Schools

Firehouse Glass is located in Vancouver, WA, just outside of Portland, OR. We offer year-round classes in glassblowing, casting, kilnforming, torchworking and coldworking. We offer studio rental every day from 9:00 am - 10:00 pm.

Our facility has been praised by such people as Fritz Dreisbach as one of the nicest studios in the country. We have a complete hotshop that was designed by Fred Metz at Spiral Arts, including (2) benches, (2) 17" glory holes, a 550# day tank furnace, a garage, (2) front loading annealers, powder box, colorpot furnace and all of the tools and toys one could imagine.

We also have complete coldworking, kilnforming, and torchworking studios that are fully equiped and available for rental.

More information can be found at www.firehouseglass.com


Give us a call or drop if you are in the area!

[Warren Trefz]

If anyone is interested the Academy has posted some photos the hot shop. Go to www.artacademy.edu and click on River City Works Featured. Some of the photos were taken with a panoramic camera. And if anyone passing through or in the Cin. area, please stop by and for the grand tour at 532 E 12 St., just ask for Warren.

Thanks,

Warren Trefz

Originally posted by Jeff Wright
The Toledo Museum of Art offers beginning, intermediate and advanced glassblowing classes in the fall, winter, and spring. I've attended all of these classes and they are quite good for someone just beginning. There usually is a lot of interest and only a few spots available. They also have open blow times available. Classes and blow slots are three hours once per week for 10 weeks. Since they are somewhat subsidized, prices are very reasonable. Check them out at: Toledo Museum of Art

Thought I'd add on to this that the Toledo Museum's new Glass Pavilion will be opening up about a year from now. I just took a hard hat tour, and I have to say I was dumbfounded. Spectacular facility, to say the least!

And yeah, the prices are very reasonable: $19.30/hr for non-members, $16.33/hr for members.

Originally posted by Pete VanderLaan
I think the best place to check would actually be at Palomar Junior College down in San Marcos in San Diego County. They have had an active glass community for decades and would best be able to direct you to an LA hotshop.

See also Santa Ana College, CSU/Fullerton and Santa Monica College.

Email privately for a couple private shops that have floor time and instruction.

jim@jvormelker.com

[Barb Sanderson]

Originally posted by Pete VanderLaan
PLEASE SUBMIT ADDITIONAL SCHOOLS TO ME WITH REVIEWS.


Pratt Fine Arts Center
1902 S. Main Seattle WA 98144
206-328-2200\www.pratt.org

I have heard mixed reviews on Pratt. Lately a lot of complaints about glass quality. It has certainly been around a long time and everyone has glass problems now and then


Sheridan College
Daniel Crichton
1430 Ttafalgar Road
Oakville Ontario
Canada L6H2L1
905-845-9430
905-815-4043 FAX
glass@sheridanac.on.ca

Uh Pete, the issues with glass at pratt are now years old - the glass has been great for the last couple of years and they have a great glass tech there now.

Also Dan Crichton died a few years ago - not sure who the head of glass is there now. Just thought you may want to update that info.

Barb

This West Michigan glass school opened last year, but they just now got their website going:

http://www.waterstreetglassworks.org/

142 Water Street, Historic Hinkley Bldg.
Benton Harbor Arts District
PO Box 161
Benton Harbor, MI 49023

Main Office Number: (269) 925-5555

info@waterstreetglassworks.org


I have studied under Jerry, the founder, at Ox-Bow and can recommend him completely. He has a special talent for meeting students at their own level, whether scared beginner or experienced glass student. Besides his passion for working glass himself, he has a true passion for teaching glass.

I have visited the Waterstreet facility and think it's great. It's got a very open floor plan, a catwalk for observers, two benches, and a gallery space. If I lived in West Michigan, I'd be there a lot, either renting or possibly tech'ing.

In addition to offhand, they offer torch classes - at least one of the instructors there, Jessica Bohus ( http://www.blueroanstudio.com/ ) is a great artist.

http://www.eugeneglassschool.org

Have taken a few classes there both hot and torch. The talent of the instructors is impeccable. The quality of the instruction is dependent on how good how good of an instructor that particular glass artist happens to be. There are classes for all levels. There's some big names in the instructor list. For example ... want to learn something about furnace building? Charlie Correll will be teaching a Furnace Building class this spring. The one common theme for all the classes has been "Beginners are welcome ... Beginners are treated well ... Beginners are encouraged!"

CONTACT INFORMATION

Eugene Glass School
575 Wilson Street
Eugene OR 97402
Telephone : (541) 342-2959
Fax : (541) 342-2924

email : info@eugeneglassschool.org

CATALOG REQUESTS please email your mailing address to info@eugeneglassschool.org

[katiemoe]

bump

Hi Pete,

Some good takes on the glass schools out there.

I enjoy teaching at Pratt because of the class size. There are only 6 students in the class and this allows for personalized instruction. The glass has been good.

[Terry Craig]

heres another for canada

sir sanford flemming college
haliburton campus
suan little
705 457 1680

this is a 15 week intensive programe that runs from jan on ward with an option of rental in the spring as well as a four one week specialist classes. this 15 week class can help you gain direct entry into the second year at sheridan college.
they also have one week summer classes in june and july.
terry

[Paul Thompson]

I apologize in advance for not having first-hand knowledge of many of these programs, but I wanted to make the links available....

Third Degree Glass Factory in St Louis offers short classes (and a live webcam!. I'm sure this has been mentioned elsewhere, but this is also where you can get Jim McKelvey's book & DVD: Art of Fire: Beginning Glassblowing, which I highly recommended. Big Ed's book is great and offers a very broad perspective, but Jim really goes into the basic "hand mechanics" and that, for me, is a stumbling block.

Other locations

• Southern Illinois @ Carbondale offers a glassblowing program. I spoke with someone (whos name I forget) at Dottie Boscamp's shop in Ft Collins who had graduated from their program. He really like it, but was more into the glassblowing than the other academic requirements. {warning! off topic!} I also want to give a plug to my cuz, Rick Smith, a prof. at the blacksmithing program there...
• Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. Program run by Stephen Rolfe Powell. The "course offerings" link shows classes to be offered in 2002-2003. Hmmm.
• Has someone mentioned Istanbul?
• Sonoran Glass Art Academy in Tucson.
• Red Deer College in Canada. My current instructor (Angelo Ambrosia) had an excellent experience there a couple years ago with Randy Walker. Due to his recommendation, I signed up for classes with Ted Jolda and Jeff Holmwood in June. I'll have a personal report after I return.
• Front Range Community College and Colorado Free University -- short intros by local artists like Agnes Sanchez (Agnes of Glass) and Paul Lockwood (Piece Unique).

[Paul Thompson]

I just returned from two weeks at Red Deer College's Summer Series School of the Arts classes. Here's a review ( pix ) :


RDC runs hot glass classes for 17 consecutive weeks each year from May through August. Unlike some other colleges (Sheridan, Halliburton, Center, Carbondale, etc) RDC does not have any hot glass classes during the "normal" school sessions. This makes the RDC classes more like adult "continuing education" classes. Each class is one week, and features one or two instructors. I think RDC is slanted towards Canadian instructors. Cost is C $750 to $950 (depending on instructors) + GST + housing. Figure that your total cost will be about half of what The House Of Dale will charge. Granted, Lino, Davide or Dante probably won't be teaching at RDC, but on the other hand you won't be required to submit a resume to get onto the waiting list. Popular instructors will get booked fast (I've been told as quickly as the first 15 minutes after registration starts), so be prepared.

My first week's class was "Turning Tricks with Ted"; instructor Ted Jolda. This course was tagged as an "Advanced" class. The second week was "Advanced glassblowing for beginners" with Jeff Holmwood. Eight or nine students is considered a "full" class. Ted's class had the minimum five students, so we all got LOTS of bench time (I got spoiled!). There were eight students (four groups of two) in Jeff's class which meant cooperation & scheduling bench time.

I would strongly recommend RDC classes, especially if either of these guys was teaching. Ted is a wild & crazy guy, and demoed stuff that I haven't seen or read about. Jeff demoed some murrini work, his vortex vessel technique, and a big piece. He also challenged the class to do a team piece on the last day, which would involve leadership, organization, and glassblowing skills.

The RDC hotshop is glommed onto the outside of one of the arts buildings, and is shielded by a tin roof and sliding glass doors. The first class day we had rain AND hail - as if the glories weren't noisy enough - yelling became a requirement. RDC has a large (200 lbs??) gas fired crucible furnace, 3 glories (2 small, one medium) and 3 benches, 2 top-loader annealers and 1 front-loader. Floor space is cramped and requires loud "coming behind you" warnings and an increased level of responsibility and alertness on the part of anyone on the floor. The marvers and glories were about 4 to 8 inches lower than what I'm used to. I'm 6-4 and my perspective was all messed up. I tagged the top of the glory door several times. The marvers were truely munchkin height. RDC recently switched to Spectrum System 96, which is about the only glass I've ever used. Everyone else was talking about the unusual qualities of the glass, but quite frankly, I didn't notice. After some severe compatability problems on Ted's first demo (cane), Katrina (one of the shop techs) stayed late (all blowing stops at 8 pm) to manually empty the furnace and recharge with a new lot of glass. Things went much better after that.

RDC will sell you Gaffer color -- bar or frit (#2 or 3 ?) and maintains a good inventory, barring the occasional psychotic Canadian customs agent incidents. Powder (they have a booth) was used by both instructors and the shop techs, but is not available to students due to health concerns.

Speaking of the techs, Ben Kikkert and Kat Brodie are both super techs; wonderful, caring people and great artists. They were also performing as instructor assistants during the demos, and would help out (time & other duties permitting) as TAs or offer suggestions during student blowing time. A school like RDC couldn't survive without great, and highly over-worked, help like this.

Tools were all pretty good. I brought my own diamond shears, and many students had brought their own hand tools. For one of his demo pieces, Jeff Holmwood had a brand new Steinart pipe & punty (label still attached) that must have been 2" dia - a true whopper. The selection of optic molds (all were AL) was limited. Pipes were Spirals and some others. I think all the student pipes were "standard" size with tapered ends. There were a few tubular stepdown punties, but most were solid SS rod.

Cold working equipment (I hope I get these terms right - I know even less about cold equipment than I do about hot glass) includes a dual-wheel lathe, a wet belt grinder, metal wheel polisher with a primative bucket & grit feed, and a wet tile saw that the techs refuse to use during normal hours because it's so noisy. RDC summer series classes include torchwork, pottery, slumping and fusing, so this kind of equipment is there, but I don't know if it's available to hot glass students.

Classes generally start with a demo at 9 am until 10 or 11, followed by student blowing time. There was usually another demo at 1 pm followed by student time. The techs take over one of the benches at 5 pm for their own work. Shop shuts down at 8 pm Mon - Thur. On Friday, shop shuts down at 4 pm for an extensive cleanup. During the week, all students are expected to clean up their bench area (sweep & put away tools) at the end of the day. Shop time is available to students or local artists for $100 (per person) on Saturdays. When's the last time you got 11 hours of shop rental time for $100?? Shop is cold on Sundays.