AlBo Glass
Doug Sheafor
Topeka, Kansas
AlBo Glass is a family well known for production of glass forms. Doug and Bo Sheafor and children, Bram, Nathan, and Alison, are among the few families in the USA who enjoy getting together over a pot of molten crystal!
AlBo Glass was born in 1990 when the youngest member, Alison, graduated from Kansas University with a degree in fine arts and subsequently needed a space to continue her passion for glass-blowing. Bo offered to help build a studio in the garage of the family’s 1888 home in Potwin, a neighborhood of Victorian homes in Topeka, Kansas. AlBo began as a union of mother and daughter and has become an evolving synthesis of family, friends and artistic creation.
Alison was the head gaffer for 3 years, assisted by Bo and Doug, until she moved to the grounds of the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Returning from competitive cycling and representing the U.S. at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Nathan, who also studied glass forming courses at KU and elsewhere, became head gaffer. He remained with AlBo Glass until he and two friends started their own studio, The Glass Forge, in Grants Pass, OR. By this time, Doug and Bo had taken several courses in glass-blowing at the Penland School and the Corning Museum Studio and were able to further develop AlBo Glass. Bram, the eldest, also learned to blow glass and helped Bo establish and maintain a successful business model.
Bo passed away unexpectedly in 2006, and Doug has carried on AlBo Glass with the help of associates Laura Engelhardt, Joyce Knott and Jen Oliver, who each contribute to a steady flow of new ideas and designs.
Our main goal at AlBo Glass is to produce beautiful, functional and sometimes funky objects to beautify our customers’ homes with affordable glass art.We also produce some one of a kind sculptural pieces. We never cease to take delight in the vibrant colors available and the way glass can magically capture and transmit light in a brilliant palette of colors. Though each of us have full time jobs and family members live far apart, we are drawn together by our love for each other and the art that singes arm hairs.
