Welcome to Trifecta - it’s a glass blowing studio in the National Avenue neighborhood, but also a gallery, and a speakeasy, and most definitely an experience.
The Trifecta Glass Art Lounge celebrates it’s two year anniversary next month. It’s the brainchild of Travis Adams who studied glass blowing at Centre College under Stephen Powell; he came up with the concept, found two business partners to invest with him, and recruited Studio Manager Shane Bruning.
Bruning offers glass blowing experiences here twice a week. He’ll patiently walk you through the process from harvesting the molten glass out of the furnace to the finished product that you can take home. You’ll choose what you’d like to make - options include Fall pumpkins, Christmas decorations and Valentine’s hearts, as well as drinking glasses, paperweights and vases. You’ll also pick out colors, and will learn how to customize your piece to make it unique.
Bruning stumbled upon his craft at college and says for him, it was love at first sight, “It kind of speaks for itself when you see the magic happen in front of you,” he says. His passion and talent are both evident as he moves around the studio handling the red-hot material, and explaining each stage of the process. When he’s not guiding experiences he works as an assistant to Adams, and works on his own portfolio. “I just love the process of making glass,” Bruning admits, “it doesn’t really matter what the final shape or the final form is, it’s just such a magical material to work with”. At home he drinks exclusively from his own handmade and extensive collection of glassware, and shares that he finds “the pursuit of perfection in the piece and the process of this one simple form intoxicating”.
A converted mechanic shop, the studio space is functional and industrial with garage doors opening out onto the street. There’s a small gallery space in front of the workshop and a patio behind with seats and tables to watch from, and for live music on Friday evenings. The Trifecta bar is tucked in adjacent to the studio and accessed via a ‘secret’ mirrored door.
The electric furnace, ‘Gertrude’ anchors the room and has a running temperature slightly under 2,200 degrees farenheit. Next to her are two more furnaces with fiery, open ‘glory holes’, used to re-heat works of art in progress, and by the door, the annealer, used to cool finished products safely and slowly - it’s temp: 950 degrees.
At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s hot in here. In the summer months Bruning estimates the mercury can reach 120 degrees inside; even in the winter on the most frigid days, with the garage doors cracked open, he says, it’s stays toasty at around 80 or 90 degrees. You’re encouraged to bring your own water bottle, and Bruning says he tries to drink a gallon of water a day.
Next door it’s a different world - the Trifecta bar is everything the workshop is not: it’s refreshingly cool but also very cool! Intimate and decadent, dimly lit and beautifully decorated, it is indeed a hidden gem with a sophisticated cocktail menu that changes seasonally. Small windows afford a workshop view, but this space is all elegant luxury, a mid-century dream with rich, velvety tones, a smooth, subdued playlist and naturally, killer glassware!
Trifecta Glass Art Lounge is on Walton Street right across from Eppings, and it’s open Wednesday through Sunday. You can find out more on their website or via their social media.
