
Wakefield, Rhode Island, glass artist Eben Horton was well-known and respected for his gorgeous, soft-colored, marbled glass objects, but he wanted to do something to add surprise and mystery to his work. So in 2009, he began the Glass Float Project, making and hiding glass fishing floats like the kind used hundreds of years ago along the beaches and walking trails of Block Island. When people come across them, they feel like they’ve discovered treasure.
In a way, the idea for the project was planted early. His father was a curator at the Newport Art Museum, and his family was fond of sailing to nearby Block Island. As a child, Horton spent a lot of time searching the island’s beaches for treasure. The glass bottles he found on the island combined with his father’s love of art inspired Horton’s interest in making glass.
Every year, Horton hides 550 hollow, hand-blown clear glass balls around the island, each sealed with an image of Block Island, a date and number, and the project’s URL. Horton makes each year’s float #1 extra special by incorporating gold leaf, and he makes a limited number of special colored balls as well.
“The rules are simple. If you find one, Keep it!! If you find another, please leave it so that someone else can find it. We ask that if you find one, please register your find with the Block Island Tourism Council on their website. Registering your float helps us keep track of how many floats are out ‘in the wild’.”
You can follow Horton on his website, on The Glass Station’s website, and on Facebook. You can learn more about the Glass Float Project on its website and you can donate to the project on GoFundMe.
All images property of Eben Horton/The Glass Station.










November 20, 2018 at 7:30 am
This is such a beautiful project! Thanks for sharing.
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November 20, 2018 at 10:26 am
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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November 20, 2018 at 8:28 am
Thanks for this. We vacationed on Block Island for ten summers. We’ve forsaken it lately for warmer waters in the Caribbean, but I think of it all the time and really miss it. I love the glass and enjoyed your post. We live in the east coast town of Glassboro, so named because of the glassblowing industry here. I will visit the website link. Thanks so much.
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November 20, 2018 at 10:27 am
I haven’t been since I was a child. Clearly I need to go back! Glassboro sounds like Nirvana to me.
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November 20, 2018 at 11:26 am
They don’t blow glass here anymore, but in a town about twenty minutes away they have a lot of decorative glass and glass-blowing. That area is called Wheaton Arts and is in Millville, NJ. We live in a very sandy area so the materials were available back in the heyday of glassblowing here.
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November 20, 2018 at 12:31 pm
I’ll certainly check that out. Thank you so much!
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November 20, 2018 at 10:15 am
This reminds me so much of the book 36 Views of Mt. Fuji by Cathy Davidson. There is a whole section of her scouring an island for glass floats and giving them as gifts to people.
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November 20, 2018 at 10:29 am
How fun! We spend a lot of time mucking around on our local uninhabited islands, and while we find bottles and sea glass, we’ve never found a float. That would be thrilling!
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November 20, 2018 at 10:47 am
Here’s hoping you have luck next time.
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November 20, 2018 at 2:51 pm
What a very cool abandoned art project. It really would feel like discovering treasure to happen upon one of these.
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November 20, 2018 at 3:08 pm
I’ve never heard the term ‘abandoned art’ before, but I love it!
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November 20, 2018 at 4:00 pm
You should look it up. You might find material for blog posts. It’s a pretty big movement, operating on different scales. I actually used to participate in the past when I was more productive with my art output. I would leave little illustrations in ziplock bags for people to find and keep. I want to get back to doing that sort of thing at some point.
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November 20, 2018 at 4:03 pm
Love this idea!
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November 20, 2018 at 5:15 pm
Now this would be fun. I woder if any of them float out to sea and are found in a distant place.
I once did a ‘Butterfly drop’ in Carthage. Leaving three clues the person who found it got $ 250.0 to give to their favorite charity. Oh ..and I got to decorate the wooden butterfly that I hid. It was fun .
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November 20, 2018 at 7:32 pm
I love the idea of them sailing the seas, having their own adventures. The butterfly drop sounds like fun!
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November 20, 2018 at 7:52 pm
I think the butterfly drop is still goingon. Mosty out west. There is ,or was, a web site for them. Started by an artist and his wife.
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November 20, 2018 at 11:13 pm
I’ll go check them out. I always learn such great things from you!
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