The Canberra Glassworks in Kingston turned five this weekend, and more than 1000 people turned out to tour the facility, watch artists at work and try their hand at glassblowing.
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Visitors were encouraged to engrave a birthday message on a large glass birthday card, which will later be put on public display.
Meanwhile, artists Annette Blair and Mel George drew a crowd as they created a life-size glass pavlova, complete with glass blueberries and kiwifruit on top. Some lucky children who won a design competition watched other artists turn their ideas into beautiful glass objects.
Ann Jackle has been chief executive of the glassworks since it opened in 2007, after a $11.5 million investment from the ACT government. She said the glassworks was now a major tourist attraction, with 50,000 people through the doors each year, many of them from outside Canberra.
Ms Jackle said Canberra was already considered the home of glass art in Australia thanks to the Australian National University School of Art's glass workshop, but the glassworks had helped cement that position.
