Painterly Mark-Making in Kiln-Formed Glass
This kiln-formed glass workshop explores sgraffito as a way of drawing with glass powder and depth. Working entirely through fused-glass processes, students will layer frits, powders and enamels, manipulating materials to reveal light, contrast and form. Through a sequence of focused technical exercises, students will develop a working vocabulary of painterly approaches for tonal shading, texture and spatial illusion. Emphasis will be placed on how marks evolve through firing, how imagery shifts optically across layered glass, and how enamels applied at different stages can alter perception. While grounded in process and material exploration, the workshop also introduces narrative as a compositional framework. Students will begin with small technical studies and progress toward a resolved fused composition, integrating layered sgraffito imagery with color, depth and light. The final project will result in a kiln-formed work that functions simultaneously as drawing and glass object, balancing technical precision with expressive mark-making.
Michael Janis lives and works in Washington, D.C. His figurative and narrative glass works explore identity, cultural inheritance and collective memory through emotionally charged imagery and richly layered surfaces. Michael is widely recognized for his mastery of the sgraffito technique on glass, creating intricate, painterly compositions using crushed glass. Originally trained as an architect, he applies structural precision to a meticulous multi-step studio process. Michael is co-director of the Washington Glass School and has exhibited internationally. His work is held in major museum collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Glass and Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Public commissions include cast-glass doors for the Library of Congress Building and a major memorial honoring the lives of enslaved people from a historic Maryland plantation.
