Local viewers of the CBS Sunday Morning news magazine were pleasantly surprised this past Sunday, when in the middle of the program, they recognized a familiar face.

Matt Cummings, a Clinton County native, was one of a handful of subjects interviewed by regular CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Nancy Giles.

Cummings, the son of Mike and Karen Cummings, of Albany, currently resides in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he works as a glass sculptor, in addition to selling his house brewed beer.

Cummings owns the Pretentious Beer Company in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he combines the art of brewing craft beer with glass blowing, and produces and sells art-influenced custom beer glasses.

He relies heavily on the internet-based selling and buying site Etsy to vend his hand-blown and uniquely shaped beer glasses.

In Sunday’s CBS interview, Cummings, who was the last of three Etsy vendors interviewed for the more than seven minute long feature, told Giles that as a glass sculptor, he was producing art pieces that sold for as much as $14,000 each, and he realized that only a select group of people were able to purchase and own his artwork.

“You know, at $6,000 to $14,000, I can’t afford my own work. My friends, my family can’t afford it,” Cummings said in Sunday’s feature.

Giles went on to explain that one of Cummings’ “beer loving friends” suggested the glass artist begin making beer glasses that could be sold at a much more affordable price to a wider range of customers.

Now Cummings employs four glass artists in his Tennessee studio, where the group turns out as many as 200 glasses a day.

Cummings said that the Etsy e-commerce site has been a life-changing opportunity for his glass blowing and beer glass making enterprise, noting that at one point they had been back ordered for as much as four months, a trend that had continued for more than two years.

“I think Etsy has been life-changing,” Cummings said. “I mean, it’s totally redirected what I’ve been able to do, and expanded what I’ve even dreamed to accomplish. I mean, it was 100% life changing.”

In addition to several seconds of film showing Cummings and his glass blowing crew at work in his Tennessee studio, he was also featured for a large segment of the program in a split-screen view while being interviewed off site by Nancy Giles.

In addition to one of Cummings’ glasses, she had also been provided with a sample of one of Cummings’ house-brewed beers to partake from the glass.

After taking the first sip, Giles finished the interview with three simple words.

“Okay, that’s delicious.”

Above, CBS Sunday Morning program correspondent Nancy Giles, is shown in a split-screen view with Clinton County native Matthew Cummings during a segment of the program last Sunday about the e-commerce site, Etsy.

Cummings, who now lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee, operating the craft brewery business Pretentious Beer Company, also produces hand blown glassware out of the facility, known as the Pretentious Beer Glass Company.

At left, one of Cummings’ custom beer glasses. This particular model is known as the “Hoppy” model and is owned by Clinton County News Editor Al Gibson.