WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Snowmen, or Survival?
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Burlington, Vermont - December 19, 2008
From a 2000 degree furnace and a glob of molten glass, Rich Arentzen is actually going to make a chilly creation. He says, "I like being creative and working with my hands."
Shaping that glob into a head, midsection, and lower body, he explains, "This is when it starts looking like a snowman."
That's right, a snowman. A glass snowman -- that will never melt. Instead of coal for eyes, nose, and buttons, it's tiny flecks of black glass. And no silk hat either. That too is black glass with an elfish twist to the top.
Arentzen apprenticed with a Burlington glass artist some 20 years ago, and now he's an artist himself. But these glass snowmen are more than just little seasonal decorations. They represent a survival strategy.
Arentzen sighs, "Given the current economy, selling ornate wine glasses for $200 or $300 apiece naturally doesn't make much economic sense."
Inside Pine Street Artworks in Burlington, Arentzen and his Swedish-born wife Tove Ohlander are mixing inexpensive gifts like the handmade glass snowmen with high-end vases and goblets they also produce.
Ohlander says, "You've been inspired, but you can walk home with something you can afford."
Most artists and craftspeople already have fairly modest incomes, and worry in this economy shoppers will cut back. So Arentzen and Ohlander are offering $20 options like the snow people, and branching out to teach art classes and working other odd jobs to make ends meet.
Ohlander explains, "If you feel like you have something to offer and you want to continue being an artist, you have to figure a way to pull this all together."
The same story is being repeated around the state, because Vermont is home to a large and diverse arts & crafts community: one of the largest per capita in the country. Ohlander says, "When you start to think about quality, I think there's a lot of quality artwork in Vermont."
Back in his Charlotte studio, Rich Arentzen is keeping busy with those orange-hot snowmen that will cool to white, each one of them "Made in Vermont."
Jack Thurston - WCAX News - Made in Vermont
