“ We started by using old Coke bottles. We would break them up and feed them into the fire,” Jim said.“ We would just stick glass into a fire and try to make something with it.”
Dick and his sons traveled with the carnival for eight years, performing live glasswork demonstrations out of a trailer and selling small items to carnival attendees.
“ We weren’ t experts by any means. We mostly learned by trial and error,” John said.“ We had maybe 15 items that we could make regularly. Today we make 1,000 different designs. We had a long way to go.”
In 1976, the Lawrence family decided to open a store in Nashville, Indiana, to sell their products.
“ Back then we were just surviving. We didn’ t look at glasswork as something we were going to do the rest of our lives— we saw it as a stepping stone to something else,” Jim said.
But, the artisans and craftsmen of Brown County changed their outlook, and their future.
“ They suggested that we look at glass making as an artistic venture rather than just as a product to sell,” Jim said.“ That really struck a chord with us. Something clicked and we began looking at our
” There are no shortcuts when learning to work with glass. The only choice is repetition and rehearsal.”
— John Lawrence
work from a whole new perspective. When we started to look at our work as art, we knew it was something we could do for the rest of our lives.”
From that moment on, Jim, John, and Dick focused on the artistic value of their pieces rather than on the monetary value. With a new enthusiasm, the three committed to learning as much as they could about glass work and spent nearly every minute of every day perfecting their trade.
“ Glass is a very complicated material,” John said.“ There are no shortcuts when learning to work with glass. The only choice is repetition and rehearsal. It’ s not something you learn quickly. We would learn a simple step and repeat it thousands of times.”
“ I remember struggling for years to learn how to make a bell,” Jim said.“ I would get one part figured out and then a new challenge would come up. It took me 14 years to master the bell. There weren’ t online videos or tutorials like there are today. We just had to learn by trial and error.”
Continued on 26 March / April 2015 • Our Brown County 17