Emerging glass artist opens up his own hot shop in West Asheville
Photo by Colby Rabon
“It was the fire and loud music.” That’s what Asher Holman says first attracted him to glassblowing when he was a teenager growing up in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood. “I’ve always had a fascination with fire. I think a lot of glassblowers are pyros.”
He was first introduced to the form through Public Glass, a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to glassblowing.
The glass shop “was just a really fun place to hang out,” he remembers. “I really enjoyed being part of a community and being included in the process where I was encouraged to get better at working with the material.”
He soon learned he had an innate talent for the art, and the “competitive edge” to go for it professionally. He’d always done fairly well academically but says he never truly enjoyed school. “Glassblowing was something I felt I had potential [for] if I stuck with it.”
At Public Glass, Holman took a few introductory-level classes, but being recruited as an assistant got him further. “Working with them —mostly cleaning the shop and helping maintain the equipment in exchange for studio time — taught me more than the classes did.”
Photo by Colby Rabon
He eventually continued his education at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, under Stephen Powell, the school’s glass professor. “His work was amazingly cool, and he told me I could be in the shop as much as I wanted. It seemed like the perfect place to continue working with glass while I figured out what direction I wanted to go.”
Luckily, the glass community, says Holman, “is a small world.” While taking a summer workshop in Seattle in 2016, he met someone who knew Billy Guilford and Geoffrey Koslow, who had started Lexington Glassworks, a popular hot shop and gallery in Asheville where visitors can witness the process in real time.
A few months before graduating college, Holman called them and asked if they could hire him. “It worked out, and I ended up working there for more than three years.”
After leaving Lexington Glassworks, Holman spent the next several years as an independent contractor, helping other artists with their glasswork while at the same time making and selling his own pieces, and, he adds, “scheming on how and where I would open my own shop.”
Small Batch brings the performative aspect of glassblowing to West Asheville.
Photo by Colby Rabon
It was a dream he’d had since college. “I knew having my own studio would be the most fulfilling way for me to continue my career as an artist.”
That newly opened venue is on Craven Street, on the edge of the River Arts District, in the Asheville neighborhood where he lives. “I had been walking past this building for years,” he notes. It was somewhat dilapidated, requiring a lot of rehab. “I did most of the work myself, and it took almost a year.”
Here, Holman creates a variety of pieces and styles, including functional and decorative ware, and folks can wander in and view the performance.
He notes that the immersive aspect of the business is key: “It’s about the experience I provide when someone visits my studio — and about making my own mark as an artist.”
Small Batch Glass, 46 Craven St., Asheville, open 10am-6pm Monday, Thursday, and Friday; 12-6pm Saturday and Sunday; and closed or by appointment Tuesday and Wednesday. Glassblowing happens 1-5pm on days the studio is open. See smallbatchglasscompany.com and @smallbatchglasscompany on IG.