Design Daily: Glowing Glassware From Glassybaby
Author:Sarah Virginia WhiteAdd Sacramento Street to your list of San Francisco design destinations if you haven’t already. Glassybaby is the newest boutique to join the cool kids on the block in the Presidio Heights neighborhood (need we mention its fabulous neighbors, such as March and The Future Perfect?).
Glassybaby creates handmade votives and tumblers in a mix of rich colors, but the real story is how the company came into being. Founder Lee Rhodes, then a mother to three small children, was fighting a rare form of lung cancer when she created glassybaby in 1998. Having found calm in the flickering light given off by a tea light that she had dropped into a blown-glass cup, she was inspired to hire glass artists to create more, and launched glassybaby.
The struggle behind Rhodes’ initial creative spark remains the pillar of her Seattle-based company, which has grown to include three stores and a glass blowing studio that turns out 500 glassybaby on a daily basis. Its goodwill program donates proceeds (over $1.4 million to date) to help cancer patients with basic daily needs such as childcare, groceries and transportation fare to and from hospital visits.
The company mission makes it easy to feel good about splurging on one of the beautiful votives in the glassbaby collection, which also includes a line of ‘drinkers’ that are whiskey-ready. Each piece requires four glassblowers to create it, layering rods of molten glass onto a clear ball of glass until the right effect is achieved. The result speaks for itself.
Pick up a few votives for your holiday table at the new glassybaby boutique, which opens its doors at 3665 Sacramento Street in San Francisco on Friday, November 1.
The glassybaby blog has adorable color inspiration boards
