The World’s Tallest Glass Tree, a community-made art installation constructed from recycled glass, will stand at 36 feet tall at the Historic Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay.
The tree’s construction will be open to the public Dec. 6-8 and Dec. 13-15, and attendees will have the chance to help build the tree themselves and craft their own glass-blown ornament on a bench-top torch. The event culminates with the tree’s star-topping on Dec. 15 at 4 p.m.
This is the third year the World’s Tallest Glass Tree will return to Yerkes Observatory, created by producer Rob Elliott and glass artist Jason Mack. This years tree will feature new hues of blue and white.
“Seeing the looks on people’s faces when they see [The World’s Tallest Glass Tree] for the first time, is truthfully my favorite part,” Elliott says.
Before building begins, community members can donate glass of all colors at one of the four collection bins around Lake Geneva and Williams Bay. (Harbor Shores and Gino’s East: 300 Wrigley Dr., Lake Geneva; Strategic Materials: 1845 Hobbs Dr., Delavan; Williams Bay Sailboat Rigging Lot: 41 E. Geneva St. Williams Bay; Fontana Home Outdoor: 127 Valley View Dr., Fontana)
Last year, Elliot and Mack collected over 17 tons (34,000 lbs.) of glass. Only about 3,000 lbs. is needed to create the tree. The remaining glass is sent to Strategic Materials, Inc. (SMI), in Delavan, where it is cleaned, sorted and crushed before being sent to Burlington to be recycled into new items. “Keeping it out of the landfills is basically the idea,” Elliott says. “One bottle in the landfill will last a million years in the ground. At the same time, you can take that bottle, crush it, melt it and make the same bottle a million times without losing any property.”
To build the tree, they melt about 300 lbs. of glass at a time in a mobile furnace, which turns the glass to the consistency of honey. Small amounts of the melted glass are gathered onto the end of a long metal rod and dripped onto the steel “skeleton” of the tree. The structure is spun as the melting glass drips over it, wrapping it around the skeleton, where it hardens to form the tree. For $10, attendees can add glass themselves (with safety glasses).
“My kids have been doing it since they were three,” Elliott says. “It’s super fun and such an experience for people. … It lets them become part of the making of the tree, not just by donating their glass, but by actually adding the hot glass.”
After the festivities, the tree is taken down, and Mack uses the glass to make miniature trees. All of the trees for sale at this year’s event were made from last year’s tree. “That continues that message of how you can forever use this stuff,” Elliott says.
Elliott and Mack have been friends since the eighth grade. When Mack learned how to blow glass at the age of 17, he taught Elliott, and the pair opened a shop to make and sell glass products.
In college, at Illinois State University, Mack studied sculpture and Elliott studied recreation and tourism management. During their time at university, the duo would host live events at their shop, where Mack would build hot glass sculptures. In 2009, they built their first glass tree, standing at 12 feet tall, at one of these events. “It was fun, and we did that for many years,” Elliott said.
After college, the large-scale sculptures were set aside for a few years while Elliott and Mack focused on their careers and families. Then in 2020, Mack built a tree in Champaign, Illinois for an event, and repeated it in 2021.
Three years ago, he and Elliott moved the event to Yerkes Observatory and decided to attempt making their tree the tallest in the world. The now-second tallest know glass tree sculpture stands in Murano, Italy at 28 feet.
For more information or to purchase tickets for the 2024 World’s Tallest Glass Tree event, visit Elliott and Mack’s website.
