Participants may select one workshop per session, during which they will be fully immersed in a vibrant educational environment on the breathtaking Pilchuck campus for the duration of the session. All participants eat, work, and sleep on campus for the entire session. Days include intensive instruction and demos throughout the day and evening, as well as ample opportunities for personal exploration and studio time. Housing is warm and rustic and most accommodations require a brief walk through fields and forest to reach the studios.

In this intensive class, students will learn how to make representational images in borosilicate glass through stringer drawing. Techniques covered include cut and flip, disk flip, and sock flip, as well as hybrid combinations of these elements. Demos and hands-on torch work will guide students to create images and apply them to vessels, pendants, and functional sculpture. Previous drawing experience is not required.

We will explore different ways to visually communicate ideas, feelings, and stories. Using various kiln-forming techniques such as casting, Pâte de verre, and slumping, we will create small scale narrative objects which will then be combined with each other, the environment, prints, or found objects, to convey one’s mental state, emotion, or personal stories.

Through careful observation we will consider the potential of glass. Various collaborative and experimental demonstrations will explore how one manages optics and sound to broaden the student’s understanding of the material’s possibility. We will delve beyond physical manipulation of glass with respect and thoughtfulness for the material. This class will encourage investigations into the innate properties of glass. Our studio process will be taught in a traditional glass studio as well as a computer media lab.

This course focuses on different methods of transferring imagery onto blown glass. Students will learn the fundamentals of applying glass enamels via screen printing and calligraphy pen. With an emphasis on story telling through imagery, we will divide our time between the hot shop, making forms, and the print shop, creating images on screens. Emphasis will be placed on teamwork, sketching, and ideation.

We will take a wide-ranging look at the History of Glass with an eye towards providing inspiration and source material for your contemporary artmaking. We will look for ideas across a broad spectrum of human endeavor, not only in the aesthetics of the glass, but also in the social, economic, scientific, and political circumstances of the times which shaped it.

In this course you will discover the traditional techniques of Victorian reverse-glass signmaking. This includes such methods as 23kt gold water/oil gilding, gold leaf burnishing, Boston-style gilding, damar varnishing, brush blending, and signwriting. Using all of these techniques, you will create a beautiful gold leaf-mirrored glass sign.
Mercedes Mühleisen (b.1983, Austria), is an Oslo-based artist working primarily with video installation and performance. Through her work she seeks to give language and expression to processes and situations that lie outside, or to the side of, an anthropocentric logic, and which bring up previously neglected voices.

Ben Wright holds degrees from Dartmouth College, the Appalachian Center for Crafts, and Rhode Island School of Design. He has taught and exhibited his unique approach to art making at numerous schools across the US and abroad in Germany, Turkey, Denmark, Japan, Belgium, Poland and Australia.

The 2027 program will have a bit of everything, with workshops led by new and returning Guest Artists from all around the world, featuring a wide variety of techniques to expand your practice! Our offerings are vast and unique, including everything from glass and stone carving with Viviane Stroede and Tobia Silvotti, a glassblowing equipment fabrication workshop with Philip Vinson, a Pâte de verre intensive with Eriko Kobayashi, to an epic mega workshop led by William Morris's old crew, including returning Pilchuck legends Rik Allen, Shelley Muzylowski Allen, Nico Dimitrijevic, Martin Janecký, Jasen Johnsen, Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen, Kelly O'Dell, Ross Richmond, Raven Skyriver and Randy Walker.
With eight sessions stacked full of workshops in nearly every glass technique and at every skill level, there are options for everyone! Our 2027 Program is guaranteed to offer you exciting opportunities for creative experimentation. We hope you enjoy exploring our program and feel inspired to join us on campus. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that you won't want to miss!