One of my favorite stops on my monthly delivery run is at One Eared Cow Glass Gallery & Studio, located at 1001 Huger Street in Columbia, SC, in the Congaree Vista district. Columbia is one of the few stops on my runs where I’m there during regular gallery hours – at least some of the time. When that happens you can be sure I’ll stop in and watch Tommy Lockart and Mark Woodham make works of glass art – from molten sand.
From the first time I watched the two work I’ve been amazed at the transformation of a glob of molten glass into – well whatever you can imagine. And, even after all these years of watching them create, I still can’t tell you what they are making when they start – as it always seems to take some turn in the middle and ends up being something the farthest from my first guess. If I think it’s going to be a bowl or vase – it can end up that those pieces would be the stand for a more elaborate sculpture or lighting fixture. If I’m lucky, I might figure it out three-quarters of the way after all this time.
Another thing that puzzles me is when I see other people watching them work – most of the time they just watch. From the very start I was asking questions every step of the way. How hot are those ovens? How can you work all day in this heat? Where does the color come from? Why do some colors cost more? What happens to the pieces you break – can they be recycled? Why do you have to put finished works in a cooling oven? What’s a cooling oven anyway?
I don’t see how you can watch them work and not have a thousand questions. I even asked them if they minded people asking questions. They don’t – at least good questions. So, I can understand how dumbstruck someone can be when they first see the two work, but you have to have questions about what you’re seeing. How are you going to learn something without asking questions? They move so fast you might miss half the things they are doing to the glass.
One Eared Cow Glass is a gallery of finished works and a working studio. Many times when I’m out front in the gallery looking at new works – there are always new works, new designs, different color combinations, or different shapes – I have to go back into the studio to ask – How did you get this color and design to work? After they explain, it all seems logical, but I would have never figured it out on my own. They have often admitted that many things work out by trial and error. Over the years I’ve learned somethings about how the colors and designs work, but sometimes I’m stumped.
A few years back, I got to see the progress of a large commission piece over a few months time that Lockart and Woodham created for the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center (http://www.carolinaarts.com/oecg505.html) on Lincoln Street in the Vista. The piece is called Intermingling Convergence a.k.a. Flo. The work is a 20′ long x 10′ wide x 3′ deep creation of blown glass and stainless steel suspended from the ceiling of the two story lobby of the convention center. We have a photo essay of the installation of the work and finished images at the link for the Convention Center.
One of the first Special Features we added on our website – way back when we first launched it in 1999 – is a photo essay of Lockart and Woodham doing their thing (http://www.carolinaarts.com/glassmaking.html). Since that time these pages on our site have ranked in the top 30 pages visited – month after month after month. And we have thousands of pages on our site.
If you go visit One Eared Cow Glass, go see Flo at the convention center too – it’s just down the street and there are a lot of other good works of art there to see. With gas prices what they are you want to make the most of every trip you make. You’re in the Vista area, so you’re close to other commercial galleries and the SC State Museum and not too far from the Columbia Museum of Art.
Now plan ahead. They do not work in the studio on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but the gallery is open, and on the days they are working – they work from 9 to 11:30am in the morning, stop for lunch, and then work again between 1:30 and 4pm. But, call ahead to make sure the day you are going – they will be working to make sure. Something can always happen and the experience just isn’t the same if you don’t get to see them work.
One more thing. After you’ve watched them for a few hours and asked all those questions – buy something. They have works that fit anyone’s price range from $30 to $2,000. And, they’d be happy to make a special commission piece for you too (another shameless plug).