Hotshop Heroes
Hot Shop Heroes™ is a program for military personnel and veterans, many of whom are coping with traumatic experiences and injuries sustained in combat. Working in a team-oriented environment, participants bond with one another and creatively explore the medium of molten glass. The combination of social interaction, focused work on a shared goal, and creative expression provides a healing experience.
Click here to learn more details about the Hotshop Heroes program.
Below is a video of the Hotshop Heroes winter class, 2023
making their final collaborative piece - a plate for Santa loaded with sweet treats. 🍭 🍬
The students made the parts and the instructors assembled them.
Why It Matters To Me
As a practicing freelance glass artist and public speaker, I regularly engage in the community to work with those suffering from PTSD and trauma aftermath. Through the creative processes of making and learning about glass art, I empower individuals to overcome their limitations and gain freedom, peace, and a new-found sense of trust through creative collaboration.
While I was studying to earn my Bachelor of Fine Arts, I was the victim of an abusive relationship and experienced a major illness, Hepatitis-Induced Mononucleosis. (This illness is estimated to affect 10% of young adults.) When it hit me, I was 20 and had just returned to school from the holiday break. It was severe and came out of nowhere, I was physically healthy one day and violently ill the next. Due to the immediate hospitalization, my mental health declined severely, even more than the abusive relationship had already caused since no one yet knew about it. I lost the ability to create art and experienced an abrupt inability to fulfill my own basic needs for several months. My boyfriend at the time did not like the state I was in, which only exacerbated the abuse he inflicted. I was quarantined and abused for the entire duration of my illness which lasted about 6 months. One day near the end of my hospitalization, I was visited by a graduate student from my college who was studying to become a trauma counselor. I disclosed to him a few details about the abuse, unsure if he would understand, but he did. That day I made special arrangements with my friends and family for protection as well as with my professors to complete assignments. I was very sick and terrified the whole time, but somehow able to complete the semester with all A’s. I fully believe the only reason I was able to do so was because I had both a trauma advocate and a creative outlet during those months. After recovering from illness and safely leaving the abusive relationship, I took an interest in studying art therapy and declared a minor in psychology. I volunteered at Covenant Hospital in Lubbock, Texas as an Arts In Medicine Volunteer. In this program, I worked with long-term hospital patients who needed a creative outlet for their mental health while recovering physically from various conditions such as surgery, cancer, other major illnesses, assault, and domestic violence. This gave me a small window into the practice of art therapy and trauma advocacy for close to two years until I graduated.
Covenant hospital in Lubbock, Texas where I was hospitalized and also participated in the Arts In Medicine program
Glass Art and Trauma Therapy Come Together
While establishing myself in Seattle between 2018-2023 I knew two things;
1. I wanted to be a glass artist!
2. I wanted to continue my work in art therapy and trauma advocacy.
The only issue was, I didn’t know how to combine the two, or what was needed to do so. I started by networking and asking a lot of questions. In August 2023 I went to the Superfine Art Fair in Seattle where I met Wynne Pei, the Arts Manager at Path with Art or “PWA” which fosters the restoration of individuals, groups, and society from the effects of trauma through arts engagement and community building.
After talking with Wynne about the possibilities, she told me about a program called Hotshop Heroes. We both agreed that it sounded perfect so she gave me the contact information for the Curatorial Education Program Manager at the Museum Of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. I emailed him saying that I’d love to talk about Hotshop Heros to see if there is a way I can get involved and I attached my resume. A few days later I received an email back saying “Your email came at the right time. We are currently looking for instructors. Our next set of classes starts on September 7th, 2023. I would love to have you come in and interview sometime this week to see if you are a good fit for the class.” I replied excitedly to schedule an interview. Once we met, I was hired then and there. After completing my training, I started teaching in September 2023 as an instructor!
Winter Session 2023
My first Hotshop Heroes experience was a full class, and all the students were extremely excited to learn about glass! These students aren’t just any students, but military personnel and veterans, many of whom are coping with traumatic experiences and injuries sustained in combat. The setup of the class is a little bit different than normal to accommodate these circumstances. One student, Anthony, was extremely quiet, apologetic about every move he made, and socially nervous due to his experiences from active duty. One student, Matt, recovering from a Traumatic Brain Injury after his service told the instructors about his setbacks and difficulty understanding instruction. Another student, Jerry, couldn’t hear too well anymore so he had the instructors wear a device that would enable him to hear our instructions.
Jason McDonald and Christopher Day helping a student blow glass into a metal frame for the Gallery show “A Two Way Mirror”
For each session, we had dinner together for the first hour of class, then made our way into the hot shop for the lesson that was planned for that evening. As the instructors and students got to know eachother in each session, a sense of trust and collaboration began to build through our engagement with the glass and with eachother. Everyone’s personalities started to come through! Anthony was the funniest person I’ve ever met, and so caring because of his experience working in a unit of command that cared for the injured. He just needed to be able to come out of his shell again in a safe environment. Jerry planned to make light fixtures out of the glass he made because he learned how to do electrical wiring from his time in service, and Matt needed the social aspect of the class to learn how to communicate and collaborate again after his brain injury.
Near the end of our winter session, students had the opportunity to work with featured artists in the newest gallery show being displayed at the museum called “A Two Way Mirror” Artists Jason McDonald and Christopher Day came to a Hotshop Heroes class to teach the students as part of their experience in seeing the gallery and learning how the work was made. One of the students even helped make a piece with Chris that was later displayed as part of the gallery show. View the gallery here.
On the very last day of the session, we all joined together for a glass class collaboration project. The assignment we gave the students was to create a final piece that each student contributed to with something that they would make. The group decided to make a ‘sweet treat plate’ for Santa - since the holidays were very near. Once it was decided we all picked what treats would be on the plate and each student designed a treat to make out of glass! Watch the video at the top of this post to see the class in action.
As my first class, this group will always be the most memorable to me and dear to my heart - If any of you read this, I love you!
If you - or anyone you know - would benefit from this information and announcements of the Hot Shop Heroes class, please contact the program through the “contact us to learn more” button on this page.
