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.
Instructors
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.
Staff, Instructor
Austin Grier
Austin Grier is a Northern Californian glass craftsperson who has been in Brooklyn since Thanksgiving 2021. He has practiced borosilicate and soft glass flameworking since 2011.
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 works in NYC and the Catskill Region of NY, where she fabricates commissioned glass works as well as her personal projects. She has been a resident artist at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass, and Bullseye Projects.
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.
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 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
Ipek Tepper
Ipek grew up in Istanbul, Turkey and is a glass artist, curator and an architect. She moved to Brooklyn in 2018 after receiving her MFA degree in Glass from Rhode Island School of Design.
Staff, Instructor
Lucas Kernan
Lucas Kernan (they/them) is a second generation glassblower and technician 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.
Staff, Instructor
Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez
Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez has been a professional glassworker for over 13years, a path that has led her to artist residencies at Pilchuck Glass School, The Creative Glass Center of America, MASS MoCA, STARworks Glass Lab, and the UTAG Glass and Neon Studios. Her work has been shown internationally at several venues, most notably in Young Glass, a once-per-decade exhibition featuring rising international glass artists under 35. Domestically she recently exhibited at Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh and UrbanGlass in Brooklyn. Her sculptures are included in New Glass Review #33 and #38, publications of The Corning Museum of Glass. Ahmadizadeh Melendez is currently faculty at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, from which she received her BFA in Glass. She holds an MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Staff, 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 projects have been supported by fellowships and residencies at UC Berkeley, the Corning Museum of Glass, UrbanGlass, the Museum of Arts and Design, and Dieu Donné Papermill.
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
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
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.
Staff, Instructor
Phil Garip
Phil Garip is a neon artist and fabricator based in Brooklyn. He is a Sagittarius, a cat parent, and his love language is improv.
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.
Staff, Instructor
Gayle Forman
An avid fan of frozen treats, Gayle Forman gravitates toward things that melt, spill, and generally make a mess.
Instructor
David Licata
David Licata is an artist from White Plains, New York. He is a graduate of Cranbrook academy of art with a MFA in metalsmithing and a BFA in Sculpture and Art education from SUNY New Paltz.
Instructor
Deborah Czeresko
Heavily influenced by an extensive background in hot glass fabrication, Czeresko's work is preoccupied by the cultural significance and the hierarchical systems of value that exist within the objects and beings that surround us.
Instructor, Current
Jeffrey Close
Jeffrey Close is a maker, designer, and artist based in Brooklyn, NY whose work explores an inclination towards fine art, architecture, and functionality within the context of 21st century design.
Instructor
Jessi Moore
Moore is an artist and educator currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Making and teaching has led her all over the country, including: Seattle, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania
Instructor
Blaine Davis
Blaine is a (commercial) photographer in New York, most interested in people and design. Blaine studied Photography & Imaging at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and he has been commissioned by T Magazine, Vogue, and Nike.
Instructor
Grace Whiteside
Grace Whiteside is a NYC based artist, glassmaker and founder of an interdisciplinary collaborative design line called Sticky Glass. They received two BFA’s from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2017 in Sculpture and Craft and since then has exhibited work at venues such, as Black Iris gallery (Richmond, VA), Recess (Brooklyn, NY), Westbeth Gallery (NYC), Present Company (Brooklyn, NY), Established Gallery (Brooklyn, NY) and UrbanGlass’s Agnes Varis Art Center (Brooklyn, NY).
Instructor
David King
David King earned an MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture in 2011. King has twice been a fellow at WheatonArts, as well as an emerging artist in residence at the Pilchuck Glass School.
Instructor, Visiting
Matthew Szosz
Matthew Szösz is a practicing artist and educator known primarily for his innovative use of glass to explore the relationship between experimentation, process and aesthetic product. He received his BFA, BID, and MFA(Glass) from Rhode Island School of Design.
Instructor, Visiting
Dylan Karle
Dylan Karle was born and raised in New York City. He began school for biochemistry, but once he found flameworking and discovered Salem Community College he left his biochemical studies to pursue dual degrees in scientific and artistic glass blowing.
Instructor, Visiting
Jay Macdonell
Jay has worked for many studios since 1992 for various artists, designers and architects as a project manager, design consultant and gaffer. He has worked for artists such as Laura and Alessandro De Santillana, Xu Bing, Angelo Filomeno, Bruce Mau, Catherine Chalmers, and Mildred Howard and has taught at Pilchuck Glass School, The Bay Area Glass institute in San Jose, Pittsburg Glass School, Espace Verre in Montreal and the Royal Copenhagen School of Art and Architecture on the island of Bornholm, Denmark.
Instructor, Visiting
Julia and Robin Rogers
Julia and Robin Rogers share a passion for sculpture and molten glass. After assisting each other for ten years, they decided to create collaboratively.
Instructor, Visiting
Kit Paulson
Kit Paulson received her MFA from Southern Illinois University and her BFA from Alfred University.
Instructor, Visiting
Brent Rogers
Brent Rogers was born and raised in Seattle, Washington where he worked as a production glass blower and designer at the Glass eye studio.
Instructor, Visiting
Jiri Pacinek
Jiri Pacinek started his career in glass in the early 1990’s, when he joined Chribska 1414 Glass Works.
Instructor, Visiting
Iryna Stepanchuk
Iryna Stepanchuk is a Certified Public Accountant with comprehensive industry knowledge and hands-on experience in providing support in the areas of tax, accounting, and business operations to small- and mid-sized businesses and individuals.
