Auction Ends: Mar 7, 2019 11:33 PM PST

Treat Yourself!

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Hand-blown glass bowl from New Zealand

Item Number: 171

Estimated Value: 80 USD
Sold: 55 USD to Live Event Bidder

Live Event Item

After the online close, this item went to a Live Event for further bidding.

Item Description

Multi-colored Hand-blown Glass Bowl, made in New Zealand by Greg Smith of Avalon Glass co-operative and Te Miko Glass. Bottom engraved “G. Smith ‘92.”

Avalon Glass was set up by a group of people with no experience of glassmaking in a place that had no electricity and had no fuel for making glass. In 1985 a group of hippies at the Fox River commune decided, for whatever reason, to set up a glass studio. In order to provide enough light to be able to see, a small creek in the hills behind the commune was dammed. A pipe from the dam brought water, and sometimes mud and all sorts of other things, down the hillside to drive a Pelton wheel connected to an inverter and a bank of truck batteries. There was sufficient power for two dim lights.

They bought a wood gasifier from Auckland. Although the local timber mills could provide a ready supply of fuel, the wood had to be trucked 30 miles, it had to be cut into small enough pieces for the gasifier, and because of the climate it was often much too wet to burn. Eventually they managed to produce a very variable supply of gas. Building a furnace was the next task, one which fell to Greg’s lot, and not one in which he experienced immediate success. When it was finished they needed glass. They spent days at the local rubbish dump collecting bottles which they took back to Avalon to wash, break up and throw into the furnace. The avid drinking habits of much of the local population also provided a source of bottles, in exchange for supplies of coffee or cannabis.