Art of Glass in the Family

By Teresa AnnasThe Virginian-Pilot© May 9, 2009
SUFFOLK



Kids: No matter what you do, they're embarrassed. They rebel. Then they grow up to be kind of like you. Only different.



Take the Bernsteins. William and Katherine and one of their sons, Alex, are glass artists in the western mountains of North Carolina, one of the world's hottest regions for glass art.

Alex didn't set out to work in glass. But now he and his parents are a family within a family - the tight-knit group of artists in the American studio glass movement, which officially began in 1962. That's when Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino led a workshop showing a few adventurous souls how they could blow glass art in their own studios.

Littleton's a buddy of the Bernsteins; he lives a 25-minute drive away, when he's not in Florida. Alex was born in Littleton's town, Spruce Pine, N.C. Glass legends like Dale Chihuly stopped by Alex's house when he was young.





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Photo: Alex Bernstein, with his ''Town Mountain,'' joined his parents, Katherine and William Bernstein, in the family glass business. (Vicki Cronis-Nohe The Virginian-Pilot)