For a refreshing burst of color on a dreary, winter day, there’s nothing quite like stepping into John Cook’s Glass Studio and Gallery in Gearhart, also known as the Glass Station.

The old Shell gas station off Hwy 101 was built in 1947, but for the last 13 years it has been home to a family owned and operated glass studio and art gallery.

The Cooks remodeled the building, redoing the floors and adding all new windows.

“Natural light is really great for glass,” Cook said. “It was a wreck when we bought it; it had been a woodworking place and an antique mall and lastly a car stereo store… It took us a few months of remodeling.”

While the outside still resembles its earlier days as a gas station, the inside couldn’t be farther from it with every color imaginable of glass-shaped objects lining the walls and dangling from the ceiling. Everything from intricate lamps shaped like flower pots to delicate vases and even drinking glasses in the shape of a fish’s head.

The majority of the pieces for sale are made by either Cook or his son, who also dabbles in photography.

The journey in glass blowing started for Cook when he was 10 years old at a glass blowing demonstration in Los Angeles. The artist made Cook an ornament, which he has kept all these years.

Nine years later, Cook was able to take lessons from that same artist and got a scholarship to go to art school. His senior year, he opened a glass studio in his parents back yard. Since then he has owned two different studios in Santa Barbara, one in Oregon City and now the one in Gearhart.

Despite the recession, which has shut down several galleries across the country and put even more artists out of business, Cook’s gallery has managed to keep its doors open, although he has felt the heat.

“We’re not selling as much high end stuff as we used to,” he said. “It’s just not what it once was and I know a lot of galleries that are singing the blues.”

Cook said their best year was 2007. The very next year brought a sharp 35 precent drop in sales, but they’re slowly recovering from that, he said.

“Before the recession hit, we probably worked 11 months out of the year, but now we have to be more careful about where the money goes,” he said. Last year he estimated they only worked seven or eight months in total.

“People tend to think of glass blowing as a hobby, but it’s really quite expensive and takes a tremendous amount of cash to be able to continuously create new pieces,” he said, adding that keeping the furnaces turned on that are used to blow the glass costs about $70 a day.

But one advantage to staying in business is the community, he said, adding they’ve donated a lot of artwork to places like the hospital and historical museum.

“We’ve had a lot of great local support from the community,” Cook said. “And we’ve been doing this a long time so we’ve built up a customer base; people remember us when they come back to the coast.”

Another great advantage Cook has is his ideal location off of Hwy 101.

“In the summertime we’ll open up the garage doors if we’re blowing glass and as the traffic just crawls by, we get people who will stop just to see what’s going on. It’s a real visual kind of experience and a lot of people enjoy it and they tend to come back… The location has really been a lifesaver.”

With 46 years of experience, Cook isn’t about to stop now.

“I have a passion for the medium,” he said. “I was mesmerized the fist time I saw it, and I’m he kind of person who has to have something to do.”

For more information, visit their website johncookstudios.com or stop by 3427 Hwy 101 in north Gearhart.