“I make pieces that I myself would like to live with. My background as a painter led me to relate to clay forms as three-dimensional canvases; when I began blowing glass, the dimension of motion and flow were added. I use lampworked imagery in my new work. Nature is my inspiration. I use nature as an impulse, blending my feelings and fantasies. I add and delete as I deem necessary to achieve a piece that will evoke a feeling of wonder and intrigue.” Yaffa Sikorsky-Todd, “All About Paperweights”.

William Manson Paperweights was founded in July 1997 in Perth, Scotland by William Sr and his wife Joyce, joined by their son William and daughter Carolyn. With more than thirty years of glassmaking experience behind him, William Sr is regarded as Scotland’s leading glass artist. His son, William, is rapidly gaining experience and is recognised by paperweight collectors and dealers as a talented young artist in his own right. Using age old techniques, backed by state-of-the-art equipment at their studio, the artists at William Manson Paperweights create limited edition glass paperweights of exquisite beauty. Their range of lampwork designs include flowers, insects, reptiles and fish. Every paperweight produced at the studio bears the artist’s signature cane, they are also signed in script on the base, numbered and dated.

“Ebelhare’s next inspiration came from a copy of American Glass Paperweights and Their Makers. He was not impressed by the work of most of the glassworkers featured in Jean Melvin’s historic work, but the millefiori of Charles Kaziun caught his eye. At a meeting of the Texas Bluebonnet Chapter of the PCA later that year, he met former chapter President Harvey Jones, who was to become instrumental in his growth as an artist. ‘He wouldn’t leave me alone,’ says Ebelhare. ‘He collected millefiori and wanted me to make some, but I just couldn’t do it. In the folllwing year, I tried countless times. At the same time, I was successfully producing torchwork floral pieces, but I had a lust for that Kaziun millefiori rose.
Lawrence Selman, “Drew Ebelhare: A New Heir to the Millefiori Throne” from the Annual Bulletin of the Paperweight Collectors’ Association, Inc. (1997).