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Six miles from Columbus, Montana, Glasshorse Studio sits on a slight rise above a coulee on the sun-washed apron of the Beartooth Range. It was built - largely with their own hands - by the young man and woman who work there. Inside the 4,000 square foot studio are a glass furnace, a blacksmith forge, and the array of tools and equipment used in their work. Ona is a glass artist; her husband, Ira, is a blacksmith. Individually and together they make art.
That they should be here, now, working side by side given the disparity of their backgrounds and the unlikelihood of their meeting is remarkable. They believe (as lovers will) that destiny brought them together at that remote hunting site in Alaska where he summered as a guide and she as camp manager.
Ona is from Pennsylvania. She has a BFA from Alfred University and an MFA from Bowling Green State University. She apprenticed and worked in Venice and Seattle and taught at several noted glass art venues. Ira is a working cowboy from Montana. Though his father is a painter and poet, Iras life (pre-Ona) was lived under the sky, companioned by his Border collie Tap , riding herd, calving and mending fence.
The two parted after that single days meeting in Alaska, but a few months later, Ona, who was finishing her MFA, visited Ira in Two Dot, Montana where he was night calving. That second meeting confirmed what they both knew and their separate paths were fused.
The couple moved east and settled in Pennsylvania where Onas art had been widely regarded and collected. Ona had been working with glass since she was 12 years old and enjoyed a reputation as an important emerging artist. As she matured and migrated from primitive equipment to the vast facilities at Alfred University her art evolved in size and difficulty. Although best known for her blown vessels, her portfolio included large cast glass sculptures, as well as works in cast bronze, wood and stone. Her career throughout this process was distinguished by the movement and vibrancy of her organic shapes.
The couple found a studio in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where Ona could continue her art. Ira was supportive but restless. There was little work for a cowboy in the dairy farm counties of central Pennsylvania. But, as he watched Ona work and came to understand how molten glass can become art, something stirred in him: a desire to create beauty. He searched out a blacksmith school where he might learn some new skills and found one with a master blacksmith in Santa Fe. Armed with these skills, Ira set up a primitive forge and began from his very first effort to create extraordinary works of shaped iron. The cowboy blacksmith found he could tame the toughness of the metal and harness its raw strength. He worked and shaped it to express his feeling for the broad land and wild creatures he loved. The artist, who had obviously dwelt inside the cowboy all these years, was freed at last and clamoring to express himself.
In Central Pennsylvania, Ira found a ready market for even his earliest works: tables and benches some incorporating native hardwoods, - wall pieces and standing iron sculptures, powerful yet subtle, full of movement and strength. Soon Ona and Ira were collaborating, creating works in which iron and glass complemented and enriched each other. It was as if they had worked together for years.
The dialogue between his iron and her glass offered endless possibilities and their joint projects took many forms: sensuous iron fingers cradling a bowl or vase and wall pieces where graceful iron branches lift offerings of glass. The iron and glass complemented one another like dancers in a pas de deux. The principal dancer supports the ballerina, permitting moves she could not manage alone. But he also can perform inspired, athletic leaps. Soon they were receiving commissions for larger examples of their exciting work for display in homes, restaurants, gardens and public buildings
Although their work was well received, they began to miss the wild innocence of Montana. The prospect of living and working there, of building, together, the ideal studio for their respective crafts, was liberating. Thus, in June of 2005, Ona and Ira packed up a caravan of belongings primarily tools of their trades and headed for their newly purchased land outside Columbus. By September the wells were dug, the electric lines laid and their studio was rising from its foundations. A few days before Christmas, the couple moved into the attached living space and began building the furnaces and forges. In February, the fires were ignited
Glasshorse Studios is an impressive structure. Anchored among shrubs and rolling hills, facing the commanding mountains, it is an artists dream fulfilled. Long planned, custom designed, constructed with loving care, it houses state-of-the-art facilities for their work. Here, where the masculine balances the feminine, where glass animates iron, the promise of fine art has found its home. |
