Pilchuck Studios

The annex was built in 1996. Located behind the existing hot shop, this facility is a unique and versatile space equipped for hot casting, glassblowing, and investigational techniques. This shop has been the focus of an upgrade in 2015, consisting of two new furnaces ideal for experimentation.

The annex is ideal for classes focusing not only on technique, but on concept, process, performance, and time-based media. The open floor plan, rolling doors, and versatile equipment allow students the space to think and create without inhibition.

At Pilchuck, we have taught classes in glassblowing for more than 50 years. We now have to think about global environmental impact like never before. For this reason, we set out on a path to explore using post-consumer glass waste in our educational courses. One of the furnaces in the Annex Hot Shop is now melting our recycled window glass batch formula, developed by our Studio Manager, Tyler Gordon.

The building across from the cold shop holds two studios for Pilchuck’s  Artists in Residence. These consist of table and wall space ideal for planning, researching, drawing, and laying out works.

Each session Pilchuck invites two established and acclaimed visual artists to participate as Artists in Residence (AiRs). Usually these are artists whose primary work does not involve glass. AiRs live on campus and interact with the students and Guest Artists. This program enriches the experiences of all artists on campus by promoting a cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts. Because they approach glass with a fresh eye and without preconceptions as to what is or isn’t possible with the medium, AiRs use and develop glass in new and creative ways.

Pilchuck Glass School's Bot-Lab is a digital fabrication and maker-space hosting 3D-printers, desktop laser and waterjet cutters, and computers for CAD and CAM. Designed to support and augment all forms of glass-making, the Bot-Lab is focused on iteration, experimentation, and rapid-prototyping.

The Cold Shop contains equipment used to work with glass in a cold state. Lathes, diamond saws, grinding wheels and polishing wheels help to cut, smooth and polish glass. Pilchuck has a diverse and extensive body of equipment and tools for coldworking, making it one of the finest cold shops in the country.

The cold shop consists of four main rooms. The back room contains grit wheels, an angle grinding station, hand-lapping stations, saws, and flat plate belt sanders. Much care is taken to ensure no contamination occurs from the grits in this room.

 The sandblasting room contains three sandblasters: 80 grit, 120 grit, and 220 grit respectively. The main room contains the diamond lapping wheels, lathes, belt sanders, reciprolapse machines, drill press, ban saw, dremel stations, and pumice and cerium stations.

Located in the southeast corner of the building, the engraving room contains equipment used to create delicate cuts and carving. It is place of concentration, where participants can learn to mark and manipulate the glass in its cold state.

The flat shop was built in 1975 for classes in stained glass; today, the flat shop is used for neon, flameworking, and as studio space for those involved with hot shop activities, as well as sculpture and drawing classes.

Neon classes are equipped with specialized torches specific for tube bending, and have access to a variety of gases and colorants. Typically, students purchase their own transformers through the school store. Plasma neon classes are also taught, encouraging use of the hot shop to make objects to be filled with plasma.

Flameworking (also known as lampworking) is also taught in the flat shop. Special gas plumbing allows for as many as 12 torches. These torches have special regulators to monitor the flow of oxygen and gas. Torches can create heat up to about 3,200° F – nearly hot enough to melt rock and far hotter than the temperature sustained in a glass furnace. Students use anything from rods and tubes of borosilicate glass and soft glass to shards of recycled bottles, that are heated, shaped, blown, and assembled. As always, experimentation and new directions are constantly encouraged and pushed to new levels.

The maintenance building houses the wood and metal shop, which are available to all session participants for certain hours. The wood shop is equipped with band saws, a table saw, sanders, drill press, radial arm saw, miter box saw, joiner, and wood lathe, as well as basic hand tools. The metal shop has three welders, a metal band saw, metal drill press, plasma cutter, grinders and also an air compressor. Artists use this equipment to fabricate components for mixed-media sculpture or display elements for glass.

This building also stores the tractors, lawn mowers, and tools to maintain the campus.

The hot shop was the first permanent structure built on campus. The shop was constructed from 1973-74. It is used primarily for glassblowing and solid off-hand glass sculpting.

The hot shop is an open-air structure revolving around the central pad which holds the furnace and surrounding workstations. The continuous-melt furnace contains 1,600 lbs of molten glass held at about 2,150° F. The central pad has five work stations (glory hole, bench, and marver). There is another drop down pad with two more stations for the Gaffers. 11 computer-controlled annealing ovens allow finished pieces to cool at a controlled temperature over a period of time.

Pilchuck provides hot glass students with a variety of punties, pipes, and hand tools needed to work with hot glass. This includes multiple sizes of jacks, tweezers, shears, paddles, sofiettas, tungsten rods, sculpting tools, blocks, buckets, and a variety of optic and other molds. 

Students in hot glass classes receive demonstration time and personal working time. Students gain skills quickly in this immersive and experimental environment, as they are pushed to think and work in new ways.

The Print Shop is located on the lower level of the lodge, sharing a view of the Puget Sound with the Library. This studio focuses on Vitreography, a unique hand-printing process using oil-based inks and glass plates to create works on paper. 

Equipped with a 30” x 50” Charles Brand etching press, silkscreen exposure unit, shared silkscreens, Rayzist exposure unit, washout station, and work tables. The studio works in conjunction with the cold shop and Bot Lab to create glass printing plates and silkscreens for powder printing the kiln studio and hot shop. 

While in the print shop Artist in Residence work with the assistance of the Print Shop Coordinator to create vitreography prints on paper, many of which are now in the schools print collection. The shop also hosts classes focusing on vitreography and welcomes interdisciplinary classes for an afternoon or auxiliary project. 

Artists can work to create prints by transferring imagery and marks on to the surface of the glass plate with tools not limited to etching creams, diamond abrasives, and sandblasting. Blank plates can also be used for mono-printing where ink is applied to the plate using brushes, brayers, stencils, and hands. These plates are then run through the steel bed etching press to create prints on paper. In a truly interdisciplinary shop, glass plate printmaking offers glass artists a different way to experiment with the materiality of glass while directly incorporating more traditional art practices rooted in painting, drawing, photography, and the graphic arts.

When scheduling permits, all students have access to the print shops shared ink wall and blank glass plates. Supplies such as cotton printmaking paper, transparencies, photo-resist material, and ⅜” thick float glass plates are available for purchase through the school store.

The Studio Building was erected in 1985 and an annex for kiln casting was completed in 1998. The deck is used as space for students working in sculpture and mixed media. The large main room holds teaching areas where three classes have table space and room for instruction. Many of the tables have wooden tops that reveal light tables for flat glass work such as stained glass, painting, or design and assembly of slumped and fused works. The other tables are used for students learning hot glass, kiln casting, cold glass construction, and glass mosaics. The back wall holds a bank of eight kilns ideal for test firings and small works.

The upper building contains the mold making room, kiln room, and outdoor wax working area.

The mold room is a well-ventilated specialty room used for working with plaster, rubber, wax and clay to create molds for casting glass. On the south side of the building are the  12 computer-controlled kilns used for slumping, fusing, enameling, and casting glass. The outdoor area provides space, light, and equipment for wax working including a variety of tools, crock pots, steamers, and a mold dryer.

The Campus Store is located underneath the studio building and sells glass working tools and supplies, t-shirts, books, packing materials, band-aids, burn ointment, and other sundry items. Students are provided with all the clear glass they can use but must purchase their own color.