StudioBlog :: Jeff Benroth Glass

Studio Sale :: November 28

2009-11-17T06:19:41Z

As usual, we will have an open studio during Thanksgiving weekend. Come by on Saturday, November 28 from 10-5 for great discounts on glass, demos in the studio, snacks and drinks. Since the casting event in August was so popular we will likely do a demonstration of sand casting for the studio sale as well. If you’d like to participate, please send us an e-mail – we may make it another workshop-type event if there is sufficient interest.

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shop.benroth.com

2009-11-17T06:18:37Z

We’re proud of the stores and galleries that carry our work – but they are a select few and we are not out to saturate the market with a mile-long list of retailers. This stuff is not on every corner and we like it that way. So for those of you near one of our gallerists (see the list) that thought enough to buy our wares, please visit them and tell them we sent you. For the rest of you, we are here.

The site makes available a selection of the objects that we actually have in stock, but it also lists some things that were previously available only at the studio: seconds, prototypes, and some one-if-a-kind pieces that you would never think we made in the first place. Keep an eye on this as it is a work-in-progress, and constantly being updated.

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Let there be LIGHT

2009-11-17T02:53:00Z

Yeah, it’s finally happening. Everyone says, “you could make a lamp out of that!” Well, no, I theoretically could, but i don’t. I can make glass for lighting, though, and that’s what we’re finally getting around to doing.

In collaboration with 100Watt Network, I have designed some new glass pieces which will be the foundation for a new line of lighting, called Bodega. These pendants are all handblown into molds that we built in-house (see a brief video here). The geometric forms are a blend of art deco light fixtures, crossed with mod glass of the 1960s and ’70s. I’ve tried to update the ideas using the magic of CAD to develop the forms, more contemporary colors, and really excellent hardware.

100 Watt is putting the final touches on the lighting components to go with this glass. At present we’re expecting to be able to offer the lamps with either traditional incandescent, medium-base sockets or the new, super-swank LED emitters which will draw only a couple watts and will NEVER NEED A BULB CHANGE.

Please direct inquiries to 100 watt network – they will be handling all retail and wholesale lighting orders.

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Geometry is useful, after all

2009-08-30T18:29:53Z

Not that I did so well in the class when I had to take it, but that was more about scholastic discipline than aptitude…

These metal forms are new blow molds we’re building; they’re the beginning of our new lighting that will be formally introduced later this year. I’m really excited about this as a new line; I’ll give more specifics later, right now these are just a little eye-candy to whet the appetite.

I hope that these pendants will become a contemporary riff on the geometric forms that have preceded them starting with white glass Art Deco fixtures, brass-camed stars built from flat glass, and the crystalline geometric molded forms from Venini during the 60’s and 70’s. These pieces will be available in clear as well as a couple of colors, and we plan for the hardware to feature a new design of LED light source that will debut with these fixtures – ultra-low wattage and no bulb changes, ever.

Stay tuned for more info. I’ll post more pics as we start to produce the prototypes.

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Sucess in the sand

2009-08-21T14:42:13Z

I think the sand-casting event was a success. Everyone enjoyed the process, the glass looked great and we at the studio learned a few things, too. Look for a repeat soon; this was a good intro but everyone was ready for more, and wanting to spread the word…

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Did you find everything today?

2009-07-31T01:19:22Z

I’m pleased to say we’ve found a simple way to make some of our stuff available for sale, direct from the studio. We are now set up with BigCartel to offer items that are in stock, with payments made securely though PayPal. We may eventually integrate a shopping cart into the next version of the website, but that’s a little further down the road.

We still want to support our retailer galleries, so we also put the list of stores more prominently on the contact page – no more pop-up window. And all stores with sites are now directly linked from that page.

Speaking of which, the JBG website has undergone some significant overall improvements, thanks to Scott Hammond Studio. I have always liked the original design but as monitors have gotten larger, it began to look a little small. And as we added more items to the site, the navigation was also becoming cluttered overloaded.

Scott did a great job of refreshing the existing look and cleaning it up; please take a look when you have a chance.

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“The Scout” digs our glass logs

2009-08-02T23:06:50Z

David Keeps, home editor for the LA Times, fell in love with our limited-edition cast glass firelogs after our most recent e-blast and decided to put them on the blog for the home section of the Los Angeles Times. Along with Chad DeWitt, who collaborated on these pieces, I’m really pleased to have them featured and I hope that the new edition will be a smash success.

Please check out:

– our new web page on the logs
– the LA Times blog posting
– Chad DeWitt’s site and latest work

Thanks also to my good buddy Jon Taylor, who has enough taste to design not only his clients’ homes and workspaces but also his own – enough so that I decided to shoot the logs in his Oakland hills home, just up the hill. Thanks, Jon and Tom – the photos came out much better this time…

Last, thanks to my Scott Hammond for taking care of, and improving, benroth.com post-haste. It was a shambles before and during, but now it sparkles again.

UPDATE: An edited version of the blog post also ran in the LA Times print edition, Home section on August 1, 2009. Thanks David!

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Make your own casting :: Saturday August 8, 10am – 4pm

2009-06-19T19:39:47Z

Come try it out! We will be hosting an open studio sand-casting event on August 8 so you can come watch, or even get invoived in, the process. For a flat fee you can bring a object of your own to press into the sand and we’ll pour the mold for you! Get a jump on holiday gifts with this unique opportunity to come work in our glass studio in Berkeley. We’ll also have other studio objects and seconds for sale, and Picante Taqueria is right down the street! For more information and to reserve some time for your own masterpiece, please email us.

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Not-blown glass

2009-06-19T19:37:59Z

Sand casting glass is oddly seductive although the basics wouldn’t suggest it. The gist is that you have an open pit of sand; you find things to press in it that will create a void to fill, then pour the cavity full with incredibly hot molten glass. It’s dirty, gritty, inexact heavy work with sometimes unpredictable results.

More generally called open-face casting, it’s a very basic and direct process used also with resins, metal, plaster or wax (sand candles, anyone?).

But it also involves that element of playing with sand, reminiscent of a day at the beach, that I think gets people into a spontaneous, creative mood. Watching the glass ooze out of the ladle and into the form will impress most anyone – it looks like electric honey. And since the process doesn’t require a lot of skill to participate in, the accessibility gives everyone a chance to try making something in glass. The trick is to extract from this process something that looks as good four days later when it’s cold as it did when it was being poured hot, and you had a beer in your hand.

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Glass logs redux

2009-06-19T19:43:39Z

In 2006 I worked with designer and fellow CCA alum Chad DeWitt of DeWitt Studio on a set of decorative glass logs for display in a Sunset Magazine Idea House. The pieces proved so popular while on display we decided to produce some for sale as a limited-edition. Here we are a couple years later and there have been so many requests for the logs that we’ve decided to open a second edition, the first pieces of which have just been poured.

Each log is cast individually by pressing a piece of real cordwood into the sand. Using special binders we are able to get some pretty great texture of the rough wood faces, and each log has a clear flat surface where the pour was completed that is signed and numbered as part of the edition.

The logs are available directly from the studio, and through some of our most tasteful stores, such as Highcotton Living in Berkeley and Good in Boston. Check out the store locator on our website or email us directly to get yours.

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