Ball State’s Glass Alliance held their 2017 Fall Glass Pumpkin Sale

MUNCIE—There was a line out the door Saturday morning as people waited patiently to get their hands on a hand-made glass blown pumpkin made by students of Ball State’s Glass Alliance.

The 2017 Fall Glass Pumpkin sale in coordination with Minnetrista’s Farmers' Market, took place October 14 from 8am-12pm.

The sale emphasized that no two pumpkins were the same and colors and styles reflect the rich forms and colors of fall.

The Ball State Glass Alliance is a student run organization that is comprised of Ball State undergraduate and graduate art students studying various art glass techniques such as blown glass, kiln-working, cold-working and flameworking. The Guild seeks to provide the community with demonstrations and sales of student work.

Thomas Williamson, a senior sculpture major and member of the Glass Alliance said the money they make from the sale goes directly back to Glass Alliance in order to pay for trips.

“We try to go on one trip a semester…were going to Chicago in November for the International Sculpture Fair called SOFA (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art) and were trying to go to Europe next summer, Williamson said.”

The main portion of the money made at the 2017 Fall Glass Pumpkin Sale will go towards a trip the organization is trying to take to Europe, next summer.

“We will be taking a group of students to the Glass Art Society Conference, which is an international glass conference that rotates around different cities every year and this year it’s being held in Murano Italy,” Slate Grove, the Faculty Advisor for the Glass Alliance said.

Grove said the Fall Glass Pumpkin sale helps out students so they have to spend as little money out of pocket as possible.

Grove, in his second year as the Faculty Advisor for the organization, said they sold out in an hour last year.

“We realized we needed to make a lot more pumpkins this year since we sold out in an hour last year,” Grove said.

The Glass Alliance made over $4,000 in the first 3 hours of their sale this year and they still had many decorative pumpkins left for members of the community to buy.

Cody Smith, a resident of Noblesville, Indiana traveled to the sale again this year because his wife loved the pumpkin her got her last year.

“I stopped through here last year on my way to Fort Wayne and I ran across the sale while strolling through the Farmers Market. I picked one out for my wife and she loved it…that’s why I’m back again this year,” Smith said.

Every year the Ball State Glass Alliance has a year-end holiday sale featuring Christmas ornaments and sculptures, as well as any left over glass pieces that haven’t been sold throughout the year.

This year’s, year-end sale will be December 1st and 2nd. The first day will be held at the Alumni Center and the second day will be held at the Glick Center for Glass.

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