From an early age Eddie Bernard enjoyed working with his hands and figuring out how things are put together. When he was 10 years old, his mother, an artist working primarily in clay and paper, had an interest in the sawdust fired pottery of Maria Martinez and other Native American potters of San Ildefonso Pueblo, NM, so they traveled to the pueblo to meet the potters in 1983. Upon their return home to Louisiana, they built a small kiln of firebrick in which to replicate the firing process they observed and which produced a very dark black surface that could be burnished with a stone. In 1988, at the age of 15, Eddie began working for Craig McCullen making stained glass panels. At 17 years old, he began apprenticing Paulo Dufour in the stained glass trade, and it was Paulo who introduced Eddie to hot glass. This early interest in glass lead him to School of American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology to study glass blowing. While there he had the opportunity to build his first glass melting furnace, and a love affair with building equipment was reignited. In the Spring of 1996, during his last semester of college, Eddie went to the Corning Museum to help install The Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass. He was offered the job as The Studio’s shop technician and also took on the role of stained glass program founder and instructor after graduating with a BFA at RIT. He moved back to Louisiana later that same year and founded Wet Dog Glass, LLC (WDG). In the late 1990’s the company built a handful of raku and cone 10 electric ceramic kilns but maintained a sharper focus on the glass art field. The company quickly became the preeminent glass blowing equipment manufacturer in the United States.
The company resided in New Orleans, LA until the spring of 2008 when we moved to Star, NC. Located in rural Piedmont of North Carolina has afforded WDG the opportunity to conduct further research into high efficiency refractories and heat exchange systems, and interactive control systems. The close proximity to the very large and long lived pottery community of Seagrove, NC has allowed WDG to
collaborate with potters to design a new line of ceramic kilns.
We at WDG are committed to providing our clients with top-notch services and products that range from studio equipment design, fabrication and installation to consultation and technical support. We are specialists in combustion, safety and control systems, so you can count on us to provide you with exactly what you need. We understand the need for efficiency and so we put forth great effort into bringing you products of the highest quality. Since 1996, we have helped glass and ceramic artists around the world to solve problems unique to each situation. When you call on WDG for assistance, we give you all we’ve got!
