The Better Together Residency is dedicated to supporting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) artists. The group will be comprised of a cohort of artists in residence, who will apply through an open call for applications, and paid assistants from Hilltop Artists alumni. This is a self-directed residency where artists are encouraged to create their own work, explore new directions in glassmaking or build upon existing bodies of work.
The Better Together Residency is an artist concentration dedicated to supporting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) artists. The group will be comprised of professional artists in residence, who will apply through an open call for applications, and paid assistants from Hilltop Artists alumni. This is a self-directed residency where artists are encouraged to create their own work, explore new directions in glassmaking or build upon existing bodies of work. Although formal instruction for new processes is not provided, studio coordinators are available to facilitate access to equipment and tools in selected studios.
This opportunity includes a $1200 stipend, travel reimbursement, meals, and housing for the entire residency. Clear furnace glass is available for residents to use. Glass color or specialty glasses must be provided by the artists.
Artists will have access to Pilchuck’s Hot Glass Shop, Cold Shop, and will each be provided with a designated workspace throughout the residency. Prior experience in hot shop and cold shop is necessary to participate in this self-directed residency.
Pilchuck is proud to partner with Better Together and Hilltop Artists to provide this unique opportunity to artists of color working in glass. Better Together, founded by Cedric Mitchell and Corey Pemberton of Crafting the Future, is a dynamic event series aimed at supporting, empowering, and inspiring makers of color. These events come in various forms, from craft markets and performances to demonstrations and residencies, all centered around fostering community collaboration. Pilchuck’s Better Together Residency is not just an artistic opportunity; it's a deliberate step towards nurturing a culture and community of inclusion that promotes, respects, and celebrates individuals within the BIPOC community. We invite artists who identify as BIPOC to apply.
For more information, please contact our Outreach & Education Supervisor, Raya Friday at rfriday@pilchuck.org.
Lynquell (LA) Biggs is from the South side of Chicago. He joined Project FIRE, an artist development program combining trauma psychoeducation with glassblowing for youth who have been injured by gun violence in 2016. LA is teaching artist and production assistant at Firebird Community Arts. He has shared his experiences growing up in Chicago and finding healing through glassblowing at the GAS Conference in Tacoma, WA and was a demonstrating artist at the conference in Detroit, MI. He has been an artist in residence at Hilltop Artists, Pittsburgh Center for Glass, Alfred University, and Tyler School of Art.
A Bucheimer is a trans AFAB Filipino glass artist living and working is Seattle, WA. He was raised in a small farm town in Maryland where he started blowing glass at the age of sixteen. After high school he went on to receive his BFA in 2014 from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a concentration in glass, then quickly relocated to Seattle.
He currently resides in White Center, WA with his wife Esmeralda and dogs Pogi and Kipo. A works as the supervisor for the glass team at Chihuly Garden and Glass where he has been demonstrating for the past seven years. He is also building a home hot shop to make his product line of accessible home goods and other sculptural work. His studio work is an exploration of both his gender and racial identity using pattern and form. Heavily focusing on negative space utilizing the transparent properties of glass he expresses what a feeling or emotion might look like.
Scout Cartagena (They/She) is a sculpture artist and printmaker. Through a multi-disciplinary practice that uses printmaking, glass, audio and video, and performance they create works that attempt to find moments of stillness, capture fleeting memory, and express fractures created from the struggle of mental health and chronic illness within their Afro-latine heritage. They believe the body acts as an heirloom and explores this through creating "heirlooms" for themselves and their ancestors.
Cartagena received their BFA in Glass and Art Education certification at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, and is currently attending SAIC in Chicago as a first year sculpture graduate.
Sukayna El Hani was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, spending summers with family in Rabat, Morocco. Starting her artistic journey as a painter, she has discovered her true medium through glass, drawing inspiration from art nouveau and Moroccan art and architecture.
Sukayna received her BFA in Craft and Material Studies (2019) from Virginia Commonwealth University and interned at the Chrysler Glass Studio in Norfolk, VA and Starworks Glass Studio in Star, NC. In 2020, she started working at Anthony Corradetti’s glass studio in Baltimore as his personal assistant and teaching instructor for various classes at the studio. She currently works at Hot Sand in Asbury Park, NJ as hot shop assistant manager. In the fall of 2024, Sukayna will volunteer as a glass blowing assistant instructor at L'institut Spécialisé des Arts Traditionnels in Meknes, the very first vocational education glass center in Morocco.
Ashley Harris is an artist and educator who uses glass to explore the complexities of color, fragility, and identity. Her work unpacks the effects of viewing bodies as artifacts through creating fragmented, fragile sculptures. She breaks apart the contrasting, this or that, approach to understanding BIPOC experiences and instead transforms the focus towards intersectional conversations between people. Upon graduating with her MFA in Glass from RISD in 2021, she participated in the MASS MoCA's Studio Residency program. She was a 2022 Pilchuck Glass School Fellow and was the Glass Studio Artist in Residence at the Rochester Institute of Technology during the 2022-20233 academic year. Ashley was a 2023 fellow at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City.
I am Chiontea Thomas, a 23-year-old Glassblowing teacher and production member for Firebird Community Arts. Firebird Community Arts is based on the West side of Chicago but I grew up and reside on the south side of Chicago. Glassblowing is so much more than just an art to me. Manipulating hot glass brings me comfort and allows me to have a one on one therapy session with myself while others are working with me. Taking a risk in 2018 allowed me to challenge myself for years to keep improving my sculpting skills and gave me the ability to create anything that comes to my adventurous mind. In my most recent endeavors creating childhood characters has inspired me to dig a little deeper in improving the texture in my pieces. Working with many artist that I’ve watched for years, becoming a teacher and traveling to places that I didn’t think I’ll be in so soon are some of my biggest achievements. Glassblowing has affected my life and expanded my world in ways I never knew possible. The best is yet to come but I am thankful for finding something I can truly and wholeheartedly devote myself to.
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 Instructors 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.