Bright Lights, Craft City

An open-door policy makes lampmakers shine

Contrary to the received wisdom about mixing business and friendship, Geoff Koslow and Billy Guilford’s Lexington Glassworks is entering its fourth successful year — an undisputed hotspot built on the talent and marketing skills of two friends who shared a common goal: working for themselves. 

“We’re proud to have grown our business to employ a total of nine people,” says Koslow. Two of them are assistant glassblowers who help with the custom work that now makes up about 60 percent of the business.

The two first met at Alfred University, a small college in the Southern tier of New York State whose well-regarded School of Art and Design offered courses in the glassblowing that Koslow had taken up years earlier, while still in high school. Guilford’s focus at the time was on ceramics, but the challenges of shaping molten glass soon proved more attractive. Even though the two parted after graduation — Koslow to Texas and a job at a small art-glass studio, Guilford to the Pittsburgh Glass Center teaching and overseeing studio operations — they frequently reunited to take courses at Western North Carolina’s Penland School of Craft — which, in turn, introduced them to Asheville and its deep roots in the decorative arts. 

“We saw opportunity here,” Guilford recalls. “Not all cities are still accessible for young people, and that really excited us.”

Classes in business management followed while the pair looked for space downtown and heard about a 5,000-square-foot former auto-repair shop that had been vacant for six years. Underneath the collected detritus they saw a perfect standalone space that could house a furnace capable of holding up to 300 pounds of molten glass at more than 2,000 degrees — a furnace the two designed and built themselves. It took nearly a year, but by 2016, Lexington Glassworks was up and running, its popularity clinched by dramatic public glassblowing demonstrations.

At first, the pair made and sold smaller items for casual shoppers, such as paperweights and custom vases. Gradually, they also built up a custom lighting business with a loyal client base throughout North America, both residential and commercial.

Their public pieces are installed in some of Asheville’s trendiest restaurants (Rhubarb, Jargon) and in hotels, hospitals, and financial centers across the state and as far away as Minnesota. “We’ve spent many years perfecting the color patterns that translate well when illuminated,” says Guilford.

Drawing on a palette of primary colors often laced with threaded, dripped, or rippled patterns, the company’s abstract and retro-inspired pendant lighting is particularly striking. Other pieces are riffs on traditional chandelier lighting, the blown glass attached to fixtures that swoop in unexpected directions or encase the central lamp in lacy cages of metal. Still others, particularly the company’s custom-designed sconces, pick up on the brass and earth tones of Asheville’s Arts and Crafts tradition.

“I think our most challenging jobs in regards to the glassblowing process are often the ones that are abstract in concept and involve a lot of complex steps,” Koslow notes. “The bigger the pendants get, the harder they are to maneuver in the hot shop. The largest piece we can make is 26 inches in length, which can take two to three people working together to complete.”

Clients with commissions are encouraged to bring to the process color samples, photos, or even fabrics that Koslow and Guilford can use as inspiration; fixtures come from a standard catalog or can be specially made by artisan collaborator Hubbardton Forge of Vermont. 

Thanks to the pair’s literal open-door policy, plus a new 700-pound furnace installed in January, even the high-end pieces are made in public. “We didn’t want that disconnect where you go into a gallery and say, ‘I love this piece. Can you tell me about the artist?’” Guilford says. “In this studio, you’re talking directly to the artists.”

Lexington Glassworks, 81 South Lexington Ave., downtown Asheville, open seven days a week: 10am-6pm Monday through Saturday, 11am-6pm Sunday. 828-348-8427. See lexingtonglassworks.com for more information.