In hopes of spreading interest in hand-made West Virginia glass, a dental student is donating her 27-piece West Virginia Birthday Blenko Glass collection to West Virginia University, her alma mater.The Blenko Family will also make a gift each year of the companys annual birthday collectible to keep the collection in tact.
Hillary Homburg, a third-year dental student and Charleston native, said her collection is one of only four known complete collections in West Virginia.It will be housed in the Universitys new art museum planned for Erickson Alumni Center. WVU will convert the center to a museum once the Alumni Association moves into its new $14 million facility in late fall 2008.
There are four things in my life that I hold very dear and Blenko glass and West Virginia University are two of those four things,Homburg said of her decision to donate the collection.My grandfather was a WVU graduate. Homburgs have a long and very happy history with WVU . Blenko Glass is very near my home in Charleston, and I have been a visitor to the Milton factory since before I could put together whole sentences,she said.
Richard Blenko, the fourth generation president of Blenko Glass, founded in 1893, said:Hillary Homburg’s donation of her Blenko WV Anniversary glass collection is a major donation to a very worthy academic institution. Hillary is an avid Blenko collector as well as a profound advocate for the state of West Virginia. She routinely has promoted Blenko and the state in a professional manner and her enthusiasm for the state makes her a national ambassador for all West Virginians.
The College of Creative Arts is so very pleased to receive this wonderful gift of Blenko Glass which celebrates the heritage of our state,added Dean J. Bernard Schultz.These beautifully crafted pieces will hold a place of honor in West Virginia University’s Permanent Art Collection.
Although Homburg said it was a difficult decision to donate her collection, she hopes people from all over the country who visit WVU will be able to see Blenko Glass and its importance to West Virginia.
The idea to give the glass came to me while I was a student assistant helping with New Student Orientation,Homburg said.I realized that thousands of people visit campus each summer and each year. If Blenko Glass were displayed, perhaps those people would develop an interest and want to visit the factory or buy some glass and take it home as a souvenir of their trip to West Virginia.
This particular collection, she added, is the West Virginia Birthday Collection and is especially appropriate as it was designed and produced solely to honor West Virginia.
Blenko added,These art glass pieces represent a variety of Blenko designers who were major figures in the American glass scene. Don Shepherd was a designer of organic shapes and textures; Hank Adams was influenced by industrial shapes and with a rough texture. These items represent decades of design and color.
The Blenko Glass birthday pieces began in 1980, and since her birth, Homburg and her father have been in line waiting for their Blenko glass every year on West Virginias birthday.
My dad bought the Birthday Collection for me before I was bornand in 1985 I was in person in lineand every year thereafter,she said.
A recipient of WVU s prestigious Foundation Scholarship, Homburg used part of thestipend she received to create theBlenko Project,an advocacy program devoted to making people aware that Blenko is located in West Virginia and making glass the old fashion way. She hopes that her project and web site will make people aware that they can buy quality West Virginia glass instead of just quantity, she said.
She also writes a weblog for The Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, calledHeart of Glass.Homburg posts three or four items a week about West Virginia glass issues.
The website, The Blenko Project, can be found atwww.blenkoproject.org. Her online blog can be accessed at:http://media.herald-dispatch.com/blog/blenko/.
Blenko Glass is the only company other than Tiffany that makes stained glass for churches and blown glass for consumers, according to Blenko.William J. Blenko worked for Tiffany in 1920 for $50 a week,he said.Blenko has supplied gifts to past clients like: Carole Lombard, Irving Berlin, Rudi Vallee, Cary Grant, Ellenor Roosevelt, Maime Eisenhower, and George Bush Sr. Our stained glass can be seen in the Canton Football Hall of Fame; Harkness Library at Yale; The United States Air Force Academy Cathedral; Washington Cathedral and the Mormon Temple.
Blenko Glass has been featured in four PBS television documentaries.
The gift was made through the WVU Foundation, a private non-profit corporation that generates and provides support for West Virginia University and its non-profit affiliates.