Part of Bullseye’s Dream Team: left to right, that’s Erik, Tom, Paul and Nathan, loading a 300 lb casting made up of over 700 individual strips of glass.

Today Bullseye’s Research & Education department has a staff of seven full-time technicians who help artists wrestle through new processes and trouble-shoot old ones. They also develop and teach short courses, test new glasses, brainstorm new methods and document what they learn in technical papers that are distributed free on the internet.
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In response to my story yesterday about Bullseye’s beginnings, I got this email from Linda Steider:

“I used to bring my students from the gorge to tour the factory & especially loved it when our tour guide would point out the old beam that was left in place from when the factory was being built around the houses without tearing them down first. Is the beam still there?”

Linda’s question sent me back to the archives for this tour of THE YEAR WE BUILT THE NEW FACTORY OVER THE OLD ONE.

The first Bullseye “factory” was a little frame house in a Southeast Portland neighborhood called Garlic Gulch. As the company grew - and the neighbors evacuated, the guys would buy the house next door, until they owned 5 or 6 shacks cobbled together with corrugated metal and duct tape.
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…MAYBE SOMEBODY WILL BUY IT. Making stringer, circa 1983: nail posts onto board, put board on potter’s wheel, gather glass from furnace, turn on wheel…

In Bullseye’s second decade, the 1980s and early 1990s, the founders’ obsession with fusing continued to drain the company’s resources. There was almost no market for their dream.
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This is circa 1975, maybe 18 months after Bullseye started. From left to right that’s Ray, David, Dan (my partner), Dave (without his magpie), Liz, Kerry and Vicky.

I got here in 1983. More about that - and me - later. For now, what matters is that this is my first blog. Where I’m going to try to tell you about Bullseye, the company. It’ll take a few episodes to get you up to date. Then we can deal with being BE - today.

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