Husband and wife duo Eben Horton and Jennifer Nauck have successfully turned their passion for the art of glass blowing into their full-time career with their local Wakefield gallery and studio, the Glass Station.
Horton’s interest in glass blowing sparked at the early age of 9 years old when he took an ornament making class. At age 18, Horton was hired as an apprentice at a glass shop and shortly after he went to college to study glass at Rochester Institute of Technology. Horton started the first Glass Station in the year 2000 in a smaller location down the road from their current location.
For Nauck, the interest in glass blossomed in her teenage years where she originally started as a gallery manager at a shop in her home state of Colorado.
“I worked in the gallery from 2 p.m. until we closed, then at 9 p.m. I would head into the studio and pretty much teach myself,” Nauck said.
The two, now married owners met at a glass trade show and eventually Nauck moved from Colorado to Rhode Island, where the two operated the shop as a team. Once they were pushed out of their original location, they moved to their current shop, located right next to Mews Tavern on Main Street.
The shop has around a 50-50 split between work made in-house and work made by other local artists. According to Nauck, when the shop first opened, most of the work was commissioned by a friend of Horton to fill the gallery. Now that the shop has gained popularity, Nauck buys a lot of the work at trade shows to sell in the gallery, which means less to keep track of.
The glass work process begins with putting around 350 lbs. raw of material into a large furnace, then shaping the molten glass with air and molds in some cases before letting it cool overnight, to put it simply.
“We take in account the fluidity of the medium,” Horton said. “The glass will be what it wants to be.”
If you are looking to try out glass blowing for yourself, the studio offers classes where you can make a glass ornament. In addition to blowing glass and managing the shop, both Horton and Nauck have their own projects they work on.
Horton started the Block Island glass float project. Every year they make 550 glass floats and hide them in various places around Block Island. Most of the floats are clear, but the first few are colored, making them more rare.
“We go out to Block Island and hide them around and whoever finds them gets to keep them,” Horton said. “People try really hard to find them, they go crazy.”
Nauck’s current project is the glass bee project. She is partnering with a professor in the Entomology department, as well as University of Rhode Island students to support local bees and students summer internship experiences.
Nauck wants young artists to know that although making a living as an artist can be more challenging, it is not impossible and often most rewarding.
“To me it’s 100% worth it to go through all of the extra effort to start a business, because at the end of the day it’s me benefiting from it,” Nauck said. “So yeah, I’d say follow your dreams.”
Next time you are passing through downtown Wakefield, be sure to stop by this eclectic local gallery at 446 Main St..