A Biography of Robert L. Hamon
Master glass artist, Robert L. Hamon, was born on November, 23, 1925 in the West Virginia town of Milton. His father, Okie, a glassblower and preacher, started the family glass business in 1932, along with his brothers, Otis and Orville.
Okie introduced Robert, his first-born son, to glassblowing when Robert was only ten years old. At the age of twelve, Robert became known as the youngest maker of hand blown chimneys in the world. He learned to make communion glasses and stem ware, eventually graduating to colorful decorative glass, and finally art glass.
Robert practiced his beloved trade for sixty-five years. Glass was his life. Long considered one of the country’s premier paperweight makers, Robert also made stately vases and exquisite freeform sculptures, using secret family recipes that were perfected over the decades. Robert was involved with every facet of glass making, from mixing the batch in the raw state to grinding and polishing the finished pieces. Moreover, he handled sales and marketing with the help of his wife, Veronica. For many years, he was the President of his own company.
Thousands of visitors, including countless school children, watched Robert craft magical works in his grotto-like studio in Scott Depot. Whether he was crafting impromptu figurines, one-of-a-kind marbles, or awards for The United Way, Robert invited guests into the studio to become a part of the glass making experience. An entertainer and showman, Robert L. Hamon never failed to delight his audience, often leaving them breathless, as he conjured his blown glass originals to life.
A keen eye for color and design helped Robert L. Hamon create works that stood apart. Their simple beauty and quiet charm belied the artist’s magnificent intuitive powers. Many of his creations were inspired by nature, and others evolved from dream motifs. He was a man who regarded flowers as cosmic beings, and cloud formations as a kind of primitive poetry. Hamon devoted his life to capturing the essence of the natural elements in glass, the beauty of small wonders, and paying homage to the extraordinary world within each of us.
An alchemist at heart, Hamon brought incredible versatility and longevity, along with the inquiring mind of a master renegade glass artist, to the hot-glass studio. Few artists could match his skills or compare with the power of his techniques. And no wonder, for Hamon, painting and sculpting with glass was a sacred tradition, which he inherited from the European artisans who settled in West Virginia long ago. His life-long goal was to build glass works that suggested the transformational process, and inspired the viewer.
Hamon possessed a magnetic personality, which helped define his work. He was a philosopher, mystic and healer. A fearless, innovative thinker, his greatest ideas were expressed in glass, a mysterious medium that fascinated Hamon, and yielded to his refined artistic will.
The way the glass moves and swirls, its inclusions enveloping the viewer’s imagination, suggests another dimension of thought and feeling. That’s what Robert L. Hamon intended: to transport the viewer to a realm beyond.
by: Richard E. Hamon II
