A glassblower for twenty years, Leah Allison knew from the moment she started blowing glass that she wanted to do it for the rest of her life. She started her glass career at Bavin Glassworks in Invermere, BC, and spent 15 years there honing her craft. When Leah first visited Revelstoke more than a decade ago, she saw what a special place it was. Her first thought was, “I can’t stay here because there’s no glass shop.” 

In 2014, while still working at Bavin Glassworks, Leah fell in love and moved to Revelstoke. After four years of commuting three hours each way every week, she decided it was time to open her own studio here. Big Eddy Glass Works opened in June 2018, which brought glassblowing to a whole new market. “I love being able to live and work in Revelstoke,” says Leah, “and I love the people and spirit of this town so much.”

Opening a glass shop takes a lot of time, energy and tooling. “It took us a year to build out the space and open up shop,” says Leah. She needed a variety of specialized equipment: a furnace and crucible to hold molten glass, a reheating furnace for working the glass, an annealing oven where items cool down after they’re made, a pipe warmer, workbenches, a marver table used to shape the hot glass, blow pipes and punties (special pipes and rods for working the glass), and a variety of other tools. She rented a huge truck and brought it all back from Canned Heat, a glass blowing equipment supplier in Portland. 

The shop, located at 1741 Celgar Road, does double duty as a hot shop and a gallery where you can buy Leah’s beautiful hand crafted glassware. Leah does all the initial design and most of the glass blowing. With a varied product line and lots to make, Leah has a dedicated team who all do cold working tasks like grinding, signing and sandblasting, along with helping customers and assisting with glass blowing. 

Big Eddy Glass Works’ shop values are to do a good job, be nice and have fun doing it. From product design, manufacturing, and marketing, Leah wants everything to be done with kindness. She prides herself in keeping a creative and clean shop, to show off the beautiful artwork made there everyday. She welcomes guests and shoppers, assisting all who walk in the door to find the perfect piece of glass to take home. She’s always had that mindset throughout every job she’s done and she encourages it in her staff. 

The Big Eddy Glass Works studio is open to the public and they’re always up to something interesting. You can watch them blow glass in the hot shop while you shop the colourful gallery, and you’ll leave with a new appreciation for the expertise required to make the products. The studio has a real community feel to it, with drop-in sandblasting workshops, bead-making classes, and legendary parties. “One of the most rewarding parts is the community showing up to all my events,” grins Leah. Clad in sparkles, her enthusiasm shines even more brightly than usual when she welcomes hundreds of people to her shop parties and annual winter holiday market in December. In June 2023, she held a five-year anniversary party to thank Revelstoke for its ongoing support and enthusiasm. For the summer of 2023, Leah also had a downtown presence at the Revelstoke Farmers Market each Saturday, where she has been able to meet locals and tourists alike, introduce them to Big Eddy Glass Works, and share her love of glass blowing. Join Leah and the rest of the crew in December for the next holiday market.

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xo Leah