Waco – Out in the woods between Waco and West, you’ll hear a roaring fire burning behind the vast green curtain. The sound emanates from Stanton Studios, a family run business that’s big on building works of art from wood, metal, and glass. “So my dad started back in 1979 and we have had work since then,” said Jordan Stanton.
Jordan Stanton is one of four brothers who now lead the charge at Stanton Studios, picking up where their Dad got things started but doing it in a much more elaborate way. “He was never very good at glass blowing,” said Stanton. “He messed around the edges of it, but he did let us play with the equipment and kind of showed us a few things and we took it from there. He trusted us with a lot of things.”
Stained and leaded glass is their go to. “I mean anywhere you can think of putting glass. We’ve put glass,” said Stanton.
Whether it’s for a church, restaurant, or private residence it’s tedious, time-consuming work. “I love the stained and leaded glass and all the challenges and opportunities that you get to be creative in that,” said Stanton. “Stained glass is such a good medium. You can do it in such a way that you can let in light, but you can also block out people viewing the interior of your home and you make really beautiful pieces.”
While stained glass is the bread and butter of Stanton Glass Works, it’s also a little bit of pain and you don’t get to hob nob with any customers while working. So Jordan decided to offer something a little more hands on to folks who wanted see what making glass is all about. “With stained glass, a lot of times I’m working with just one or two individuals over a period of time versus I might see a hundred people in a day doing the ornaments,” said Stanton.
Yes, Christmas ornaments. This simple, round, and colorful piece of glass has now become a cornerstone of Stanton Studios. “I figured out how to make an ornament,” said Stanton. “It was pretty crude, but I figured out how to make one. I was like, ‘Okay, you bring your family over on this weekend, and we’ll make some ornaments, and we’ll make a party out of it.’”
From October through December, Jordan and his brothers welcome thousands of people to make a holiday memory forged in a fire. “I don’t make any ugly ornaments, so each one is better than the last one,” said Stanton. “But there are some that I definitely make more often than others.”
For guests at the studio, the ornament making process begins with a wall of example ornaments, numbered to allow you to pick a color and pattern for your ornament. “So each one of these is a color that I have, anything with the number,” said Stanton. “And then we have our different shapes.”
Today, Jordan is gonna show off how to make a custom ornament, and what better choice of inspiration than our Texas flag? “I mean, there’s a really wide variety to choose from and we can combine them in several different ways,” said Stanton. “I think the twisted rib will give you a little bit of a flag, kind of a flutter shape. Now I can’t get you a star, but we’ll make it look good.”
Once a customer has made their creative decisions about their ornament, the rest of the process blows right by. “Once you’ve got all your colors picked and we’re ready to blow it, it takes about five to six minutes,” said Stanton. “With glass, everything has to go quickly.”
Jordan lays out a handful of shards of glass on a table, with all the colors that have been selected. “Yeah, little glass shards,” said Stanton. “Now, these are specially formulated glass for glass blowing. And so they’re really dense colors. That way they can be stretched out.”
When it comes to handling the hot stuff, that’s where Jordan takes over. “The handling of the glass and the dangerous parts I take care of, I don’t let just anyone get that close to 2100-degree glass,” said Stanton.
Jordan takes the glass from the furnace and brings it over to the table with all the colorful shards layer out. “The glass is so hot when it rolls over the top of them that it literally melts this glass to itself and that’s how it picks it up,” said Stanton.
As Jordan rolls the molten glass across the table, the guest gets to actually shape it into an ornament by blowing air into it through a tube and expanding it into the classic ornament shape. “Every once in a while someone could blow too hard,” said Stanton. “Those are generally our trumpet players or our wind instrument people.”
Before you know it, the Christmas ornament you had a role in creating is complete.
“If it weren’t for the people, there’s no way I’d be making ornaments,” said Stanton. “I’ve made ornaments by myself before and it gets boring, but interacting with the people is really a lot of fun. Hearing their ideas, sharing stories with them, seeing the same people year after year. I’ve had people that have been coming every year since I started doing this, and it’s their Christmas tradition, but it’s also my Christmas tradition.”