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Fenton Glass: An American Icon

Fenton has become lauded my admirers and collectors everywhere for its high quality art glass in unique and striking colors. For instance, you may have seen bowls in that opaque Periwinkle Blue donning many a shelf as of late, those are probably Fentons, as that is a popular Fenton color.

This site deals mainly with blown glass, and while Fenton glass is mainly molded, we felt the need to include Fenton glass because it is an important name in glass art, they do blow some of their glass, and they’ve got some extremely skilled glassworkers at their plant.

THE PROCESS

Making a glass mold might not be as easy as you’d think. They start with their main ingredients: sand, soda ash, and lime. The mixture is then placed in a "pot" or "day tank" to melt at a temperature of about 2500 degrees Fahrenheit. The pots are placed inside a furnace, which circulates flames outside of the pots, never touching the glass directly. The day tank, about three times larger than a pot, melts glass with fire directly on the batch.

Once the glass is melted, highly skilled workers called gatherers wind the hot molten glass on a hollow blowpipe or the tip of a long steel rod called a punty. After judging the proper amount, the gatherer must judge the right amount, shape the gob of glass properly, and drop it precisely in the center of the mold.

For some pieces, the molten glass is blown into a mold to form the basic shape and pattern. Finishers then use a tool called a pucellas and a cherry wood paddle to finalize the form, here they flare, crimp, and/or straighten the glass, and this requires a tremendous amount of skill because it must be done before the glass cools into its solid form.

VALUABLE AMERICAN COLLECTIBLES

Fenton has a variety of classic collections, and creates beautiful handmade holiday items, like Santas at Christmas and hand-blown eggs at Easter. With the variety of different colors and designs they produce, there’s something for most every collector.

If you’d like to learn first hand about their glass, they do invite the public to see their fascinating glass working at their plant in Williamstown, West Virginia.

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