Fenton outlasts other glassmakers to celebrate 100 years

Associated Press
August 16, 2004

WILLIAMSTOWN, W.Va. -- Judy Henselman collects cats - more than 400 at last count. Husband Ralph prefers the cranberry-colored lamps.

Together, they've bought $100,000 worth of Fenton Art Glass since their first trip to the factory in 1995, enough to fill the bay window, fireplace mantel, curio cabinet and pretty much every display space in their Lexington, Ky., home.

"I had no idea how many patterns and colors there would be," Judy said, lugging another box home from a recent tent sale. "I thought it would be an inexpensive hobby. Ha!"

For nearly a century, the Fenton family has been making handcrafted, handpainted art glass, surviving three waves of economic struggle that wiped out most of the glass factories that once flourished in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The Depression took the first victims, and more companies failed in the '50s. The recession of the 1980s and an explosion of imports from the Far East took even more.

Just last month, L.E. Smith Glass Co. closed in Mount Pleasant, Pa., blaming high natural gas prices, foreign competition and a poor economy.

In this part of the country, that leaves Fenton, Blenko Glass Co. in Milton and Boyd's Crystal Art Glass in Cambridge, Ohio, among the few remaining collectible art glass producers.

Next year, Fenton will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

Though its product line leans toward the Victorian, Fenton produces a little bit of everything: vases and pitchers, bells and bowls, and figurines in any shape imaginable, including fish, turtles, dogs, cats, mushrooms and Santas.

"We make from the sublime to the fun and funky," said Nancy Fenton, director of a design staff that seeks out unusual products and ingredients to stay ahead of competition from China.

"Anybody can make plain blown glass," said Fenton. These are unique, luxurious pieces."

President George Fenton, Fenton's husband and grandson of the founder, said no other glass maker in the world does what his company does.

"We sell color," he said.

The array is dazzling, with combinations and complexities such as a shade called favrene, a deep metallic blue-green made with pure silver that's striking when layered over cobalt.

Around 1970, the Fentons also developed carnival glass, a distinctive look that marries iridescence with a patterned surface. Some companies had been doing patterns and others had been doing iridescence, but Fenton was the first to combine them.

Fenton is also famous for hobnail milk glass, the opaque white, bubble-covered product that helped the company survive the Depression. It was produced into the 1980s.

"When we look at competition, we don't look at it as being other glass," George Fenton said. "It's anything you could collect, buy to give as a gift or use to decorate your home.

"We recommend strongly that you don't put this in your curio," he added. "Put it on the table to put a dip in. Put flowers in the vase. Use it. That's what brings it to life."

Fenton mainly sells through a network of 4,000 dealers, but TV and Internet also help it thrive. The firm was one of the earliest participants in QVC, when the shopping channel was barely more than a concept. Fenton's uncle, Bill, was the first guest host in 1988.

Though the company sells little on the Web, George Fenton calls it "an evolving area." Collectors mob auction sites like eBay, where as many as 5,000 pieces are up at any one time.

Retail prices for new pieces range from $20 to $300, but eBay auctions sometimes end even higher. The Web is also a way for Fenton's three independent collector clubs to share their passion.

Any product quickly becomes a collectible because so few are produced, usually fewer than 5,000. This year, Fenton is producing 600 designs. Next year it will make another 600, and 450 of those will be new.

A commitment to new products is partly why Fenton has flourished. It helped that family members stayed involved, each personally interested in success. The company also reinvested profits, finding ways to cut energy costs in the '70s and '80s.

Today, the major cost is labor. Fenton employs 400 people, most of whom have skills that took years to develop. Glassblowers and decorators are trained, not hired.

"Bill always said it costs more to train a glassblower than to send a child to Harvard. And I've done both," George Fenton said. "He's right."

The work is hot and difficult, and there's plenty to go around. It takes 18 to 20 people to turn a small blob of cranberry glass into a finished, painted vase.

The Fentons let 40,000 people a year watch the operation in person, earning them repeated inclusion on USA Today's list of America's best factory tours.

Workers mix coloring agents with the key ingredients - sand, soda ash and lime - and heat each batch to 2,600 degrees in roaring furnaces. The molten glass is cooled to taffy-like consistency at 2,000 degrees, then grabbed from the fire on a hollow pole and handed to glassblowers who work it into the desired shape or blow it into a cast-iron mold.

Pieces are repeatedly reheated as workers layer on glass of different colors, crimping and flaring to just the right shape. Later, each piece is trimmed, sanded, handpainted and otherwise completed.

With a simple design, eight of 10 pieces are declared keepers. With more complicated designs, about half are rejected.

George Fenton, who started out as a tour guide, likes to tell the story of a man who came to the factory with his wife. At the start, he was unimpressed. He asked, "Why is this stuff so expensive?"

Afterward, he had a different question: "Why is this stuff so inexpensive?"

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On the Net:

http://www.fentonartglass.com

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