RMDZ Business Success Story

Fire & Light Originals, Inc.

Fire & Light Originals, Inc. glassware reflects more than just great taste in glassware--it shows awareness. Made from recycled glass bottles and jars on California’s rugged North Coast, Fire & Light products are designed for real life.

Fire & Light hand-poured glass tableware has a way of drawing the eye, enchanting the viewer with the unique play of light that filters through its rich spectrum of colors and textures. This enchantment is not simply a quality of the glass or its pigmentation, but of the very way in which it is made, the very hands that pour and press it, the beliefs and spirit that drive the people who craft the product, and the community from which it originates.

John and Natali McClurg purchased the company in 1999. Together with a team of 20 people, and help from an RMDZ loan, Fire & Light Originals is handcrafting the beautiful giftware and dinnerware that is now shipped to specialty stores and galleries throughout the country. The company's owners state, "The enlightened practices that gave rise to the company continue to inform everything we do. Fire & Light still strives to find new ways to incorporate recycling into its production process, whether it's tumbling broken dishes to make Sea Glass, a product used in aquariums and decorating, or using recycled beer kegs from local microbreweries as vats to cool our ladles."

Fire & Light glassware is a product whose history is a kind of future, where age-old craftsmanship meets innovative manufacturing, utilizing postconsumer glass as a resource. The owners add, "But it's the beauty that will get you, the twinkle of light on the surface of a watery blue bowl, and the knowledge that we get as much happiness out of making the bowl as you will from having it on your table."

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Last updated: November 01, 2007