Finding Your Marbles: Bruce Breslow’s transition from crazed curiosity to consistent career
Photo by Shea McGraw
For many, marbles are just small, vibrant, glass balls that hold no true significance. But for Bruce Breslow, they aren’t just items for a game or a pretty sight on the eyes. They’re his full-time job. From a small store in Bonner Springs, Breslow handcrafts marbles, turning sticks of glass into colorful sphere-shaped art that fits in the palm of your hand.
Breslow’s fascination with marbles started around his mid to late twenties. He and his wife, Sharron, were in Iowa one weekend when he found some old marbles at an antique store. Once he got back to their accommodations and got a better look, he couldn’t get enough of them.
“I bought a jar of marbles,” Breslow says. “We went back to the bed and breakfast and were getting ready for bed. I’d washed all the marbles, laid the towel down, and was sorting them all by color. I’m looking at them and an hour went by, [then] two hours.” His wife tried to pull him away after he had spent so much time sorting them, but he was immersed in the spheres’ illumination. “I couldn’t stop talking about the marbles.”
While Sharron admits the Iowa getaway played a hefty role in his newly found hobby, she explains how his interest in marbles could have started elsewhere. Breslow had over-ordered his marble purchase for his handmade game boards and had received a truckload of them. In turn, he decided to sell the excess at the Charles Dickens holiday fair in downtown KC. The unexpected result was that people started showing up at his store, Bruce’s Woodworks, to purchase the products. Unsatisfied with selling one kind of marble, he started to make his own.
Sharron saw his newfound passion and was no stranger to helping him. She listened to his marble mumbles and found books on glass blowing to help accelerate his expertise. With fresh marble making knowledge and time to learn, he gathered his torch, sheet metal, c-clamp, and handmade molds and got to work. Through Sharron’s help, Breslow learned that marble makers would sometimes carve their own molds from cherry or apple wood.
Photo by Shea McGraw
Formerly serving the community as a woodworker, he transitioned his brick-and-mortar from Bruce’s Woodworks to Moon Marble Company. And with a dead cherry tree in his yard to work with, it was an easy choice for him to start crafting his own casts.
Breslow started offering the public glimpses of what his work truly looks like, hosting free demonstrations on the process. Unfortunately, the process of crafting the molten hot marbles in a wood mold became a hazard for attendees.
“It caused trouble for the audience because it put out so much smoke,” says Breslow. “So I stopped using them.” He called up an acquaintance of his who also worked with glass and found that he used graphite for his molds, so Breslow decided to follow suit. “I went down to the junkyard, bought a bunch of blocks of graphite, sharpened one of my drill bits half round, I drilled some holes, and that’s what I made all my marbles with.”
Photo by Shea McGraw
When it comes to creating the marbles, Breslow has a few different techniques. If he has a specific model in mind, he will draw it while he watches TV with his wife. In other cases, he will toy around with the designs as he crafts the piece. He is never quite sure how his sketches will turn out until after he opens the kiln and sees the art.
“I call those happy mistakes,” Breslow says. “It’s like, ‘Wow, those two colors together look awesome’ or ‘They made a new color,’ or ‘They reacted and made a whole pattern.’ Then, you just take that note: ‘If I’m using this glass and this glass, this is what happens.’”
With his creative gears constantly turning, Breslow doesn’t take many specific requests. He says that it can also be a bit frustrating when he makes something for a customer and they lose their marbles, saying something along the lines of, ‘Well, I thought it would be bluer.’
While the process of marble making is intriguing for outside spectators, Breslow’s business partner Lynda Sproules says that it is his personality that keeps the front door swinging.
“It’s his personality that’s kind of molded the [company],” Sproules says. “We have other demonstrators that do a wonderful job, but Bruce is kind of [the one that is] welcoming people, doing the demonstrations, and just kind of making everybody feel good.”
Photo by Shea McGraw
The wood workshop also has, hiding away in the back corner, a shop cat named Ringer. The orange tabby was found as a kitten dumped on the porch one day. Originally against the idea of bringing a cat into the shop, Breslow eventually gave in and took care of Ringer until he became a staple of Moon Marble and an emotional support system for the staff. Sometimes he will come to the front, but the friendly feline spends most of his time lounging on a box in the back.
With an unforgettable look and a world of knowledge, it’s pretty hard for a customer or demonstration attendee to forget the man. Sharron thinks fondly of the times she and Breslow would get stopped because people remember him from field trips they took as children. When chatting with someone and revealing his occupation, it can begin a burst of conversation.
“We were sitting at the airport in Salt Lake City,” Sharron says. “You chat with people, and they ask, ‘What do you do?’ He said that he owned the Moon Marble Company, and someone from five chairs down heard it and said, ‘Oh, I love that place! That was my favorite field trip and I still have the marbles.’”
Photo by Shea McGraw
Breslow and Moon Marble has something for everyone. Interested in marble history? He can tell you about Ruth Loche and her incredible win as a girl at the Tulsa marble shooting competition or the Veterans of Foreign Wars marble competition held in the mid-1900s to help rehabilitate veterans and help kids who had lost their fathers in war. In any case, there is so much the artist has to offer for people willing to listen.
Breslow is a living testament of how a spark of curiosity can quickly roll into becoming a lifelong passion and career. With an indelible personality and an unparalleled amount of information on his craft, he continues to be a bright torch of joy for anyone who opens the doors to Moon Marble Company.
Breslow officially transitioned Bruce’s Woodworks to Moon Marble Company in 1997. The brick-and-mortar is located at 600 East Front Street in Bonner Springs.
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