months to two years for delivery of their orders. the number of unknowns still a part of the equation, the pair It is entirely possible that the studio glass movement would agreed that the prospect seemed pretty dire. Lovell’s dad have fizzled without the founders of Bullseye, Uroboros, and actually encouraged him not to start Uroboros Glass Studios Spectrum. Because of their dedication to figuring out the (as any loving father would). science, alchemy, and artistry of art glass manufacturing, they At the time, it wasn’t only the economics of the initial were able to create the material that inspired the renaissance investment that looked scary on paper; figuring out how of an industry. to formulate, mix, melt, roll, and anneal those sheets was something of a pipedream. Though history showed us that Uroboros: A Man and a Pipedream beautiful opalescent glass was possible to produce, the Eric Lovell has been lauded as one of our time’s greatest decades since the closure of the Tiffany’s Corona Sheet Glass glass alchemist’s, bringing the vibrant styles of the age of Company and other opalescent manufacturers might well Tiffany back to life while also creating some of the most have stretched to centuries. breathtaking new color mixes to be found anywhere. Uroboros But there’s nothing like being young and bulletproof— products have been crucial to the revitalization of Tiffany except maybe being told not to do something while you’re lamps, and used in everything from architectural glass and young and bulletproof. Eric Lovell decided to start Uroboros public artworks to lampworking, fusing, and mosaics. It’s Glass despite the risky economics. The intense determination hard to imagine what the stained glass landscapes of the last and resolve which has defined Lovell’s career proved more 54 STAINED GLASS | SPRING 2017 valuable than the lack of information available at the time. It Morse Museum of Tiffany Art, and by professional studios had been done, therefore it could be done, therefore Lovell and collectors as well. did it. Lovell has shown the same care in hand picking each The complexity of making sheet glass cannot be member of his Uroboros team. As the company slowly grew, overstated. Not only is Eric Lovell is one of the best glass Lovell always ensured that he found employees who had the chemists of our time, he also has an innate mechanical same strong values, beliefs, and artistic drive to match the ability which has been invaluable to the company’s history demands of creating Uroboros Glass. By carefully listening and innovative potential. Every morning, he quickly walks to what artists were asking for, and concentrating on a niche, through the factory floor, listening to the equipment work. high-end market, Uroboros built an strong product line Instantly, he can tell if everything is operating as it should that defied expectations of even the most exacting artists. be. The art glass community has been incredibly spoiled Throughout its four-and-a-half-decade history, Uroboros by the quality and artistry of Uroboros glass and watching hired teachers over sales and marketing staff, knowing that Lovell work. It’s no wonder—his attention to detail is education was the key to the success of all glass users. exacting and his passion is contagious. Artist after artist talks about visiting the factory and Lovell’s understanding of the nuance and chemistry of slowly looking through the racks of sheet glass, like sorting glass making has allowed him not just to make art glass, through treasure. Finding each piece distinctly beautiful but to make it available across a wide spectrum of useable in its own right; each a work of art. “We don’t know what ranges: Uroboros makes 90, 96, and 104 in their factory and we’ll use it for yet, but we have to have it.” When it’s time, has made their glass available in other ranges on special we’ll design our work around the amazing glass created at request. Today, Uroboros has a worldwide market of glass Uroboros, the amazing legacy of Eric Lovell and his incredible blowers, lamp workers, stained glass artists, kiln formers, and team of craftspeople.

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