urbanglass

oriana on 25 Mar ’11

neighborhood: sunset park (ft. greene) | space type: skillshare | active since: 1977 | links: website, blog, facebook, twitter

I went to an open house at UrbanGlass—a glass-working skillshare and teaching center—completely on a lark, and it was absolutely fantastic. After touring the space, we watched people making glass beads over blowtorches, and a team of two blowing and shaping a hunk of molten glass into a vase, sliding it in and out of the “glory hole,” a furnace set to around 2000ºF, which is used to re-melt the glass as it’s worked on. It was incredible.

Housed in a historic former theatre, UrbanGlass is huge and hot, filled with kilns and pipes and furnaces and fire, with glass-blowers and glass-firers and glass-fusers in safety goggles and protective gloves all around. It was the first all-access glass center in the United States, and is now the largest, with studio space for more than 150 artists and classes for over 500 students each year.

Discs by Misako Shimizu

In addition to classes and studio rentals, UrbanGlass hosts exhibitions, offers a visiting artists program, and even started the Bead Project, a scholarship program to help economically disadvantaged women learn a marketable skill.

Glassblowers Rob Panepinto and Alexis DeLeon

Student work from the “Kiln 2” class with Laurie Korowitz-Coutu

Laurie Korowitz-Coutu making beads with a blowtorch

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Like this? Read more about skillshares: Brooklyn Brainery, Time’s Up, 3rd Ward, Gowanus Print Lab, Pioneer Works, Bushwick Print Lab, Ger-Nis, Exapno

Reader interactions

12 Replies to “urbanglass”

  1. Jeanne 26 Mar ’11 at 12:07 pm

    I can’t believe there’s a glass factory in Brooklyn! The furnace must be so well insulated for the fire marshals to allow it. I love that they’re also using it as a place to teach new glass artists as well as a space for accomplished artists to create. Clearly, this is not a hobby one can persue at home!

  2. mikerosss 25 Apr ’11 at 9:44 pm

    Keep posting stuff like this i really like it

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  12. miguel vara 7 Feb ’14 at 8:14 pm

    Wow Laurie you seen to be doing good, and doing things that you love, is been at least 19 years since I last saw you, in NY. and last was Texas.

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