The Artist in Residence Program is one of the pillars of the Pilchuck Glass School educational experience. Paired with expert glass fabricators and artist assistants, Pilchuck Artists in Residence experiment with bringing glass into their practice adding it to their vocabulary of work.
The Artist in Residence Program is one of the pillars of the Pilchuck Glass School educational experience. From the beginning, Dale Chihuly’s vision of artists teaching artists inspired an international exchange of ideas that brought in perspectives beyond the glass community.
The Artist in Residence program was born from this vision, and every session since 1980, when the Artist in Residence program officially began, Pilchuck invites noted artists to experiment with glass on campus. Paired with expert glass fabricators and artist assistants, residents can experiment with glass in their practice and add it to their vocabulary of work. For the Pilchuck student, the Artists in Residence bring much to the campus learning experience, including different approaches and unique interrogations of the material.
The Artists in Residence program has brought many established artists of other mediums to learn about glass including alumni like Judy Chicago, Magdalene Odundo, Kiki Smith, and Maya Lin – sculptors who have continued using glass in their work.
Summer Wheat (b.1977, Oklahoma) subverts hierarchical structures and stereotypes to create expansive depictions of daily life throughout history. She holds a B.A. from the University of Central Oklahoma and an M.F.A. from Savannah College of Art and Design. Wheat has exhibited internationally at the Mint Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Fondazione Mudima (Milan), and with Nazarian/Curcio and Zidoun Bossuyt. Her upcoming light-filled installation "JewelHouse" will open at The Museum of Kansas City in 2027.
LaToya M. Hobbs lives and working in Baltimore, MD. Through her figurative mixed media works she explores the “Matrix as art object” combining elements from both her painting and printmaking practices. Recent exhibition venues include the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Harvard Art Museum and Milwaukee Art Museum. Other accomplishments include a 2023 Distinguished Fellowship in Printmaking at the Penland School of Craft and a 2022 IFPDA Artist Grant.
Anya Gallaccio creates site-specific installations, often using organic materials as her medium. Due to the nature of these materials, her works undergo natural processes of transformation and decay, often with unpredictable results. Gallaccio lives between London and San Diego. In 2024, she had a solo show at Turner Contemporary in Margate, UK, was awarded the commission for the first London Aids Memorial in 2024, and is currently a Kenneth Armitage Fellow, London (2023-2025). She is also Professor Emerita at UC San Diego.
Inspired by changing ecosystems in the natural world, John works with his studio team to sculpt immersive large-scale, site-specific installations. Kinetics, impermanence and chance are often central to the work. Working in a broad range of types of sites is an important priority in order to reach and engage diverse groups of people. Actively engaging people to participate in the creation and alteration of the sculpture over time is another important aspect to the sculpture.
Kartini Thomas is an American sculptor who lives and works on Oléron Island in France. Inspired by monsters, microbiology and modular toys, Thomas sculpts playful landscapes populated by creatures that are at once charming and unsettling. Changes in scale, mischief, monstrosity, exploration and unpredictability are important parts of this creative adventure. She was recently awarded the Homo Faber Fellowship as a Master Artisan as well as the Young European Ceramicist's Prize.
timo fahler (b. 1978, Tulsa, OK) uses steel, glass, plaster, wood, and found objects to construct culturally significant works. fahler’s work explores ideas of home and indigeneity. His practice is inspired by science fiction, historical texts and comparative mythology, and hones in on his knowledge of labor and craft-based materials to present alternative narratives. Rebar drawings, glass compositions and plaster replicas of his body invoke familial and ancestral relationships to manual labor.
Amir H. Fallah (b. 1979, Tehran, Iran; Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received his BFA in Fine Art & Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA in painting at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad.
Koak (b.1981) is a San Francisco-based artist whose work explores the complexities of identity, femininity, and emotional interiority through a mastery of line across drawing, painting, and sculpture. Rendered with exquisite technique and effortless mark-making, her emotionally charged figures and landscapes are imbued with a compelling sense of agency and inner life. Recent distinctions include the Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship (2020) and her first UK institutional solo exhibition, The Window Set, at Charleston, Lewes (2025).
Tord Boontje is a designer of product, furniture, and lighting design. His work is known to bring warmth, light, colour and beauty inspired by the natural world into everyday objects.He has created iconic pieces of design, such as the Blossom chandelier, Garland Light, Midsummer Light, Fig Wardrobe, Transglass and Shadowy Chair have become modern classics. Boontje is based in London and his work varies from handmade studio pieces to designs for industrial production.
Emma Woffenden is an artist who trained extensively in glass making techniques, which later influenced her sense of form and process in other media.Her practice involves many different materials and sometimes combines them, it can be objects, drawing, sculpture or installation often referencing the body.She lives in London and her work is represented in over 25 public collections in the USA, UK and Europe.
Emii Alrai (b.1993) is a British-Iraqi artist whose work delves into themes of heritage, nostalgia, and the colonial legacy of looted artifacts. Through large-scale sculptural installations that mimic archaeological ruins and ancient monuments, she reimagines museum objects using plaster, clay and metal. These artifacts are often presented as decaying and deteriorating through her material explorations of forgery. Alrai uses these installations to critically examine museum curation and the romanticised ways histories are told and displayed.
Chiffon Thomas (b. 1991, Chicago, IL) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, drawing, performance, and installation. His work investigates how institutional and improvised structures can simultaneously protect and oppress, with a focus on the experiences of marginalized communities. Thomas frequently incorporates materials such as steel, stained glass, fiber, mold-making, casting, and architectural salvage to create figurative assemblages. These works explore the complexities of identity formation and the negotiation of space within imposed environments.
Lonnie Holley was born on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. From the age of five, Holley worked various jobs: picking up trash at a drive-in movie theatre, washing dishes, and cooking. He lived in a whiskey house, on the state fairgrounds, and in several foster homes. His early life was chaotic and Holley was never afforded the pleasure of a real childhood.
Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events. His work is now in collections of major museums throughout the country, on permanent display in the United Nations, and been displayed in the White House Rose Garden. In January of 2014, Holley completed a one-month artist-in-residence with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva Island, Florida, site of the acclaimed artist’s studio.
Looking for an opportunity to surround yourself with the creative energy of glass artists from around the world while also gaining valuable teaching and studio experience? Teaching Assistants and Artist Assistants are a vital part of the Pilchuck community. They support the vision and goals of Guest Artists and Artists in Residence while helping to create a safe and inclusive learning environment.
New and experienced artists alike often make tremendous conceptual and artistic progress in their short time at Pilchuck. Combining a deep focus on glass, access to a variety of resources, a picturesque Pacific Northwest setting and an ever-expanding international community of artists, Pilchuck has become the most comprehensive educational center in the world for glass artists.