It didn’t start out as the largest gallery in the United States dedicated to art glass. In fact, initially, art glass was only one facet of its offerings. After a trip to California to see an art exhibit, Ferdinand Hampson, co-founder and president of Habatat Galleries, saw an opportunity and ran with it.

It was 1972, and the exhibit Ferdinand attended was a “carry your own art” exhibit. The invitational exhibit had only a few rules, one of which was, “if you could bring the work you wanted to display and if you were willing to pick it up after the exhibit was over, then you were invited.” Of that exhibit, Hampson notes, “Obviously the criterion for quality wasn’t high, but it was a real eye opener, because I saw all the things that were going on [with art glass] out there on the west coast.”

It was a year after Pilchuk Glass School was founded just north of Seattle, Washington and things were starting to heat up in the art glass scene. But there was a problem. “Artists working in glass had limited outlets to promote and sell their work,” recalls Hampson, “they were showing their pieces primarily in art fairs or craft shops.” At the time, there were no fine art galleries that had a real interest in featuring art glass. There was also some resistance in fine art circles; some skepticism about whether art glass really belonged. But Habatat Galleries saw the potential, and by 1980, when they moved to Lathrup Village from their initial space in Dearborn Michigan, they were featuring artists who worked in the medium of glass exclusively. . . . . .