My First Summer at Pilchuck Glass School
Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education located in Stanwood, Washington The prestigious glass school is nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains amidst a working tree farm.
“In the late 1960s, Dale Chihuly was spending his summers teaching at Haystack Mountain School for Crafts in Deer Island, Maine. It was there that he dreamed of opening a school dedicated to teaching glass. Returning to his home in the Pacific Northwest, he was introduced to philanthropists John H. Hauberg and Anne Gould Hauberg who would go on to support Dale’s dream. The three of them came together to establish Pilchuck Glass School and they gave it a solid foundation on which to grow. Just like those founding years, our vision remains to inspire creativity, transform individuals, and build community.”
For more details on the history of Pilchuck, visit https://www.pilchuck.org/history
Since Moving to Seattle in 2018 I had the goal of attending a class at Pilchuck Glass School. In 2023 I was finally able to attend my first class! My first Pilchuck experience was a lot like my first beginning glassblowing class back in 2015 - I had no idea what to expect, only that it was going to be a valuable and exciting learning experience.
It was August 4, 2023 when I first arrived on Campus at Pilchuck. Honestly, I spent about 45 minutes driving around trying to figure out where to go because not many people had arrived yet, but that allowed me to give myself a bit of a pre-tour of the campus. It was quiet, but anticipation filled the quiet, fresh air. It felt like, smelled like, looked like the summer camp I use to attend as a child every summer. I was hit with a wave of both nostalgia and fresh, high-hopes at the same time. I was so excited to learn more about glass! I finally found a place that I could park and walked into the housing building. I was greeted by Lisa Young, a sweet woman with whom I had been communicating about this class via email prior to my arrival. It was nice to finally meet her and put a face to the name! Lisa directed me to my room where I met my roomate, Gemma. (Gemma later moved on to become a contestant on Season 4 of Netflix Blown Away Series - Go Gemma!)
After settling in and waiting for everyone elses arrivals, we all set out to meet at the dining hall for our forst meal of the session. I walked down the hill (the hill I quickly learned would be the DEATH of me from walk up and down and up and down, oh my god). to the dining hall. on my way down, I walked past the hot shop, with its inuqiely shaped exterior (see group photo) and my heart filled with pride. Many well known glass artists have created here, and now it was my turn. But first, food.
Kegan and I at Pilchuck together!
My stomach grumbling, I walked past the hot shop and went into the dining hall, a beautiful, multiple-story log cabin. Upon entering the dining hall I froze. I could not believe what I was seeing, or rather, who I was seeing. Immediately upon turning the corner in the doorway, staring back at me was a classmate from my high school art classes, Kegan Dunn. I hadn’t seen her in at least 11 years! We made eye contact and just stared, open mouth, for about 5 seconds before squealing and hugging each other! We got our food and sat together and quickly found out we were in the same class! The nostalgia piled on even more.
After dinner, the newcomers all went on a tour of the campus on foot and then met in our classes’ designated areas once we knew where to go. My class met at the woodshop, which was downhill from the hot shop. Everyone introduced themselves, including our teachers for the session - Christian Oticia and Rebecca Birkan.
Rebekah Deniz Birkan is a New York-based artist, architect, fabricator, and art production director. Birkan is an expert mold maker and welder, passionate about teaching art fabrication, and committed to making intimidating technical skills accessible to all. Christian Oiticica has been an artist in residence for Marwen Arts in Chicago and currently works as an Instructional Laboratory Specialist for the Schools of Design and Architecture at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
rebekahbirkan.com @ekmekceramics | christianoiticica.com @supple_prints
Our class was called TRANSMOGRIFICATION: perception and materiality. Focusing on 3D Modeling + Printing, CNC Milling, Mold Making, and Mixed Media Casting
This course explores the fundamentals of sculptural fabrication and mold making. We focus on creating multimedia artworks while acquiring new technical skills. Students learn analog and digital production processes to investigate non-glass material combinations and gaining a basic understanding of 3D modeling, 3D printing, and CNC operation. We mill designs in plaster and wood and utilize rubber and fiberglass mold making in order to cast with a variety of materials.”
We titled our end of session Gallery show “Bubbling Everywhere All At Once” Named after our classmate Zoey who loved to make glass bubbles and also had a bubbly personality :) The sign was made in class to teach as how to use a Laser cutter.
My final presentation of the mold I welded and then blew into.
My goal during this class was to study different forms of mold making in which to blow glass into. I wanted to learn the mechanics and technical skills that were done outside of the hot shop that I could bring into the hot shop in order to create specific styles and forms of glass. Part of this was experimented with welding metal molds to create blown objects. Even though we were mostly studying outside of the hot shop, we were still given our own time slots for blowing glass in the hot shop too, which I loved!
My most favorite part of the whole session were the days that I learned how to weld. I had never welded before, but by the end of the 2 week session I had welded my own mold to blow glass into and made a few successful prototypes from the mold!
Ive added a video at the bottom of this post showing the process of making this mold and then blowing glass into it - check it out!
Additionally, I was able to weld together a stand to present another project. The stand was from found objects, one of those objects being a 5 pound weight that is welded into the stand to hold up the wooden platform. This project consisted of learning how to use multiple components of non-glass material including; 3D Printed objects that were then used to create rubber molds and plaster molds, resin pours, CNC machine cuts, woodworking, and welding. I enjoyed every second of this learning process!
This final product show is the accumulation of several experiments with mold making. I learned how to 3D print, going way outside my confort zone and diving into techicalogically advanced programs to learn how to design and print objects from technical programs on my laptop. I also learned how to use the CNC machine which ended up not being part of this project but did make it into the final class gallery show. I learned resin pouring is much easier than I was anticipating it to be, and that certain methods of coldworking glass are not quite as scary as they look. Cold working refers to any process that alters the state of the glass without using heat. Cold working on glass may involve drilling, carving, cutting, sanding, grinding, de-burring sharp edges, engraving the surface of the glass, cutting out shapes in glass, filing glass edges, or sanding, polishing and finishing the surface to a desired effect.
Pilchuck 2023, Session 5: TRANSMOGRIFICATION:
A class photo! missing from photo: John Dillard :(
The images below display my experience at Pilchuck, learning to create molds
Lastly, from my experieces at Pilchuck I was able to teach I myself (not as part of the curriculum) how to stitch together videos and images on multiple social platforms such as, instagram, Canva, Instagram, Loom, and more. The video below shows my progress of welding a mold and then blowing glass into it to create specific glass forms! Enjoy!
