2024 In Review

A well-lived life is an examined life, thus we look back before we look forward. 2024 was, like every year, filled with glassmaking. It’s the best part of life, the thing we love to do above all else. But there is more to life than just the studio, so let’s dive in and take a look!

January

We spent the month on the road doing trade shows and visiting clients. While we love it when people come to the studio, we also have to get out there and show off our stuff. From Florida to Atlanta we were all over. You can’t blow glass from the road, so we divided and conquered. Never is it more true than during the tradeshow season that it takes a village to run a glass studio.

Our studio has been home to a colony of feral cats for the last 8 years. In November 2023 we lost our studio mascot, Jack White (read his story here). He was survived by his partner, MK, and sister, Winnie but the master cat distribution system knew we had cat-capacity. And that’s when the newest troublemaker, Artemis Paulina Rose showed up. Just a sweet baby of 12 weeks in January 2024, she quickly turned into a spicy monster terrorist who loves to climb ladders and chatter at the birds. Having these 3 ladies together keeps us on our toes, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

February

The long cold days of winter are no time to rest on your laurels. It’s the best time to make big glass. The heat from our large reheating chamber is no joke and not for the faint of heart. 3′ x 4′, this monster runs at 2400 degrees and will burn you badly if not treated with respect. We had a fun project creating gazing pond floats for a private residence. Using our whole team of 5 glassblowers we really had a good time with this project, trying new color combos and techniques to create a bright, fun palette of glass that pops in the landscape. Want to know more about working on big glass? Read our blog post here.

The most influential business magazine in Detroit, DBusiness, did a feature story about April, her passion for glass, and the amazing team at the studio. Read the article here.

March

We attended the National Women’s Business Owners conference in Denver. Our first time there and we were a big hit! We met tons of fabulous ladies who are rocking it and they LOVED our work!

It’s not all just work work work for #teamepiphany. We like to play too. This year we hosted the whole team and friends in a suite at Ford Field to enjoy the Monster Trucks show. A fun event that never ceases to entertain the little kids in all of us.

April

Glass is our favorite material from Mother Nature. So to thank her, and to spruce up our community, we clean up the city park next to the glass studio each year. A full team effort on Earth Day, the world has never had such a goofy group working so hard on its behalf.

May

We started the month with our annual Spring Open Studio. This is the time we show you all the hard work we have done over the winter, getting feedback on our new designs and refining them for the next round.

Next, we were off to Philidelphia for our last trade show of the season, while the glassblowers worked on creating the client gifts for the Detroit Grand Prix. Every year we are honored to create something unique for this event.

We also participated in our favorite 501(c)3, Michigan Humane’s, Mutt March event. While we are all kitty lovers at the studio we are dog lovers too. 🐾 Did you know we have been partnering with Michigan Humane for 9 years? To date, we have raised over $35,000 in donations, partially from the sale of our pet-themed artworks.

May is also when we wrap up our hands-on glassmaking workshops for the season. Making glass is hot🔥and once it heats up outside no one – not even us – wants to be in the glass shop. Can you do it? Sure, but after 30 years of glassmaking, we like to work smarter, not harder. Our last workshop is always our very special Cremation Ash Workshop where you can incorporate a small amount of human or pet cremains into your very own glass piece, truly a unique and special experience. We only offer this experience twice a year, once for Memorial Day and again for the Day of the Dead. You can register for our 2025 Memorial Day experience here. Think it might be too overwhelming? It is an emotional process, so we also offer this as a service we can do for you. Learn more here.

June

Making art is all about love – love of the material, love of the process, the people, and the final artworks. We celebrated Pride Month by showcasing all of our rainbow-themed artworks in honor of the beautiful diversity around us. To steal a line from Planet Fitness – epiphany studios is a judgment-free zone. Everyone is welcome no matter what they look like, who they love, or how they identify.

July

We shut our furnace off for scheduled maintenance and rebuilt our reheating chamber. We also hard-piped in new gas lines at the ceiling so we would no longer have to walk over them on the floor.

But it wasn’t all work! We vacationed from London to New Zealand to Milwaukee. We used the time to recharge our batteries and get ready for the fall. And, of course, while we were in Chicago we slipped in a quick trade show.

August

April loves to work with glass color. She has, over the years, become an expert at using color in glass. But it was still a great honor when Hot Glass Color and Supply, the leading source for glass color in the US, asked her to put together two signature artist packs of color. She chose her favorite pastels for one and her favorite powders and frits for the other. Want to read a deep dive about glass color? Check out our blog post here.

We hosted our last Summer Seconds Sale in August. This is the event where we sell our slightly off-color or off-size artworks for 50-90% off retail pricing. Want to know more about what Seconds are? Read our blog post here. Want to know when we are having our sales? Sign up for our newsletter and be the first to know!

September

We are a Certified Woman-Owned glass studio and we are part of the Great Lakes Women’s Business Council. We were honored this year to create their annual awards, as well as creating awards for other large organizations around the globe. From matching colors to creating unique shapes, we offer fully customizable solutions for every budget. Want to see more? Visit our Corporate Awards page.

When Fall is in the air it means it is pumpkin season! We hosted our second annual Pumpkin Patch Party showcasing all of our one-of-a-kind pumpkins as well as offering our sell-out, blown glass hands-on workshops where we help you to make your own pumpkin. Read more about the party here.

We introduced our 2024 Pumpkin of the Year, Samhain, and sold out almost instantly.

Do you know the coolest thing about artists? They get inspiration from everywhere. This year, much like last year when we got inspired by the Barbie movie, we got really juiced up by the new Beetlejuice movie. It inspired us to make a limited series of fun, colored pumpkins in black/white/green/purple. It sure was fun to play with the different colors and combinations and to see which pieces people liked best.

October

Our Party Gras pumpkin is still a social media darling. We reposted the video of us making this sweet beauty and we got another million views and tens of thousands of likes. We love this pumpkin design and it feels good to know that others do too! We also released two new dichroic glass pumpkin designs to go along with Party Gras; Persephone, and Starlight.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we know the power of supporting the causes that we love. So, we designed a custom Pretty in Pink Pumpkin to honor the thrivers who have struggled with this disease, donating a portion of the proceeds from each pumpkin to the Pink Fund. Together we can change the world by focusing on good causes. We also wanted to honor our amazing home state 🏈 teams so we made a couple of pumpkins for them too.

November

Our 2024 ornament of the year was Violetta. Named after the tragic heroine in Verdi’s opera La Traviata, Violetta’s rich purple hues are offset by silver-blue accents and regal ribbing.

We also made, for the FIRST TIME EVER, a new bell-shaped ornament! Why it never occurred to us before we’re not sure. So simple and sweet, this new design became an instant classic! The studio was very busy this holiday though, so we didn’t have as much time to play with this new design as we wanted. Stay tuned in 2025 for more new bells!

December

Our holiday show, the first weekend in December, was a “smashing” success. The weather was good, the crowds were excited, the art looked delightful, and the glassmaking was amazing! Read more about it here. We sold out of our new hands-on glassmaking experience, the Blown Ornament, almost immediately! We also showed a lot of new glass collectors our artworks, welcoming guests into the studio nearly every day of the month for easy holiday shopping.

We also experienced some terrible setbacks, car accidents, ER visits, Covid, and the rest that life has to give you when you least expect it. But #teamepiphany is STRONG! Together, this small but mighty group shipped out hundreds of orders of glass all around the world in time for the holidays. From France to Australia, Brazil to Switzerland, our pretty artworks were treasured gifts to many.

Unfortunately, we could not get our usual quirky but fun group holiday photo. So instead we used this fun drawing by our glassblower, Eric Baker, as our holiday card of #teamepiphany.

In closing

2024 was a year of rebuilding, refocusing, and digging deep. Being an artist means there are so many sparkly pathways to visit, all the new and exciting ideas around every corner distracting us and making it hard to focus. This year we worked diligently to stay on our path, and by learning all the nuances of staying narrow we gained depth instead of width. We’re going to use these newly honed skills to crush it in 2025! Stay tuned to see.