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Why is glass blowing so secretive!?

Glass has been around for over 7000 years, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. People say it’s a dying art, but that’s only because nobody knows anything about the industry. Five hundred years ago, sure, The Roman Empire would kill your entire family, three people removed for even mentioning a glass secret outside of the prison that was Murano. It’s possible that the secret gene was transferred through the collective conscience and passed down to the new generations, but I think it’s more likely that, for the most part, glassblowers are artists before they are marketers.

Social media was a godsend for flame and furnace work. The doom scrolls on a glass page are imminent when someone can see the painstaking process of making a fillacello broken down into 30 seconds or the satisfying visual of someone spinning open a rondel with ease. Then the show came along. You all know it, and every glass blower goes through the same thing when asked what they do…. “Oh, I watched that show on Netflix! What was it called?” Talk about being put on the map again as an industry!

Despite all that, the number of glassblowers is decreasing, and glassblowers are still struggling. We want to change that.

Ikonic Glass Competitions focuses on getting glass blowers before non-glass blowers, starting with publicly voted competitions. Part of being a glass blower is pushing your work and going the extra mile for yourself. If you want to win one of our competitions its’s going to be your personal fanbase that makes it happen. Sure, we have channels that we push through, and doing artist highlights is something we are very excited about, but it’s up to you! Get people excited! No Shame!

We asked our first winner, who received over 25% of the vote, how he did it. His response was that he asked everyone and their mother to vote for him. Family, Friends, random people standing in line at the grocery store, and everyone he talked to was pumped about it! Now, 176 people know he was recently in a competition and made a conscious decision to think about his artwork. Wow. That’s powerful; I mean, if you get 20,000 views on Instagram, that’s great, but how invested are those people? let’s test it! if you're getting 300 likes, you should at least get three hundred votes, right? Engaging with your fans will make them die-hard fans quicker than anything else.

On the other side of things, if you’re a fan of glass, your glass blower(s) needs your support! We need your support! This industry is amazing, but it takes every last one of us, and we have to work together. We don’t exist without you and we love our fans. Thank you for what you allow us to do. We are here to make a statement of self-expression, and when you like, comment, share, vote, or buy our art, there is no better feeling in the world.

Thanks for reading. Join our Newsletter for monthly updates and blogs, and check out our glass @ikonic_glass on Instagram!