arts & Life

The next generation of Habatat

Galleries is keeping a promise to its

founder — while adding their own

expertise to its annual invitational.

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Aaron Schey,

left, and Corey

Hampson, right, in

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the 12,000-square-

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foot Habatat

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Galleries

Mariposo — fused and cast glass with glass-powder imagery in a steel frame — by Michael Janis is one of

hundreds of studio glass pieces to be shown at Habatat's invitational.

Brotherly Love

I

Julie Edgar
Special to the Jewish News

C

orey Hampson and Aaron Schey
became friends in kindergarten at
Burton Elementary in Huntington
Woods. They rode bikes and shot hoops
together, dressed up for each other's bar
mitzvahs at Temple Emanu-El and lived
through the trauma of their parents' divorces.
Then they became stepbrothers. While
they were in their late teens, Corey's father,

60 April 16 • 2015

Ferdinand "Ferd" Hampson, married Aaron's
mother, Kathy. They found themselves under
the same roof — friends, classmates at
Lahser High, and now, relatives. Their house-
hold was a special one; as owners of Habatat
Galleries, the Hampsons regularly hosted
visiting artists in their home. Aaron recalls a
genial atmosphere, where it was not uncom-
mon to be making breakfast and watching
TV with their glassmaker guests.
"Blended families are usually difficult,"
says Corey, son of Carolle Baskin of West

Bloomfield and nephew of attorney Henry
Baskin. "This was seamless. We all had our
own space:'
Nearly two years ago, the pair became co-
owners of Habatat Galleries, which occupies
12,000 square feet in a section of Royal Oak
that borders Troy. It is the oldest and largest
studio glass gallery in the country and con-
sidered to house one of the finest collections
of art glass in the nation, perhaps the world,
due to Ferd's forward thinking about the
importance of studio glass at a time when

many critics dismissed the form as more
craft than art.
Ferd gifted the gallery to the pair, trusting
that they would safeguard Habatat's reputa-
tion. Corey had studied with glass artists, but
Ferd steered him toward a business educa-
tion, seeing that his son not only understood
and appreciated what artists were doing but
could make other people understand and
appreciate it, too. Aaron, son of podiatrist
Michael Schey, had technical skills and a tal-
ent for presentation. Since joining Habatat in