BECon 2007: Done Right
By Scott Benefield
It would be hard to find a smarter company doing business in the field of studio glass than Bullseye. Starting as a hippie partnership that made sheet glass for the burgeoning stained glass market in the 70s, they have morphed into an innovative and dynamic business that pioneered the field of kiln-glass. They were the first to develop a palette of compatible colored sheet glass and have kept on the leading edge of kilnforming by aggressive marketing, technical innovation, and strong after-market support. They have been especially adept at promoting Bullseye and its products by supporting individual artists and their work through their publications and their participation in major exhibitions (such as the SOFA shows and their own Bullseye Gallery), and by supporting educational initiatives that feature its line (at Pilchuck Glass School, ANU/Canberra, the North Lands Creative Glass master sessions, and a host of smaller, community-based workshops).
Bullseye strives to create a system sufficient unto itself—it will inspire you through exhibitions, instruct you in proper techniques, and sell you everything from glass to the kilns you need to melt it in. Lately they have begun to create their own means to network within that system: BECon. BECon is a biennial conference that brings together artists and practitioners that have demonstrated an interest in Bullseye, and it works brilliantly. It exemplifies the company’s own thoroughness and intelligence in its conception, planning and execution.
It is small, by GAS conference standards or at least by what GAS has metastasized to become. Registration for the event is capped at 250 and applicants are juried in order to assemble a professional gathering, as opposed to a mass-marketing event for students, hobbyists and amateurs. This self-imposed limit makes everything else possible: a single track for lectures and panel discussions, manageable logistics for transportation by bus, an air of greater intimacy amongst attendees, and in general a greater concentration on quality rather than quantity. It becomes possible to gather everybody together in a space that does not require an airplane hanger, and at the end of three days you have at least a nodding acquaintance with your fellow conference-goers.
Another advantage is that the event is always held in Portland, Oregon, home to the Bullseye operation. A predictable, familiar environment, where long-term relationships with vendors and sites can be cultivated, it also has the distinctive plus of being able to host events at the Bullseye factory (conveniently located next to their retail outlet). Although the bulk of the program was based in the downtown Hilton hotel, many other congenial aspects of Portland—including excellent restaurants, parks and a newly-renovated contemporary craft museum—were immediately available in a walkable radius.
The event is staffed by paid Bullseye employees, who are presumably held accountable to some standard of performance, and not by volunteers (who are often wonderful people but are also wildly varying in competence, diligence and reliability). The tech display, which was a new feature at this year’s conference, was quite small—but then again, Bullseye would rather sell you what you need itself rather than look to outside vendors. This is not a swipe at the profit motive that drives business--a for-profit venture can align itself with many of the goals of non-profit organizations (in this case, the dissemination of information, the opportunity to network, the exploration of artistic possibilities of the medium), and at the same time take advantage of the inherent efficiencies of a profit-driven operation.
The theme of the third BECon was architectural glass, which seems to be the next frontier for Bullseye’s ambition. They have been working their way up to this with the production of larger sheets of glass to serve as fusing substrates, R&D of large scale kiln fusing equipment and practices, and development of their own in-house facilities for consulting with artist/designers and executing architectural work.
The program itself was a blend of inspiration and practical information of a technical nature, weighted more towards the latter than the former. Topics covered in the three-day program included color theory, case studies of architectural glass projects, how to market a proposal, health and safety standards, legal issues and building codes. Many of the speakers were drawn from the field of architecture and the presenters who were working with glass would not be widely known outside of their niche market. The exception to this slight representation of glass world celebrities was Narcissus Quagliata, the keynote speaker, who has long been in the Bullseye stable of artists and long been associated with integrating glass art into architecture.
Bullseye’s approach is not a hard sell, but rather a more subtle appeal: to endow the consumer with a greater faith in their products and their vision of the future of kilnformed glass. If you accept the premise that BECon is, first and foremost, a marketing event put on by a very shrewd company, then you must also admit that it is doing a great service to the field. And in its concept, planning and execution, it may hold many lessons that deserve our consideration.
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This review was first published in GAS News, September 2007. Author Scott Benefield is a widely published, award-winning studio artist who exhibits and teaches across the U.S. and abroad. He is a past President of the Glass Art Society and the founder of Isola Glass, Camano Island, Washington.