ASP & HAND

Asp & Hand is a glass design and production house creating handmade vessels, objects and custom forms in the Pacific Northwest. The house was founded in November 2017 by married couple Blair and Eli Hansen. Eli trained in the Seattle area for ten years, working for such esteemed glass artists as Dale Chihuly and Sonja Blomdahl before moving to New York State with Blair to pursue his own art career, which he continues to this day, as well as to start their family. Blair, meanwhile, spent fifteen years working at galleries, including Gagosian and Hauser & Wirth, as well as overseeing the archive of the Dash Snow Estate and the art studio of Dan Colen. In 2017, the duo moved back to Eli’s native Northwest with the idea to put art into our simplest, everyday rituals.

The Pacific Northwest is, inarguably, the capital of contemporary American glass art, thanks largely to Dale Chihuly, Richard Marquis and Benjamin Moore, whose dedication to glass brought them to the island of Murano in the late 1960s. Chihuly convinced two great Venetian maestros to return with him to the States, where the secrets of Italy’s unsurpassed glass craft were finally shared with an eager generation of American artists. We work with some of the most talented glass craftspeople in the world, with whom we share strong histories. Eli leads our production team in the glass shop, and Blair leads the design process.

“Because we come to design via fine art, we see ordinary objects as opportunities for functional sculpture. We want to encourage consideration and a general slowing of the pace of life. Inspired by kitschy American hobnail glass, medieval Bohemian beer hall prunts, Modern Italian form and the psychologically-charged elegance of Surrealism, Asp & Hand glass objects are uncanny, tactile, and intended for frequent use. The added “bits,” as we call them, on the outsides of the glassware borrow the utilitarian anti-slip grip of 14th century steins and bring increased awareness to the places where your body meets the vessel.”