Recognize this marble master? This is Dave McCullough (deceased, 2024). Former owner and operator of D.A.S. Marbles, Dave brought tons of experience and knowledge to the contemporary marble scene. His vision of color connects glass and nature through the marbles which he has run over several decades, and his work has many followers and fans.
Before opening his own hot glass studio, Dave worked with Champion and Jabo marble companies and perfected his own special style of manufacturing marbles. We are Dave McCullough fans and have a growing collection of D.AS. glass marbles, including Comanche Moon, Springtime, and a series of Appalachian Swirls that evoke the beauty his home state, West Virginia. Then there are his proprietary runs at D.A.S. which are financed and named by others.
Commissioning a Run from the Marble Master
Lucky us! We were fortunate enough to commission a run over the 4th of July weekend in 2015. We named our run Everglades, in honor of the beloved area in what was then our home state of Florida. [We now live in Mobile, Alabama after losing most of everything we owned in flooding.]
After camping near the glades and taking photos capturing its vast colors, Dave used our 2 dimensional photos to create 3 dimensional representations in glass, with several “named” marbles resulting in names like gator, marsh grass, glades, swamp peeper (a tiny frog) and citrus.
Below are photos of two of Dave’s 2021 runs: Wildflowers and Mountain Harmony.
We turned to Dave again a few years later. A shelving unit displaying much of our Akro Agate general line collection toppled over in the middle of the night. Everything that hit the tile floor was destroyed. Most pieces turned to glass fragments. We were able to pick up enough small pieces to fill a small flat-rate USPS box. We sent this to Dave. He combined it with another base color to make a few marbles at the end of one of his runs.
You can read more about Dave’s history and life in Chapter 10 of our book. His Obituary is available at. https://www.wtap.com/2024/10/16/obituary-mccullough-david-junior/ Miss you brother!
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