Red Fern Glass is the small hot glass studio of Ed Pennebaker. Ed primarily makes Art Glass Lighting using traditional offhand glassblowing techniques. All the glass is made by Ed in his Arkansas backwoods studio with no assistance. Ed believes in working incessantly, cultivating concepts, discrimination and technique.
The studio is in the woods near Osage, Arkansas. It started as a pottery studio built by Newt Lale of Osage Clayworks. In 1990 Newt bought the old Stamps Historical Store, a three story native stone building built in 1901. Newt moved to downtown Osage. And Ed moved way out in the woods. He remodeled the studio and closed in the "kiln shed" for a hot glass shop.
Ed has built his own furnaces, glory holes and annealers and some tools used in glassmaking. For a number of years glass was melted from the raw materials even using Arkansas sand. But because of the dust, time and storage space factors involved in "batching" the glass he switched to melting most colors from Spruce Pine Batch,a premixed batch formula, adding colorants like cobalt, iron, copper, and nickel. Some colors are melted from "cullet", previously melted glass with the colorants already in the glass.
At a time when many designers/artists leave the crafting of their designs to apprentices, fellow craftsmen, or even a factory style setting, it is rare for the designer to continue as the maker. For me working directly with the glass is a time of zen, a period when I can concentrate on one thing only, the glass, a time to leave the rest of the world behind.
I see my work belonging to a contemporary line of the "decorative arts" that developed from the arts and crafts movement where craftsmanship is of the utmost importance. Striving for the "perfect object" is the goal of the craftsman/designer and working directly with the materials at hand provides the greatest satisfaction for me.
The most important aspects of glassmaking are light, color and form. I want my work to take advantage of the luminous quality of light. Light coming through the glass reveals texture and pattern and casts colors and shadows so the glass work interacts with its environment and becomes a pure visual feast. The jewel like colors of glass, the individual forms of the pieces and the light from within work as a group and function as a chorus like a choir of voices. The fluidity of glass is expressed in the curvalinear forms. And the voluptuousness of glass is expressed in the globular melon shapes that are ready to burst with ripeness.
Ed Pennebaker:
Born: Pratt,Kansas
Education: Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas-M.A., B.F.A.
Residence: In the woods near Osage, Arkansas
Work:
1985-present: Owner/Glassmaker at Red Fern Glass
1983-85: Employed by Hale Farm and Village, Bath, Ohio, glassworks assistant, produced replicas of early Midwestern glass c.1800-1850
1981-83: Introduced to glass by Chuck Watson, Liberal, Kansas
Workshops Attended:
2005: "Pewtersmithing" with William Derrevere, Eureka Springs School of Art
2004: "Bronze Casting" at Terra Studios, Fayetteville, Arkansas
2001: "Glass Casting" with Peter Keough, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
1995: "Marblemaking with Ro Purser" Appalachian Center for the Crafts
1982: "Summervail" with Sonja Blomdahl, Colorado Mountain College
1981: "Summervail" with Benjamin Moore, Colorado Mountain College
This video shows the stages Ed goes through to make a piece of glass from beginning to end. This particular piece is a red curly that will end up on a chandelier.
"Springfield Hot Glass", First Friday Gallery Walk, Springfield, MO, October 3, 2008
"Reconstructing Art Walk", Crystal Bridges at the Massey, Bentonville, AR, May 15-July 27, 2008
"Double Feature", Hot Glass by Pennebaker and Karg, Zarks, Eureka Springs, AR, May 17, 2008
"Fire and Form: The Magic of Glass" - June-October 2007, Corning, New York, The Glass Menagerie
"Seeing Things In A Different Light" - Oct. 22-Dec. 31, 2004, River Market Artspace, Little Rock, Arkansas
"Fire & Ice" - Karg Art Glass, Kechi, Kansas, October 2006-January 2007
"SOFA Chicago" - October 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Chicago, Illinois, represented by Function+Art Gallery
"Glass Invitational '04" - February 2004, Chicago, Illinois, Function + Art Gallery
"SOFA Chicago" - October 2003, Chicago, Illinois, represented by Function+Art Gallery
"The Eclectic Electric" - Function + Art Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, Sep. 5- Oct. 4, 2003
"White House Collection of American Crafts" - Jul. 17-Aug. 24, 2003
The Mary and Leight Block Museum of Art - Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois (and other venues)
Guild.com Sourcebook "The Artful Home, Furniture,Sculpture, and Objects"
"A Glass Act 2003" - Function+Art Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, March 2003
Philadelphia Furniture & Furnishings Show - April 2002, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awarded "Excellence in Lighting Award"
"2002 Invitational" - Statehouse Convention Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, awarded "Best of Show" for Cluster #51, "The Inherent Energy of the Earth and Sky"
"2001 Hsinchu International Glass Art Festival & Symposium" - Hsinchu Municipal Glass Art Museum, Hsinchu, Taiwan
"Chandelier Show" - Arte Bella Fine Art Gallery, Fayetteville, Arkansas
"A Glass Act 2001" - Prism Contemporary Glass, New Pontiac, Michigan
"Hot & Cool" - a traveling exhibit of contemporary glass through 2001
"A Glass Act 2000" - FunctionArt/Prism Contemporary Glass, Pontiac, MI in conjunction with Michigan Glass Month
"The Arkansas Exhibition" - Statehouse Convention Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, July 1999-February 2000
"White House Crafts Collection" - 1993 (traveling exhibit at various museums)