Visual story: See how Annieglass forges molten glass into iconic art

Santa Cruz County is the birthplace of any number of iconic brands – Santa Cruz Skateboards, O’Neill wetsuits, Osprey backpacks, CrossFit. From the beach at Waddell Creek to homes across the world and the halls of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Annieglass has earned its own place on that list of icons, all the while remaining firmly rooted in the county where the business started more than 40 years ago.

It was in the early 1980s on that beach at the northern edge of Santa Cruz County where Annie Morhauser, then 19, fell in love with glassblowing. Artists from the College of San Mateo (including Morhauser) and other schools in the area were firing ceramics under the moonlight and someone had brought a glass kiln. That was when Morhauser first held onto a blowpipe and was able to manipulate molten glass. She was hooked for life.

For the next several years, Morhauser bounced around to different colleges. Starting at the College of San Mateo, then San Francisco State University, Morhauser eventually went to the California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco, where she would earn a bachelor of fine arts degree in glass.

During the summer, while still in school, Morhauser got a job with Steve Boysol, who owned The Farm and Greenhouse restaurant in Soquel. Working cutting flowers and making bouquets, she paid attention to how Boysol ran his business and, more important, how he treated his employees. She admired how he gave employees incentives through profit-sharing and treated them fairly. These lessons would stick with Morhauser in the years to come. 

After graduating, Morhauser returned to Santa Cruz County and started working in a glass gallery in Capitola Village called Walter White Fine Art. It was during this experience that she learned much about how to make art into a profitable enterprise. “I knew everything about every way you could possibly make glass but I didn’t know about the business end of it,” she says. 

At Walter White Fine Art, she learned all about selling, how to ship glass and how to bill a gallery for the price of shipping. Through Brendan Walter, the gallery’s owner, she met Edna Sorensen, an accountant who would mentor Morhauser for more than 25 years – helping her learn how to turn a profit and run the business like a business, not a hobby.

In 1981, Morhauser moved into her own studio, renting space in the Old Sash Mill along with artist Dick Obenchain. She started entering her work in national craft fairs. Buyers for major retailers and higher-end galleries would attend the fairs to buy items wholesale. Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys New York, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus all became her customers.

What makes Morhauser unique is her ability to use extremely high heat to melt gold into the glass. This gives her glassware durability and makes it dishwasher-safe. Typically, such delicate glass products would have to be carefully hand-washed. 

Morhauser remained at the Old Sash Mill for 16 years, expanding to take over more space. As the business grew, Morhauser even resorted to shipping products out of a vacated movie theater.

The Loma Prieta earthquake in October 1989 forced Morhauser to realign her priorities. When the earthquake struck, Morhauser had a 2-year-old son, Taylor, and was pregnant. The gallery had just shipped most of its orders to big wholesalers and was lucky to not have much finished inventory in stock. But most of its raw materials were destroyed. Two weeks later, Morhauser’s mother died suddenly. Three months after that, her daughter, Ava, was born. “I could care less if a customer didn’t get their gold-rimmed plates,” Morhauser recalls of that life-changing period.

But Morhauser soldiered on. For the next several years, she kept busy creating new pieces and fulfilling orders from her large wholesale clients. As her business continued to grow, so did the space required to keep up with the demand. By 1996 Annieglass had outgrown the Old Sash Mill and moved into its current location at 310 Harvest Dr. in Watsonville. 

Being a handmade company in California has its challenges, Morhauser says. The state has among the highest cost of living in the country and Morhauser has faced constant pressure to move her manufacturing process overseas so she can keep production costs down. 

She has received several offers to sell Annieglass to larger companies but refuses to consider it. Morhauser remains loyal to her staff, some of whom have been with her for decades. “I love it here,” she says of Santa Cruz County. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Visual journalist Kevin Painchaud takes us inside the process to make a piece of Annieglass art

Creating the prototype

Morhauser starts by sketching out new ideas for plate designs. Pictured, Morhauser lays out the sketches on the floor.

Based on the sketch, she’ll make a mold out of clay. The mold-making process takes a lot of time. She needs to make sure the mold is flat and doesn’t rock, and that the piece that will be made out of the mold is functional. Creating a proper mold can sometimes take up to a month. 

Here, inspired by a piece she picked up at a vintage store, Morhauser sketches a guide for how to cut the glass.

If Morhauser approves the prototype, she will make 20 of them. She does this to make sure there is consistency and that no production issues arise when larger runs are made based on a mold. The finished prototype will then be photographed to be included in Annnieglass’ catalog.

Production

Once the prototype is approved, workers turn to production. Pictured: Master Artisan Ignacio Garcia Sr. cleans a sheet of glass.

Garcia cuts glass into smaller sheets.

Garcia stacks the smaller pieces of freshly cut glass.

A water jet cutting machine slices the sheets of glass into precise shapes and sizes.

Lloyd Lambert grinds the edges smooth on a tree trivet made of scraps of glass with gold.

Jonathan Amante screen prints a circle onto a piece of glass. This glass will eventually become a soap dish. 

Amante lifts the screen to reveal the freshly painted piece of glass.

Amante inspects a freshly painted piece of glass.

Raul Camacho-Aguilla carefully paints the edge of a piece of glass.

Camacho-Aguilla loads the prepped glass on top of the molds in the kiln.

Glass plates in their molds after being fired in the kiln.

Every piece is hand-engraved with the Annieglass signature, copyright, month, year and part number.

Finished glassware is then stacked on shelves ready for shipping.

Each item to be shipped is individually wrapped and boxed.

A finished Annieglass platter on display inside the company’s retail store in Watsonville.

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