Started in 1974, Bullseye Glass quickly evolved from a humble stained glass factory in Portland, OR to become one of the most popular manufacturers of colored art glass in the world. Early feedback from glass artists steered Bullseye toward researching ways to produce a wider variety of colors and textures of glass that are compatible with each other. Multiple pieces of glass that are not compatible cannot be fired, fused, or blown together, because the differing coefficients of expansion will introduce structural stress as the piece cools, causing it to crack or shatter entirely.
Easy access to prominent glass artists at the Pilchuck Glass School in nearby Puget Sound allowed intense collaboration between Bullseye and the glass art community, who came to Pilchuck from all over the world. By 1980, Bullseye had created the world's first line of glass that was specifically tested to be compatible for fusing together in a kiln. Bullseye has steadily grown the variety of their collection, as well as the methods that can be used on the glass. Today, Bullseye makes a dizzying array of glass sheets, rods, frit (pulverized glass), and glass powder that are all compatible with each other for practically any glassforming process imaginable.
If Bullseye weren't already so immensely popular among glassworkers, their regular donations of materials to glass art schools around the world could be cynically construed as an advertising ploy. Glass is manufactured from raw ingredients at the Bullseye factory in southeast Portland, while sales and glassworking classes take place at the Bullseye Connection, a spacious store, workshop, and gallery in northwest Portland's trendy Pearl District. Bullseye Glass is on the web at www.bullseye-glass.com. Leave the dash out of that URL and you'll get some lame windshield repair company.