Photo by Teresa Kendrick
Artist Kim Springer-Smith teaches a class on three-dimensional glass fusing
Photo by Teresa Kendrick
Owners Chester John and Elissa Beach-John with some of the facility’s large selection of molds.
Photo by Teresa Kendrick
Chester John at several of the kilns: Big Brother, Tom, Jerry and Newbie.
Photo by Teresa Kendrick
Artist Laurie Rich working with molten glass in a process called “pulling vitrigraph.”
Photo by Teresa Kendrick
In the state of the art studio, a massive HEPA filter protects artists working with glass powders.
Artists, families, and the curious - more than 100 people in all - turned out for the two-day open house held last weekend at the fused-glass Silo Gallery and Studios, between Wimberley and San Marcos. Glass artists and staff held demonstrations of various techniques ranging from coldworking, enameling and powdered glass printing, to glass beads and three-dimensional processes.
At 4,000 square feet, it is the largest warm glass studio in central Texas.
Purchased in 2014 by Chester John and Elissa Beach-John, both retired IBM employees, Silo Glass is the former Silo Antique and Feed Store owned and operated by Steve and Melinda Howell. Before then, it was a stained glass studio and store built and designed by Ralph and Jean Petley in 1985.
“Around the time Elissa and I got together, we traveled to the Pilchuk Glass School in Skagit County, Washington to gauge our compatibility,” said Chester, who was a glassworker himself. Inspired by the scale of the Pilchuk facility, where famed glass artist Dale Chihuly studied, and perhaps by their shared affinity, the Johns built the Silo gallery, studio and workshop in 2017.
The impressive, expansive studio and gallery was purpose-built after the Johns grew out of the original Silo structure. Huge garage doors separate the kiln area, which can operate up to a week, from the rest of the structure. A massive HEPA filter ventilates the room where sandblasting and glass powders are worked. Every inch of the orderly structure not dedicated to colored glass squares, supplies, molds and storage, is filled with kilns and rows of glass saws, drill presses, grinders, sanders, hand tools and other specialty equipment. A gallery, flanked by a classroom, greets visitors as they enter the structure. Between the original Silo structure and the new facility is a large koi pond and double waterfall.
It appears Chester and Elissa thought of everything to inspire and enable artists, including sessions with Mr. B, the particularly discerning studio cat. It seems to have worked as artist Charlotte Herron said, “This is the best place to work in Wimberley. Chester and Elissa are the nicest people around and everyone we work with is a friend.”
