Glass Blowers Turn Glass Magnates In Portland

25 YEARS AFTER its humble beginnings, Bullseye Glass is a leader among U.S. firms that supply colored glass to artists and architects.

PORTLAND - The glass artists who started Bullseye Glass in the back yard of an old Southeast Portland house didn't intend to become businessmen.

They needed money to support their glass-blowing careers, which so far had not supported them. So they began turning out sheet glass in hard-to-get colors and selling it from a truck to stained-glass artists up and down the West Coast.

The plan was to amass some cash and return to their glass-art pursuits.

Today, 25 years after the company's humble beginnings, Bullseye is a leader among the dozen or so U.S. firms that supply colored glass for art and architectural applications.

The company also sells gift ware made by craftspeople using Bullseye glass, offers classes in glass-art techniques and provides a showcase for art pieces created by world-class artists at the Bullseye factory.

Last year, the company racked up profit of roughly $1 million on revenues of $6.5 million. Up to 40 percent of its sales are outside the United States, in Europe, Japan and South America.

Bullseye has made a major impact on the art world, beginning in the early 1980s. That's when it discovered how to make sheets of compatible colored glass that could be fused to form seamless, multicolored objects.

One of the founders, Dan Schwoerer, is now the sole owner.

Schwoerer, 56, who is trained in art and engineering, has seen his business flourish because he has persisted in being more than just a glass manufacturer. He has learned that by finding new techniques, working with master artists and supporting new ones his company can influence the future of the glass-art industry it supplies.

"When you think like an artist, you have these visions that are way out there," Schwoerer said. "That's good, because it separates you from the pack, yet the company is grounded in its sheet-glass business."

Although he always has remained close to his artistic roots, Schwoerer said he has become mainly a businessman and no longer yearns for his own art studio.

"I now get more pleasure out of seeing other artists creating things with our glass than I would have doing it myself as a sole practitioner," he said. "It's a sense of community. It's more than just one's self. . . . I want to see this company live beyond me."

Bullseye's development of its fused-glass process and its support of artists and art education set it apart from other companies, said Scott Benefield, a Washington glass artist. He and Schwoerer are board members of the Seattle-based Glass Art Society.

Bullseye, Benefield noted, established an artists-in-residence program in which glass masters periodically create original works at the Bullseye factory.

And, he said, Bullseye's support of education includes giving "tons of glass" to the Pilchuck Glass School, founded by glass artist Dale Chihuly in Stanwood.

By Schwoerer's estimate, Bullseye has spent roughly $2.5 million to support education and on research and development over the past five years.

In the early years, Schwoerer and his partners lived on subsistence allowances and plowed nearly all of the company's meager profits back into the business. After boosting profits by marketing their glass through importers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, they linked up with four distributors in 1977 and began selling nationally.

Borrowing by using its rising income stream as collateral, the company continued to build its revenues and gradually expand its facilities. The company also worked to stretch beyond the stained-glass field by developing other artistic uses for glass.

When Bullseye developed its fused-glass technique, it opened the way for myriad innovations. Fusible glass, artists found, could be formed into many multicolored items, including jewelry, dinnerware and decorative items for the home, as well as colorful panels used in modern buildings.

In the early '80s, Schwoerer bought out his partners, Boyce Lundstrom and Ray Ahlgren, both of whom remain in the glass-art business.

As the '80s progressed, Bullseye began to sell its products in Europe first to Swiss artisans, then in Germany and Italy.

By 1990, fused-glass sales began to take off in Europe, he said, and sales of stained glass have since waned. Today, Bullseye sells about 60 percent fusible glass and 40 percent non-fusible types.

Now, Schwoerer has something grander in mind. He said he recently bought a nearby building for $940,000 and will soon begin renovations, ultimately creating "a world-class gallery" for glass.