Gay fad

In the back of the building, a glassblowing studio hosts regularly scheduled demonstrations for visitors. After not being able to find a job out of college as a dress designer, her original dream, she began hand-painting her own designs. On the way home from one, she got into a car accident, which led to later health issues.

Then, in , Continental Can Co. Soon after, it began producing designs that Taylor and her employees believed had been stolen from them. What is Gay Fad? Gay Fad was a major glass decorating business that started in Detroit and ran from In that short 7 year period, they produced many designs that are now well-known and recognizable.

Midcentury just got a makeover. After working with an engineer for a year, Taylor found a way to make the designs permanent. Taylor would often come downstairs to read to the children before heading home. Her employees used ceramic paint and pigment to hand-paint the glasses before placing them in an oven that heated the ceramic chips in the paint.

When they began to sell, she launched Gay Fad Studios in Gay Fad Studios employed more than factory employees who worked in its 46,square-foot headquarters and production facility. Whether for commercial or residential use, custom glass makes any moment more memorable.

The museum tells the story of how the glass industry shaped Ohio, but it also gives residents of Lancaster an appreciation for the place they call home. Gay Fad Studios’ designs were known for the detail patterns and vibr. She learned glass was cheap and being produced in abundance in Lancaster and its surrounding cities, so she moved there in Her company operated out of a 46,square-foot headquarters and production facility on Pierce Avenue, and she created a unique company culture.

Who is Fran Taylor? A groundbreaking legacy resurrected in a Glass Town. When World War II began, factories switched over to wartime production, making metal scarce, and Taylor needed a new plan. Having just helped complete a large mural honoring military veterans for the side of the Fairfield County Visitation Center along East Main Street, the Annecys were excited for another chance to help bring public art to the community and did the project pro bono.

After her 2-year-old sister died of pneumonia in her care, an year-old Taylor was sent to live with her aunt in Detroit. After that, production soared, and by the late s, Gay Fad Studios was a name known not just in Lancaster, but around the world. 1, talking about this · were here.

After a while, customers began to complain that the designs were coming off, so she needed to find a new approach. When a mining accident put her father out of work, the rest of the family packed up and moved to Detroit as well — all of them sharing the same home.

Fran Taylor founded Gay Fad Studios in and oversaw its production until its closure in She is pictured here in a photograph from , during the height of her success. Following its demise, Taylor was in meetings to close out business matters. The glasses were then cooled slowly, which made the designs adhere to the glass.

She even went as far as arranging buses to pick up female artists from more than an hour away and bring them to work. The colorful collection celebrates Anchor Hocking, the glass company that opened in Lancaster in and still operates there today, as well as other glassmakers tied to the state of Ohio.

Fran Taylor shattered expectations in the midth century before her story was swept away by time. From there, the troubles began to stack up. Between its founding in and closure in , Gay Fad Studios was known for its artful, mid-century modern glassware adorned with colorful geometric patterns as well as caricatures and imagery that not only broke new ground in design but became highly sought after by collectors.

The daughter of a Pennsylvania coal miner who immigrated to the United States from Poland, Taylor was the oldest of five children, and the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings often fell to her. The popularity of her glassware launched Taylor on a road to success — one that carried her far away from the poverty she experienced in her youth but also one fraught with challenges.

When Taylor made the switch to using glass for her products, she had simply cold painted the designs on the surface, let them dry and sold them. Gay Fad Studios glassware is a unique way to raise the bar. Source: National Women’s History Museum. Fran Taylor’s Gay Fad Studios was a world-renowned Mid-Century cocktail glassware and barware design company from Many pieces in her collection were hand decorated which created very high demand during the Mid-Century cocktail experience.

Consider its use for breweries, wineries, distilleries, restaurants, bars, and gift shops or events like fundraisers, weddings, retirements, anniversaries, and significant birthdays. But the story should really start with an incredible woman named Fran Taylor. Kennedy was in the White House.

While sifting through potential themes that reflected local history, Jason recalled those pieces of decorated glass he had seen four years earlier and the unusual name of the company that made it: Gay Fad Studios.