At Arch One Glass, Rob Wallace is the local glassblower you never knew you had in your community. Located at 51 Main Street In Chester, CT Rob is employed in a centuries old profession in the quaint coastal Connecticut town.

Recently Rob began a radically new approach to his career after receiving a liver cancer diagnosis in December of 2015. In June of 2016, Rob dove head-first into a newly found passion for creating handmade glass jewelry inspired by life on the Connecticut Shoreline.

After first receiving his diagnosis, Rob was paralyzed by anxiety and depression, causing him to lock up his studio for more than a month and a half. Once the initial shock subsided, Rob returned to his studio without the intent of keeping it business as usual.

“[Glassblowing] gave me an outlet to deal with the anxiety. When I came in to the studio for the first time I didn’t want to do the scientific work, I wanted to just be free form, just melt the glass and listen to chill music, and I found myself making these beautiful pendants…” To date, Rob has been producing his own line of jewelry, blending driftwood, multicolored glass and functionality with his art.

Rob has been employed in the industry as a producer of glass commodities for medical and scientific research for the past thirty years. While his work has remained scientific in nature, Rob has yet to feel the fatigue that most would have had felt three decades into their career; “I am a master glassblower but you never really stop learning. That is what is nice about this profession. There are always new techniques. There are always new things happening, so it keeps it interesting. There is always a new way to do something.”

Though Rob has been producing glass commodities for three decades, his work has remained sequestered behind the closed doors of universities and research labs. Rob decided to start Arch One Design as a way to create a lasting legacy and help fund the research he was once a part of, but now needs to combat his own illness; “Being tied into research my whole life as a scientific glassblower by trade and supporting [Research and Development] for thirty years I have always been on the cutting edge of drug research and now I need that to save me, and how do I do that? I want to help support the research, not only by making the glass [researchers] need, but by also giving the proceeds of my art pieces to the Liver Cancer Society to fight against the cancer that inspired the jewelry, it is something that lives on.”