A 20-year glass reunion
Lincoln City Glass Center marks 20th anniversary with blowout fund-raiser
Steve Hagan, Daniel Hogan, Kelly Howard, Eric Taylor and Jesse Taylor craft a 27-inch float at the glass center’s 15th anniversary
By Gretchen Ammerman
Oregon Coast TODAY
Few things scream Oregon Coast like glass floats, and no place that produces them has the all-a-round popularity of the Lincoln City Glass Center, celebrating its 20th anniversary with a fund-raising party this Saturday, Feb. 22.
The event will feature a demonstration by the center’s president and managing partner, glass blowing master Kelly Howard, and her team. The event will also feature a silent auction of glass creations and other items donated by local businesses. Proceeds from the evening will be donated to two worthy causes: The Kealy Boyd Endowed Memorial Scholarship, which seeks to help ease the financial burden for future nursing students at Linfield University in McMinnville; and the One Love Foundation, a national nonprofit that works to educate young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships with the goal of ending relationship abuse.
“This year we are joining Kealy Boyd’s mother Cari Preece Boyd to raise funds for a memorial scholarship for nursing students,” Howard said. “Many in this community may know Kealy’s story. It is particularly meaningful to me, as Kealy and I share some traumatic events that have made parts of being a person in the world very difficult. I know there are many of us who silently carry these trespasses with us each day. We lost Kealy last December and our community was devastated. So, our fund-raiser is for her scholarship and to raise funds for the One Love organization.”
Beginning at 5 pm, Howard and her team will attempt to create a float larger than the record-breaking 27-inch float triumph that resulted from the center's 15th anniversary event, possibly the largest ever made on the Oregon Coast. Complimentary wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served during the demonstration.
“It is super important to have a really good team when attempting something like this,” Howard said. “We have a master glass blower who worked at the shop for years flying in from Tucson and other people coming from all over from our last record-breaking attempt that will be there so I am pretty confident. We’re hoping to get to maybe 30 inches but that’s a little crazy. But it will be fun to try!”
Like the one created at the 15th anniversary event, the giant float, if it survives, will not be for sale.
“When you make something special like that you don’t want to just let it go,” Howard said. “But we will be making some other big ones that we will be auctioning off.”
Howard is proud of what was created and how it has developed over time. Both the center and the Volta Gallery across the street, founded in 2006, represent work from glass artists as well as painters, photographers, jewelry makers and more.
“I was trying to make a list of everyone we have employed and it’s more than 100,” she said. “The number of artists we represent has grown to more than 100, too. And to provide jobs for artists at a working wage with benefits and even bonuses is very satisfying. We have a lot of people that have worked for us for more than eight years, all the way through COVID.”
At the center, people can blow a float or create other glass works like a heart, votive candle holder, paperweight, jellyfish paperweight or a fluted bowl.
“Creating something with your own hands is something very special,” Howard said. “There is even something therapeutic about it and to provide people with that is important to us.”
But even those who just like to watch are getting a unique experience.
“I feel like sharing the experience of making in a country where we’ve removed ourselves from manufacturing so much is very important,” Howard said. “I like to say that ‘we bring glass to the people’ and now we can say we’ve been doing it for 20 years! More than 100,000 people have blown glass at our shop. Pretty incredible.”
The Lincoln City Glass Center is located at 4821 SW Hwy. 101 in Lincoln City and is open from 10 am to 5 pm Sunday through Thursday and from 10 am to 6 pm Friday and Saturday. For more information, go to lincolncityglasscenter.com or call 541-996-2569.