Blenko: American Beauty Text By Christopher Mount |
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The story of the rise of the small glass manufacturer Blenko is an all-American tale, combining elements of "The Little Engine That Could" with that of the misunderstood loner who in the end finds acceptance. Based and still thriving in the tiny hamlet of Milton , West Virginia , the company was founded in 1893 [note: this date is an error] by an Englishman named William J. Blenko. Although it began as a manufacturer of glass for stained glass windows and other architectural elements, the company is best known today for its inexpensive, brightly colored tableware.
With the recent vogue for all things modern, and particularly mid-century American, there has been a swelling in both the interest and in the prices of Blenkoware. The exuberantly sculptural, colorful, and inventive work of Blenko's designers over the past century separates the products from most of this country's staid tableware. Stylistically, the company's products have much more in common with more experimental European manufacturers, like Venini, Iittala, Holmegaard, or Kosta Boda. But unlike the wares of these companies, which strive for a haughty perfectionism, Blenko glass is full of strange quirks and imperfections that, contrary to intuition, somehow make the pieces all the more appealing. To this day, Blenko remains one of the few surviving American manufacturers of handblown glass. But its staying power was not so evident in the company's early years. In the 1890's ion Britain , William J. Blenko, the son of an ironsmith, began manufacturing Norman slab glass, a stained glass made by blowing molten glass into a long square - or rectangular - shaped mold, for churches and cathedrals; it's rough-hewn imperfections and inclusions give it a medieval quality. In 1893, he attempted to start the first Norman slab glass factory in America , choosing Kokomo , Indiana , for its railside location, cheap natural gas, and nearby glass companies (in case things fell through). But the country was in the midst of a severe economic depression, and Blenko, soon short of cash, headed back to England a defeated man. |
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After a series of ill-timed or ill-conceived restarts, in 1921 Blenko, then 67 years old, finally found some success and a home in West Virginia . It was there that he founded Eureka Art Glass, which employed his two grown sons and trained local workers in the manufacture of stained glass. In the late 1920's, faced with the cessation of demand for church building caused by the Great Depression, the company began developing and manufacturing decorative glassware, at the urging of Blenko's son Bill. The Blenkos hired to Swedish-American brothers to train their workers in glassblowing and finishing, and the new line of products was an instant success. Since then, the company has continued to produce a wide variety of glassware, including plates, glasses, decorative ashtrays, decanters, pitchers, vases, and even lamp bases. The firm, then known as the Blenko Glass Company, enjoyed success into the 1930's, when its products were featured at the Chicago World's Fair, and Bill Blenko negotiated a major contract to produce all of the reproduction glass and tableware for Colonial Williamsburg. During the war years, orders for tableware hit an all-time high, and Bill soon realized that he and his blowers could not continue designing the contemporary line. In 1946, he hired the first of the company's legendary head designers, Winslow Anderson, after seeing a number of his ceramic works at an exhibition. Anderson, a recent graduate of Alfred University , had no training in glass design - like Wayne Husted and Joel Philip Myers, who followed. Under his strong influence, the company quickly moved in a more sculptural direction. Forms became more experimental, more contemporary in their appearance, and in the early 1950's the company was presented with a "Good Design" award from New York's Museum of Modern Art, for a decanter with an elegantly bent stem. |
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In 1954, Anderson left the company, and Blenko hired Husted, another ceramicist who is considered the most radical of the Blenko designers. He is best known among collectors for introducing [architectural scale designs], a series of very large, floorstanding vases and decorative pieces. These fantastical pieces possess a futuristic quality, employing shapes and forms found in the "Googie" architecture of the period; they resemble something the cartoon Jetsons might have used to decorate their space-age home. They could also be considered the decorative equivalent of the extravagant architecture of Husted's contemporaries John Lautner, Albert Frey, and Morris Lapidus. Many of the piece range in height from smaller, practical decanters, around twelve inches tall, to works almost three feet tall. It is these large, "extreme" pieces that are so delightful and ultimately eccentric; their overscaled proportions and weight render them utterly functionless. Husted explains "I was a frustrated architect and wanted to make things that worked in space, architecturally." An unerring and unusual faith in the designer seems to be one of the significant reasons for Blenko's success. Wayne Husted says the general attitude during his tenure was "If you hired a guy to do the design, let him do it." Certainly this was also true for Joel Philip Myers, who followed Husted as head designer in 1964. Myers further pushed the firm towards experimentation, continually blurring the distinction between function and artistry with his blown objects. It is not surprising that Myers, after leaving Blenko, became one of the founding figures of the Studio Glass movement in the early 1970s. Since 1970, Blenko has had five additional design directors; Hank Murta Adams (tenure 1988-1994) is perhaps the best known among them, and Matthew Carter is the current resident designer. These men have continued the tradition established by their predecessors of designing colorful and sturdy tableware, but with a more conservative attitude towards functionalism. For collector Damon Crain, the wonderful shapes and forms of Blenkoware are simply the reflections of the sorts of people who were hired to be designers. "The fantasy comes from the fact that they were fresh out of art school, eager to make their name. Nothing held them back, and since they were primarily ceramicists, their influence was different from most glass designers." Crain continues, "[Bill] Blenko put few restrictions on his designers." |
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Not only was Blenkoware quite advanced aesthetically, but one of the most intriguing aspects of its production was that the pieces were - and still are today - intended to be affordable. Even the larger, difficult-to-manufacture pieces by Husted sold for prices ranging from $10 to $15 in the mid 1960's, while smaller objects were priced anywhere from $4.50 to $8. Certainly this regard for handmade things, made available at affordable prices, has its roots in the British Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19 th century, and particularly in the works and lectures of William Morris. According to Bill Agle, director and founder of the Blenko Museum of Seattle, "The roots of this sensibility are in William Blenko's Socialist roots, and the strong sense of family." In Blenko Glass: A History from 1893 to 1953 (sic), the authors Eason Eige and Rick Wilson make a strong case that even if William Blenko were not a Socialist, then he was sympathetic to the cause. Reprinted in their book are a number of letters from Blenko to his close friend Eugene Debs, one of America 's leading Socialists of the period and a five time presidential candidate. This could help to explain the overriding sense of democracy that the firm exhibits, in both the way it is run and in the objects that it produces. So much of the history of postwar American design is about functionalism and the desire to respond to the concerns of the consumer, as well as attending to the realities of production. This was exemplified by the work of Charles Eames, who often asked the question, "What are the needs of the consumer?" If it was typical for American designers to emphasize a sense of rationalism during this period, then how can one explain the theatrical quality of much of Blenko glass? Blenko is certainly not part of this tradition; it is a quirky and unique firm that in many respects was a precursor to the Studio Glass movement so prominent in America today. As Wayne Husted concludes succinctly, "We were really missionaries in aesthetics." Although affordability has always been a priority at Blenko, it is matched by a very European respect for the skills of the designer and a willingness to experiment; their objects are unique in terms of price, but more exceptional in appearance. |
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