Tag: glassblowing

Long Summer Days

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At Simon Pearce, we take our design inspiration from Nature with all that New England has to offer, from the rolling terrain to the lakes, rivers and waterfalls.  We cherish time outside, a walk in the woods, or time spent at the waterside this time of the year which infuses our design thinking.

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As summer sets in and the days blend together, we strive to regain some sense of normalcy and a chance to relax and to recharge.  The long days of sunshine offer time to focus on comfort, warmth, and familiarity.  We rediscover ways to enjoy sunsets and the evening outdoors while we savour summer drinks or wine out of our favorite glasses.  Taking a break allows us to gain the sense of enlightenment that comes from being out in Nature whether by land or sea.

Vintner & Marble

With change in our everyday routines we seek ways to live with a new approach, and try to surround ourselves with beautiful things that give us joy.  We’ve been adding to our Vintner wine tasting collection, with the new Coupe and Tulip wine. The Vintner glasses, with their stunning good looks and refined function are an opportunity to upgrade your wine tasting experience.   We’ve also added the new material combination of glass and marble to the wine tasting story.  The marble forms are inspired by a visit to the recreated atelier of Brancusi at the Pompidou Center in Paris.  An artist of the early 20th Century he was known for simplicity, elemental shapes, and a liberal use of material which are ideas that are true to our design approach.

Brancusi's Atelier
Brancusi’s Atelier

The design process started with small clay sketches, and hand renderings to evolve the aesthetic of the group. The marble items center around wine & cheese serving, with future designs in the queue to round out the concept.  The smooth simplicity of the marble designs marry perfectly with the elegant outlines of our Vintner Collection.

The marble is another way for us to bring a new earthy material into the mix of our brand expression.  The latest introductions are the Marble Chiller and the Vintner Wine Decanter.

Rendering of Vintner Wine Decanter
Marble Wine Chiller
Sketch of Wine Chiller
Vintner Tulip Wine
Vintner and Marble

 

Woodbury Phone Holder

While sheltering at home, the effort to reinvent the home office became paramount for many of us.  Looking at the desktop landscape, we quickly realized we needed something to hold our phone or tablet, while video conferencing, and came up with the Woodbury Phone Holder to compliment our other items in the collection.  Having the appearance of being sculpted from a block of ice, our proportions are scaled to work with most phones and smaller tablets.   The clear solid base is an exceptional design for anyone looking for a crafted technology solution for the office or even the kitchen while following recipes.

Woodbury Phone Holder
Phone Holder with Tablet
Rendering of the Phone Holder

Romance Heart Vase

The sculptural outcome of finessing a unique form with our talented glassblowers, the Romance Heart Vase is a work of art in glass.  It started out as renderings on paper, and then went to interpretation by our master glassblowers, with each one capturing a special moment of expression with the human hand.  The versatility of the fluid shape performs perfectly as a vase with summer blooms and also as a decor object that can stand on its own.  A great gift for any occasion or for someone special to give a heart to.

Sketch of Romance Vase
Romance Vase Small
Romance Vase with Floral

Shell Platter

An iconic item for this summer entertaining, is the new organic shell platter.  The new design takes it’s natural inspiration from ancient fossil spirals revealed in stones of the Isle La Motte, here in Vermont.  The concept was translated into a textured shell, starting with hand sculpting the design into plaster and then a metal mold to cast the glass platter.  It’s a versatile object with plenty of surface for serving, and a visual delight when sun shines through it.

Inspiration for the Shell
Shell Platter Metal Mold
Shell Platter

For the latest summer offerings visit our website and stores.

Our stores are open exhibiting some of the best collections in glass, pottery, and accessories, with a focus on summer seasonal entertaining at home.  Shop by appointment, to be immersed in the assortments of beautifully crafted wares to uplift your everyday experience.

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Summer Blues on Display in the Mill Retail Shop

Shop our stores:

https://www.simonpearce.com/our-stores#shop-by-appointment

Sheltering at Home

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With current events impacting us all so deeply, we collectively discover ways within ourselves to embrace the unexpected.  We find comfort and positive support through togetherness. We explore a new path forward and enrich our lives while sheltering at home. We find more meaning in gatherings especially around the table whether at home or virtually. 

We yearn for a warm cozy atmosphere and strive to cultivate a sense of safety and serenity taking hints from the danish concept of Hygge.  Well being is key, while optimism and finding balance in our lives helps uplift us throughout each day.  A new normal evolves, and a homebound routine incorporates virtual meetings with colleagues, while the home office becomes a dynamic hub of activity.

At home office
Working from Home

We seek interaction and connection with family and friends to compare notes on ways to feel good, be healthy, share recipes and stay nourished.  As we navigate these times a new appreciation for the things around us emerges as we curate a sense of what we want in our home environment.  While embracing the change we can still celebrate life’s holidays, birthdays, milestones, and make things work for us at home.  Entertaining can be a source of joy by sharing botanical drinks, creating craft beer tastings, wine & cheese, or sending invites to a virtual happy hour.

Look for What Speaks to You

Throughout our Simon Pearce line, we have many of the quintessential handmade elements available to make those home moments special.  Our drinkware collections contain a fine selection of beautiful and functional items you can use to curate your home.  Having the time to pay attention to details, you can appreciate the nuances of the handmade. 

Alpine Whiskey with Soapstone Base
Coral Tealight
Vintner Decanter with Marble Stopper
Shell Bowl
Sunderland Artisan Board
Waterbury Hurricane

A few Spring New Arrivals now available are the Coral Tealight, Vintner Wine Decanter with Marble Stopper, and the Sunderland Artisan Board made in Vermont.  We are now offering the Alpine Tasting Flight that is excellent for chilling beer on the soapstone base.  The perfect addition to outfit the home bar cart for any tasting event.

Alpine Tasting Flight
Stock the Home Bar Cart

Keeping the Furnaces Turned On

At Simon Pearce, we have adapted to the new paradigm and are continuing to practice our craft. Our ethos of ‘handmade quality’ drives us forward and everything we make is a unique expression of humanity.  

Puppy Model
Puppy on the Glass Floor
Dog

The hand is involved in every step of bringing each object to life.  We hand draw, and model concepts, like the dog and the new puppy then work out the details on the glass floor with the expertise of our glassblowers.  Each object is a combination of the hand of the maker, the form, the fine quality of the material, and that is blended with our distinct  ‘point of view’ about design.

Hand Thrown Pottery
Glassblowing
Renderings
Sketching

These elements cannot be separated. Our passion for handmade excellence permeates everyone in the company with ‘purpose’.  We love to share what we create, because we are confident it will make these times spent at home, that much better.  

Bristol Red Wine & Decanter
Pontil
Waterbury Tumbler

To see the latest items for sheltering at home please visit our website.

Link to the At Home Offerings

Try Our Take Out

If you need a break from cooking in your kitchen, and you are in the Upper Valley, the Simon Pearce Restaurant has a new menu with delightful dishes of ready to heat dinner. Jerod Rockwell is running the kitchen for take out which can be picked up with curbside service.

Link to the Simon Pearce Restaurant

The Mill
The Restaurant
Woodstock Red Wine Tasting
Take Out

 

Shaping the Wine Tasting Experience

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Introducing the Vintner Collection

 

“We set out to build a glass line with characteristics that are designed for the serious wine taster.” -JM

Last May, Jay Benson, Dana Sabatino, and James Murray ventured on a trip to the California wine country to visit tasting rooms and meet with wine producers we are considering for partnerships. Being inspired, we came back to Vermont and created new stemware to appeal to people serious about wine tasting, and lovers of thin, hand-blown glass that enhances the tasting experience, without having a glass that overtakes the wine, in weight and physicality.

 

The pulled-stem technique that we use, results in a thinner, more lightweight stem and bowl typical of a classic Sommelier’s glass.  The thin stem and base offer functionality and grace.

 

The line was designed with modern proportions, taking cues from our Bristol red wine glass in form.  The glasses are generously scaled to show off the wines within.

There are many options of wine tasting glasses by European makers that are machine made, and have a seam on the stem.  The Vintner Collection from Simon Pearce does not have seams because we hand-craft each glass.

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The thin bowl of the glass is designed to have a lot of volume, and room for air to circulate with the wine, and yet not be heavy. Ripple lines of our handcrafted process still appear in the bowl of our glass, different from machine made glass by other wine tasting glass companies in the industry. Our bowl shapes are ideal, and relate to how quickly  we want the wine to pass into the taster’s mouth, which effects the experience and flavor.

 

An additional benefit of the thin base, is that it is easy to swirl the wine while holding the foot, during a wine tasting.

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The Vintner Collection is sure to please anyone looking for the “whole wine tasting experience”, with the refined balance of the preferred wine in a high quality hand-crafted glass.

Fire & Ice: Alpine Soapstone

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As the weather turns warmer, and we look for ways to stay cool, sipping chilled drinks can do the trick.  Ice is the usual cooling element, but if you don’t want to water down your drink we propose using frozen soapstone, paired with our handcrafted glass as an optimal way for tasting drinks, particularly bourbon.

With the popularity of our Ludlow collection, we thought the soapstone could take the place of the wood, and once we tested some samples of this new combination we were delighted to find the stone truly chilled the glass. Take it from the freezer, and it can cool your drink in about 8-10 minutes, and conversely, can be used for warming drinks as well.

Throughout New England, soapstone is a common material found on kitchen counter-tops, which are known for their durability, smooth touch, and low porosity.  This ancient natural stone, is the result of volcanic geological formations from long ago. It’s most notable properties are that it can stay cold or hot for a long time. The material is very unique for its workable characteristics, and can be sculpted as the Inuit would, and also made it into a variety of functional designs.  We named it Alpine after the northern ridges we have here in Vermont and New England.

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Experience how this unique stone can chill your drink as it cradles the glass. 

Whiskey Glass / Whiskey Glass Set / Wine Chiller

See the feature in the New York Times: here

Apprentice Glassware

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Practice makes perfect imperfection on the path to mastery. A side benefit of educating a new generation of artisans? Seeing and feeling the vibrant authenticity of their initial creations. Each unique apprentice piece illustrates the meaning of “handmade” with a wabi-sabi aesthetic that brings the energy and passion to your table.

Simon Pearce glass blowers train for years, much of the time, working in tandem with another glass blower to perfect their craft. Along the way, however, each glassblower spends time alone, creating what we call “Apprentice Glass”.  An apprentice glass (or bowl, or vase) is created from a singular gather of molten glass from the furnace, and is shaped in its entirety from this one gather. This allows the glassblower to develop their proficiencies in elements of glassblowing such as gathering, blowing, transferring from one pipe to another (with the aid of a stand), shaping and opening the glass. Working swiftly, each piece takes 8-9 min, and in a day, the glassblower will complete up to fifty glasses.

Another element of the apprentice glassware is its simplicity of design. Only general specifications are followed, and without a partner, the glassblower can not add design details such as a foot, rolled rim, or texture, to the glass. As you can see from the above photos, blowing a simple drinking vessel out of glass, is at once, a race against time and an exercise in precision. The end result is perfect imperfection. Each vessel has its own character, and yet they hang nicely together as a group. The Apprentice Collection has become one of our customers’ favorites, as they choose the shapes they like from a group on display.

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Inspired Living & Giving

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“When I started making glass, my intention was to make pleasing, simple glasses for everyday use. The designs would be timeless and hold up to constant use.”

– Simon Pearce, Design for Living

 

PURE Anemone Vase

With free-flowing design elements, the Anemone is a statement-making centerpiece and a show-stopping gift.

 

Hartland Flutes

Inspired by glass buoys floating off the shores of the Pearce family home in Eleuthera, Simon’s globe-and-stem design is a signature silhouette handmade by a duo of master glassblowers working in tandem.

 

Silver Lake Candle Vessels

With a shared passion for handcrafted products for the home, Simon teamed up with Linnea’s Lights to create clean-burning soy wax candles, hand-poured into this custom textured glass vessel.

 

Colbalt Crystalline Teardrop Vase

Paging through a beloved pottery book inspired our artisans to revive a historical labor-intensive glazing technique that comes to life anew in each crystallized ceramic design.

The Bristol Collection

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The Bristol Collection originates from studying the “Golden Section” Proportions found in nature. Yet, no matter how refined the design or how forward-looking the concept, hand-crafting is required.

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For the Bristol Collection, James Murray, Simon Pearce’s VP of Design, began with ideas for a flute and a tumbler that he carefully rendered on paper. After making numerous revisions, the process of manufacturing began, which required blowing, shaping, sculpting, cutting, trimming, molding, and cooling in our workshops, of Vermont and Maryland.

 

“For the Bristol Collection, we use old-world techniques and real, basic tools to make something that is decidedly modern,” says James.

 

Bristol Flute & Tumbler Sketch
Bristol Caviar Sketch

Visitors to our workshops can witness the process.

Design Matters

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Growing up in a family of artisans, where aesthetics and attention to detail is a part of everyday life, each piece carries a story from the design origin to the act of handcrafting these artifacts. We’ve built success in designing and producing exceptional handmade glass and pottery for over 40 years.

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Design explores directions that stretch out the imagination and yet remain true to the brand heritage.  We push boundaries to express new forms and textures in our materials; the artisans have a muscle memory for making our products that typically bring new ideas back through a Simon Pearce lens.  We search for character, and then blend that with function, to turn out something that is beautiful.

We strive to inspire with handcrafted excellence. This is what we do every day…

The PURE Water Vase

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Looking over the rushing waterfall in Quechee; you are immediately enamored with the forces of nature, and the way the sunlight hits the turbulent water.

We wanted to capture this experience in an Art glass piece. Something more expressive than our typically functional items. First, some sketches of the waterfall and got ideas down on paper; then we quickly went to work with the master glassblowers to find ways to achieve the effects that look like water.

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The pieces are first created with a large bubble captured in the base which takes a high level of skill. The glassblowers then wrap molten glass around the shape, and form the strands of glass into the wavy effects. The visual texture of water flowing over the falls then starts to appear in the glass.

We ultimately arrived at the dramatic ‘water vase’ by observing the turbulent water flow, and crafting that moment into a glass vessel that only a master glassblower can finesse.

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Simon Pearce PURE Water Vase