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4 TIGARD MONTHLY | Thursday, October 24, 2013
— Brett Vinsant
B rett Vinsant watches from a balcony
as a large metal rod, red with heat,
is pulled from the fire in his Tigard
workspace. On its end is a large,
glowing ball of molten glass.
“You never get tired of watching it,” he
says, with a smile. “And you never get tired of
making it.”
In less than an hour, the orb will transform
into a beautiful glass bowl, one of dozens of
similar designs that line the walls of Live
Laugh Love Glass, the art gallery Vinsant
has operated in downtown Tigard for the past
three years.
But it’s far more than a gallery of glass
pieces. The business is also a learning ground
for people looking tomake their own creations.
Students of any age can take classes on how
to make a variety of glass art, from bowls and
paperweights to fused-glass pieces.
“In this economy, you have to keep
reinventing yourself,” Vinsant says. “We are
always wondering, ‘What else can we do?’”
Vinsant and his wife Natalie began glass
blowing as a hobby 13 years ago. The couple
took trips to the Oregon Coast where they
learned the craft from local glassblowers
before branching out on their own.
“It was a great date activity,” Natalie says.
At the time, Vinsant was CEO of ClearEdge
Power inHillsboro. Glass blowing soon became
a hobby, and passion.
“Everybody does everything else,” he says.
“(Glass blowing) just isn’t like anything else
out there.”
After leaving ClearEdge in 2009, Vinsant
says he wanted to do something different than
anything else in the Portland area.
“We could have owned a Starbucks, or fast
food chain, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
We wanted to find something totally unique.”
Live Laugh Love opened in the height of the
recession, but hasmanaged to carve a niche for
itself into Portland’s art scene.
Today,theshophasbecomealocalhotspotfor
vacationing tourists. Bus tours make regular
stops at the gallery on Friday nights.
“We seepeople fromNewZealand, Australia
and all over the world,” he says.
Live Laugh Love has served more than 6,500
people in classes this year alone, anddeveloped
a dedicated following of amateur glassblowers,
who return again and again to practice and
make new pieces.
Dreams of expansion
But there is a downside to being located in
Tigard, Vinsant says, and that’s the proximity
to other local galleries.
“We aren’t in the right area to be a gallery,”
Vinsant says.
But that could be changing in the next few
years.
Vinsant sees Live Laugh Love expanding
someday, with locations scattered across the
country.
“We can go into any market that has an art
interest and people,” Vinsant says. “That’s
part of the game is finding where that is next.”
Vinsant estimates that there are only a
Story by Geoff Pursinger | Photography by Jonathan House
Live Laugh Love brings
art, prestige to downtownTigard
Continued on Page 5 >>
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TIGARD MONTHLY
Live Laugh Love glass instructor Josefin Andersson uses a blowhose to create air within the molten glass to give it its balloon shape without creating a hole.
“You never get tired of watching it, and you never
get tired of making it.”