Keri and Eli Gray founded Glare Goods on a simple premise: They wanted to make art, sustainably. After meeting as incoming freshmen at Virginia Commonwealth University — Keri was in the acclaimed School of Arts at the time; Eli transferred in later — their relationship evolved, eventually leading to a romantic as well as a business partnership. The pair created Glare Goods in mid-2019, offering hand-cut and -finished mirrors, coasters and serving boards, all made using castoff materials sourced from thrift shops, demolition sites and even customers hoping for new life from an old object. R•Home talked with the Grays about their growing business.
R•Home: How do you navigate being married and business partners?
Keri Gray: We are a lucky couple in that we started dating when we were very young. We both really admired each other’s taste in everything creative.
Eli Gray: We grew into each other’s artistic aesthetics. Now we have a deep understanding of what the other person likes and doesn’t like. At the center of the business, we know we’re not going to ask the other person to make anything they don’t like.
R•Home: How do you divide the workload?
Eli: I’m the ugly troll in the cave. I’m head-to-toe covered in dust. I do the glass shaping and the wood carving.
Keri: I’m sourcing materials, handling the website and emails, talking to others — creators, vendors — all the clean stuff.
R•Home: How do you meet the demand for your mirrors?
Eli: There’s so much stuff that exists all over the place, and it’s part of our job to find those things to have material to work with. Sometimes, the hard part is finding it, but we know there are thousands and thousands of mirrors just sitting in garages.
Keri: We want to do things by hand, and Eli’s taken almost three years to learn [how to craft mirrors]. It’s not like we can decide to crank out 200 mirrors next month.
R•Home: Your pieces are numbered, not named. Why?
Eli: Numbering our signature shapes started out as a simple system to keep track of everything. They’re like little characters in my mind.
Keri: A lot of people call Signature No. 5 a dancing star, but that might be too cutesy for someone. Customers can bring their own perspective to the shape and take it in a new direction.
