Instructors
Instructor
Amira Rogers
Amira Rogers, multi medium artist. Amira Rogers is a contemporary artist with a life-long passion for creating art in multiple mediums, who began exploring art at a very young age. Amira formerly studied art for the first time at the acclaimed Art’s High School in Newark, NJ, then went on to earn her Bachelor of Fine Art degree, with a minor in graphic design, from Seton Hall University. Amira considers herself an interactive artist working in various mediums (photography, glass, acrylic paint, pencil and marker to name a few).
Instructor
Matt Jacob
Matt Jacob works in glass and illustration. His artistic practice often involves found glass, cold processes, and neon, but he also enjoys blowing glass, drawing comics, and making zines.
Instructor
Charlie Golonkiewicz
Charlie Golonkiewicz lives and makes glass in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from Alfred University in 2015, he began learning and working in several glassblowing studios before founding LE Glassworks in 2022, where he creates unique timeless glassware as well as teaching classes and freelancing for artists and designers in NYC.
Instructor
Chris Freeman
Brooklyn-based artist Chris Freeman has worked in the field of neon since 1985. The majority of his work has been the fabrication of site-specific light sculptures, as well as the engineering and manufacture of neon and Cold Cathode lighting with NYC-based lighting designers and architects. He has worked as a neon technician for Joseph Kosuth, Keith Sonnier, and Stephen Antonakos, and has been commissioned for site-specific neon works for the Newark Public Schools and the Wildwood, New Jersey Convention Center. He has taught neon lighting at The New York Experimental Glass Workshop, Brooklyn Glass, and ceramic sculpture at The School of Visual Arts.
Staff, Instructor
James Smith
James Smith is a glass artist focused primarily in the hotshop. He enjoys the privilege of sharing his glassy knowledge through teaching and loves watching students fall in love with the material.
Instructor
Lisandra Wieters
Lisandra is a budding artist based in Newark, NJ. Her art journey began last year when she was accepted into a fellowship program in which she spent 7 weeks at Peter’s Valley School of Craft studying multiple mediums and creating work for an end-of-show exhibition.
Instructor
Pear Ware
Pear ware is a collaborative, multidisciplinary NYC based wears & wares project run by artists Mika Agari and Carol Hu. Their work uses salvaged materials, handmade and bootleg languages to create one-of-a-kind works that express a humorous functionality and a spirit of playful experimentation. The two began their glass practice through the UrbanGlass Bead Project and have been obsessed ever since.
Instructor
Ana Stavarache
Ana Stavarache is a native New Yorker and a junior at Parsons School of design. She has been with Urban Glass since 2020, when she took part of the Bloomberg Arts Program, and has continued to work with the studio as she began college. Ana is currently studying Architecture and Business Management and enjoys exploring different mediums and skills.
Staff, Instructor
Michelle Bayat
Michelle Bayat is an artist and designer based in New York City. Her passion for glassmaking began while attending a class at Urban Glass during the pandemic. With a professional education in architecture from Pratt Institute, she is always working to incorporate a creative composition in her designs and her love of color always makes an appearance in her work too.
Instructor
Alix DeFabbia-Kane
Alexandra DeFabbia-Kane is a glass artist living in Queens, NY. Alix graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2015. Since then, she has been working in New York, focusing on glass for lighting designers and artists, as well as teaching workshops for intermediate and beginner glassblowers. In 2020, Alix and fellow designer Molly Burke created Sunside & Co., where they create tableware and floral functional pieces.
Instructor
Han Duong
Han Duong is a flameworking artist based in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from Urban Glass's Bead Project in Fall of 2022, she continues her practice at the studio to create handmade jewelry for her brand, Sky Candy. Her work mainly consists of charming, figurine-styled accessories that express femininity, color expression, and softness.
Instructor
Hannah Martin
Under the artistic name HAN MADE, Hannah Martin works with glass, wool, and yarn as her primary mediums to create wearable pieces and home accessories. Combining these mediums in cohesive works of art, she explores ways the materials complement and enhance each other despite their differences.
Staff, Instructor
Diego Brindis
Diego is a glass maker, educator, and an occasional screenwriter. Originally from NYC he likes to spend his time making vessels and stemware, reading, writing, and playing sports.
Instructor
Michiko Sakano
Michiko Sakano, was born and raised in the culturally rich city of Kanazawa on the West Coast of Japan. Her family has carried the tradition and business of Kimono making that dates back generations. This upbringing and the influence of traditional Japanese aesthetics, including minimalism, discipline of line, original design and the rigor of handcraft, shaped Michiko's perspective early and continues to guide her approach to glass.
Instructor
Sheila Checkoway
‘Making glass beads is my passion.’ Sheila finds inspiration in nature, her extensive world travels, anywhere and everywhere! Her style is described as a mixture of organic and bling: other lampworkers and jewelry designers describe her beads as ‘different’ and ‘unique’.
Staff, Instructor
Kate Hush
Part informally trained and part self taught at the back of a sign shop in New York; Kate Hush has been creating light sculptures in the medium of neon for the past decade.
Instructor
Cha Cha Chainz
Charlene Foster aka Cha Cha Chainz represents the gold standard in glass chain making. A pioneer of the trend, she has been perfecting the art of flawless and seamless links since 2002.
Instructor
Richard Paz
Richard Paz is a multidisciplinary visual artist and educator, based in Newark, New Jersey. Paz utilizes a variety of media to explore ideas surrounding personal identity, relationships, and social issues. For over nineteen years, Richard has developed his skills in glass, creating sculptural work and statement jewelry.
Instructor
Tara Traister
Tara Traister is an artist and military veteran who served in the Navy and Army National Guard from 1992-1998. She began making art as a way to heal from military trauma in art therapy workshops at the Brooklyn Veteran’s Medical Center.
Instructor
Yiyi Wei
Yiyi Wei is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in China. She received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Department, where she began to consider her artworks as processes that perceive the entangled connections between human and non-human existences.
Instructor
Rob Panepinto
Rob Panepinto, also known as "p0ng," discovered the art of glassblowing at Urban Glass in the mid-1990s and has been pursuing his passion ever since. Over the years, he has honed his craft through teaching and collaborating with other artists, constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible with glass.
Instructor
Ellis Dulchin
Born and bred in Brooklyn, Ellis fell in love with glass taking classes at UrbanGlass while in high school. After attending Tyler School of Art and Architecture he returned to New York, where he splits his time between Urban Glass and his studio in Mountaindale NY. His work focuses on experimentation in pattern and texture, incorporating blown glass and cast metal.
Instructor
Goldie Poblador
Goldie Poblador was born in the Philippines where she received her BFA in Studio Arts from the University of the Philippines in 2009.
Instructor
Jessi Li
Jessi Li (b.1987) grew up in Jersey City, NJ. They hold an MFA from Hunter College (2019) and a BA from Bard College at Simon’s Rock (2009). Li makes sculpture about the instability existence in glass, clay, and repurposed objects.
Instructor
Ben Barocas
Ben Barocas has been lampworking borosilicate glass since 2002. Over the years he has exhibited in solo and group shows in Ruckus Gallery, Stoked Gallery, Long Island Glass, Made Gallery, Sherlocks Glass, 1 Percent Gallery, and many more.
Instructor
Michael Davis
Michael Davis started working with stained glass in 1975, and has worked at many stained glass studios in California and New York City. In New York he worked for: Rambush, Greenland Studio, Jack Cushen, St. Ann’s and the Gil Studio. Davis also ran his own glass blowing, stained glass shop in Long Island City for 18 years.
Instructor
Rebecca Erde
Rebecca Erde is a designer, fabricator and educator based in Brooklyn. She has a diverse background in glass casting, architecture, woodworking, metalworking and digital fabrication.
Instructor
Tomo Sakai
Born and raised in Japan, Tomo Sakai discovered glass when she was a teenager. After graduating from the glass program at Tama Art University in Tokyo in 2002, she moved to a small town in the glassmaking region of the Czech Republic to study glass engraving.
Instructor
Austin Davenport Grier
Austin Davenport Grier is a glass person from NorCal who has dabbled in many facets of the glass world.
Instructor
Cedric Mitchell
Cedric Major Mitchell, Los Angeles-based glass artist from Oklahoma who honed his skills while attending Tulsa Community College studying business. Learning about the glass art-form as an emerging local hip-hop artist while recording in the music studio, he immediately enrolled as an elective. As a student, he quickly transitioned into an apprentice and instructor at The Tulsa Glassblowing School.
Instructor
Suzanne Head
Suzanne Head received her BFA in drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2016. With a multi-faceted approach to visual story telling, Suzanne has created work in pencil, paint, clay and glass, in addition to pursuing public art as a muralist.
Instructor
Jessica Tsai
Jessica Tsai earned her BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011. She worked in New York City as an art fabricator, moldmaker, and museum preparator.
Instructor
Jenine Bressner
Jenine Bressner has been sculpting glass with torches since 1998, and lasercutting textiles since 2009, having studied glass at RISD and digital fabrication through MIT.
Instructor
Miguel Unson
Miguel Unson draws inspiration from archaeological ambiguity and deliberate chaos. He found his voice in glass having completed a Masters Degree in Communication and Packaging design at Pratt Institute.
Instructor
Avery Shaffer
Avery Shaffer, an artist and designer working in kiln-formed glass, received his BFA from East Carolina University with a concentration in painting.
Instructor
Nisha Bansil
Nisha Bansil is an artist and educator. Splitting her time between the Catskills and NYC She fabricates work for other artists as well as pursuing her own studio practice. She has been a resident artist at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass, and Bullseye Projects. She has done live performance pieces at the The Chrysler Museum of Art, as well as the Corning museum of glass. A Fulbright Scholar recipient, her work has been exhibited nationally. Nisha currently works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a conservation mount maker and preparator.
Instructor
Chris Duffy
Mostly known for mixed media sculpture often involving glass, Christopher Duffy is part dedicated craftsman and part cultural dilettante. He has lived in New York City since 2006 in Brooklyn and or Queens.
Staff, Instructor
Ali Feeney
Always playing with new materials, Ali Feeney is drawn to all things soft, shiny, and contrasting. Emerging artist, business owner, and educator, her research focuses on gender norms, craft histories, materials, and family dynamics.
Instructor
John Erwin Dillard
John Dillard (B. Gulfport, MS, USA 1995. ) Is an interdisciplinary sculptor living and working Brooklyn, NY. After receiving a BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design, John continues to show nationally and internationally with residencies at Penland School of Crafts, Burren College of Art, and George Enescu University of the Arts.
Instructor
Christopher Kerr-Ayer
Christopher Kerr-Ayer grew up in rural Vermont. He started learning about glass in 2009, as an apprentice in a small production studio. Kerr-Ayer refined his skill and studio practice through working as a production assistant and employee. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Johnson State College, Vt.
Staff, Instructor
Roxana De Leon
Roxana is a 90s baby born in Mexico, raised chaotically throughout the North Americas, and currently working from NYC. Chasing the thrill of a well-made piece of art, she seeks to delight the eye through often figurative and colorful works. Training in fine arts on top of a life-long revelry in wacky mixed media practices combine to form her style and sensibility.
Staff, Instructor
Lucas Kernan
Lucas Kernan (they/them) is a glassmaker and artist who you may find teaching, teaching, or blowing glass at UrbanGlass.
Instructor
John McGuckin
My name is John McGuckin and I’ve been crafting with glass since 2014. I graduated from Salem Community College, New Jersey, in 2020. While there I earned a degree focused in scientific glass technologies. My work has consisted of pendant and marble making with borosilicate glass.
Instructor
Megan Ulrich
After studying Glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, Megan found herself where many makers do, supplementing multiple jobs in the arts by working in hospitality.
Instructor
Jess Krichelle
After taking a neon design and fabrication course with Lili Lakich in Los Angeles, Jess studied neon glassblowing under Michael Flechtner to make her own light sculptures. She worked as the Lab Supervisor at the Museum of Neon Art before she moved from Los Angeles to New York in 2021 to pursue her glass education.
Staff, Instructor
Malcolm Kriegel
Brooklyn born artist Malcolm Kriegel began his career as a maker in high school.
Staff, Instructor
Emily Doerflein
Emily Doerflein’s work captures the human form using glass as well as mixed materials. After receiving her BFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Emily has moved back to New York to join the UrbanGlass community.
Instructor
Caroline (Coco) Picard
Caroline (Coco) Picard is a writer and curator based in New Mexico. As the Executive Director of the Green Lantern Press, she has published over 40 books on art, theory, and literature.
Instructor
Ghislaine Sabiti
Ghislaine Sabiti is an interdisciplinary French/American Congolese-born artist, a painter, costume designer, and flame worker who was raised on the outskirts of Paris, France and is now based in New York.
Instructor
Anna Riley
Anna Riley is a researcher, teacher, and artist interested in material culture. Her research and creative projects have been supported by fellowships, residencies, and grants from the Center for Craft, the Brooklyn Arts Fund, UC Berkeley, Residency Unlimited, the Corning Museum of Glass, UrbanGlass, the Museum of Arts and Design, and Dieu Donné Papermill. She is currently a graduate student at the Bard Graduate Center, NY.
Instructor
Jason Montalvo
Jason Montalvo, MPS, LCAT, ATR-BC is a Brooklyn-based Art Therapist with over 15 years of experience in working with youth of diverse backgrounds and is currently working with at-risk foster children, adolescents, and their families throughout the New York City area currently with the agency Mercyfirst.
Instructor
Gabe Cohen
Gabriel Cohen is one half of Fredericks & Mae - a company that started 12 years ago making handmade arrows, tassels and kites.
Instructor
Hilary Wang
Hilary Wang is a maker turned archivist. She holds a MSLIS from the Pratt Institute School of Information and was the Guggenheim Museum Born-Digital Archives Fellow and a former Graduate Fellow at Barnard College Archives and Special Collections.
Instructor
Lenise Omeasoo
Oki (hello)
My name is Lenise Omeasoo, I’ve been creating beaded jewelry for the past 10 years. Starting out with small hair accessories for my daughter, then moving on to larger pieces for my growing following.
Instructor
Shuhei Fujii
Shuhei Fujii is a Japanese glassblower who works out of UrbanGlass. In a loud, bustling Brooklyn, Shuhei tries to imbue each glass vessel with the subtlety and simplicity, and the beauty and quietness, of Japanese craft-making.
Instructor
Brooke Hamling
Brooke Hamling is an artist working in cast glass and ceramics. She is currently the head of research and development at Zircar Luminar Glass Products.
Instructor
Jasmine Anokye
Jasmine Anokye, a 2016 Bead Project Alum, is the founder of Waysted Studio - an artistic lifestyle brand passionately committed to self care and body autonomy.
Instructor
KEEP
Susan Spiranovich and Adam Holtzinger are the founders of KEEP, a Brooklyn-based lighting company. The two met at the Cleveland Institute of Art where Susan graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design and Adam with a BFA in Glass.
Instructor, Current
Amanda Ladd
Amanda Ladd has been working with flowers professionally for over 15 years.
Instructor
Simone Kearney
Simone Kearney is a writer and an artist living in New York City. She is author of Days (Belladonna Press, 2020, forthcoming), My Ida (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017), and In Threes (Minute BOOKS, limited edition artist chapbook, 2013).
Instructor
Rowan Renee
Rowan Renee is a Brooklyn-based artist who explores how queer identity is mediated by the law. In their research-led practice, they collect imagery, text and documents that address the intergenerational impact of gender-based violence and incarceration from State records and family archives.
Instructor
Evan Voelbel
Evan Voelbel received his BFA in 3D/Glass from Massachusetts College of Art in 2010. Following his undergraduate education, Evan worked as a teaching assistant at Massart, as a studio assistant for glass artists local to Massachusetts and also as a gaffer and teacher at a number of glass studios in the Boston area.
Instructor
Nate Cotterman
Nate Cotterman is known for his modern interpretation of glass objects, using traditional Venetian glass blowing techniques.
Instructor
Ross A. Delano
Ross has been working with glass since 2005 after being introduced to the material at Franklin Pierce University while getting his B.S. in Business Administration.
Instructor
Kacie Lees
Kacie Lees is an interdisciplinary artist and professor based in Brooklyn, New York. Lees’ vivid works examine affective qualities of light and tertiary spaces.
Instructor
Silvia Levenson
Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Silvia Levenson immigrated to Italy in 1981, during the "disappearances" of the Dirty War. In 2004, Levenson received the Rakow Commission Award from the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, and in 2008 she was shortlisted for the Bombay Sapphire Prize. In 2016 she received the Venice Glass Award.
Instructor
Sally Prasch
Sally Prasch started working in glass in 1970 with Lloyd Moore. Received BFA in Ceramics and Glass, also degrees in Applied Science and Scientific Glass Technology.
Instructor
Gayle Forman
An avid fan of frozen treats, Gayle Forman gravitates toward things that melt, spill, and generally make a mess. Artist, designer, and administrator, her studio practice and research focuses on play, imagination, the absurd and the everyday.
