Multi–Level Glass
Leo Tecosky
1 week course|| GLASS 641 001 || 1 credit hour || Lab Fee: $150

A hands-on studio workshop for those with some glassblowing experience. Students will learn a variety of techniques for manipulating molten “hot glass” into vessel or sculptural forms.  Lectures, demonstrations, videos, and critiques will augment studio instruction.

FACULTY

Leo Tecosky’s work is a mashup of art x craft x design. Combining traditional glassblowing techniques, graffiti, stylized typography, and Islamic geometric motifs, he creates new objects that do not conform to any one discipline. With a  BA in Fine Art from Alfred University and an MFA from The School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, Tecosky teaches at studios and universities both nationally and internationally. Leo lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, blowing glass and maintaining a studio practice.

A Body in Motion
Helen Lee
1 week course || GLASS 647 001 || 1 credit hour || Lab Fee: $150

This technical course will establish a firm foundation in glassblowing skills, emphasizing a detailed understanding of how to use one’s body to work with this changing state of matter. This course will bring to light common bad habits and poor physical practices common to glassblowing. Nontraditional methods of understanding movement and proprioception in the hot glass studio will be employed, including video analysis apps and audio-augmented tools. Reference will be made to Nicolás Salazar Sutil’s text Motion and Representation: The Language of Human Movement, movement models as illustrated by Oskar Schlemmer and The B-Team’s glass choreography. Through daily demonstrations, drills, and practice time, students can expect to move swiftly through a basic introduction or review of hot glass, with acute attention paid to the underpinnings of common pitfalls. Over the course of the week, students will produce basic blown forms with increasing proficiency and efficiency. 

FACULTY

Helen Lee is an artist, designer, educator, and glassblower. Her work utilizes the amorphous properties of glass to speak to the changing nature of language—through form, over time, and across cultures. She holds an MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BSAD in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work is in the collections of the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio, and Toyama City Institute of Glass Art. Her recent exhibitions include Em Space Engram (Watrous Gallery, Madison, WI), and Carried on Both Sides (Knockdown Center, Maspeth, NY). She is currently an Assistant Professor and Head of Glass in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Beginning Glass, Session II
GLASS 630 002 Deborah Adler
2 week course || 3 credit hours || Lab Fee: $300

This course offers hands-on glassblowing experience to the beginner. Participants learn a variety of techniques for manipulating molten “hot glass” into vessel or sculptural forms. Lectures, screenings, demonstrations, and critiques will augment studio instruction.

FACULTY

Deborah Adler’s career as a glassblower spans nearly two decades. Of that time, 15 years were spent in New York City working from the studios of UrbanGlass and GlassRoots. She has developed several bodies of work and exhibited them at SOFA Chicago and New York, nationally in numerous galleries, and craft shows. Deborah was also lead gaffer on teams fabricating work for prominent contemporary lighting designers. In 2015, Deborah left New York and relocated to Seattle, where she currently works as an artist assistant, while remaining focused on the design and production of her own work. 

Weird Works: Strategies for a New Glass
Ben Wright
2 week course || GLASS 630 002 || 3 credit hours || Lab Fee: $300

This class will use glass to translate observations of inspirational phenomena and systems into conceptual artworks.  Through a combination of sketches, immediate responses and longer projects students will work through the creative phases of observation, synthesis, modeling and realization in a supportive and catalytic learning environment. Brief daily readings will explore our favorite weird thinkers from Hunter s Thompson and George Orwell to Dr. Seuss and Buckminster Fuller. These visionaries will inspire and drive our material experiments beyond the well-worn paths of traditional investigations.  Glass lessons will include blowing, casting, cold working and a variety of less orthodox approaches. The class will respond by inventing techniques to address the concepts imbedded in individual projects and lead students towards a thoughtfully experimental approach to artmaking. Students should expect to produce a body of work consisting of 3-5 finished pieces during the course, to be presented in a culminating critique.

FACULTY

Ben Wright holds a BS in Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth College, a BFA in Glass from the Appalachian Center for Crafts, and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. While at Dartmouth, he explored forests from upstate New Hampshire to tropical Jamaica to record and map songbirds for the renowned ornithologist Richard Homes. His background in biology figures strongly in his artwork, which delves deeply into the every evolving relationship between humans and their environment. Through work ranging from interactive visual installations to sonic landscapes he engages all of his viewers’ senses and often bridges the gap between art and science. He has taught his unique approach to art making at numerous schools including Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Craft, the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and abroad in Germany, Turkey, Denmark and Japan. He is currently the Director of Education at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New York.

Finding Nature: Words + Glass
Joanna Roche and Hiromi Takizawa
2 week course || GLASS 646 001 || 3 credit hours || Lab Fee $300

Taught by a glass artist and poet-art historian, this interdisciplinary, experience-driven class covers the fundamentals of glass working in tandem with writing. Daily walks and journaling around the dunes, lagoon and lake shore of the campus will expand into writing time, followed by time in the hotshop. By responding to local observations and experiences via words and glass, students will develop skills in close looking, focused writing, and transforming their ideas into the poetic medium of glass. The basics of glassblowing in both solid and blown form will be covered, but students are encouraged to experiment. As the course progresses writing and studio time will inform each other, as students move between nature, words, and glass, examining the shared phenomena of reflectiveness, fragility, fluidity and transparency. Emphasis is on artistic concept and the relation of studio practice to seeing and writing, using a range of authors as inspiration, including Junichiro Tanizaki, Gaston Bachelard and Henry David Thoreau. Daily discussion and studio critiques are a fundamental part of this course. Students should expect to produce a collection of writings and several glass pieces, which could be combined into a culminating work that is site-specific or performative.

FACULTY

Joanna Roche earned her PhD in art history from UCLA. She is Professor of Art History at California State University, Fullerton and continues to be inspired by the talent and work ethic of her students. Areas of research include contemporary performance art, assemblage art and the interrelation of memory and artistic process. She is the author of numerous essays and reviews on contemporary art, as well as a book of poetry, Tyrannical Angels.

Hiromi Takizawa was born and raised in Nagano, Japan and lives in southern California. She received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently an Assistant Professor in Glass at California State University, Fullerton. Curiosity, experimentation, narrative, and materiality are the core concepts in her work. Hiromi has exhibited nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at Heller Gallery and Urban Glass in New York, and group exhibitions in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, and Bergen, Norway.

Beginning Glass, Session I GLASS 630 001
Victoria Ahmadizadeh 
2 week course || 3 credit hours || Lab Fee: $300

This course offers hands-on glassblowing experience to the beginner. Participants learn a variety of techniques for manipulating molten “hot glass” into vessel or sculptural forms. Lectures, screenings, demonstrations, and critiques will augment studio instruction.

FACULTY

Victoria Ahmadizadeh is a multi-disciplinary artist investigating the intersection of language and seeing.  She holds an MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA in Glass from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Victoria has recently been an Emerging Artist in Residence at Pilchuck Glass School, WA and a Fellow at the Creative Glass Center of America, WheatonArts, NJ. She has exhibited in venues such as Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in Denmark, The National Glass Centre in England, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in the Czech Republic and UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY. Her work is included in New Glass Review #33 and #38, published by The Corning Museum of Glass. She currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.