There are not many high school students who work with molten glass & blow torches, but kids enrolled in Crefeld School glass studio, Philaedelphia, spend hours every week working on all sorts of glass projects in the studio. The director of Crefeld glass studio, Josh Cole, has spent 3 years teaching dozens of 7th through 12th graders & has seen students evolve their talents over the course of the semesters & years. Students spend time perfecting their craft, attending lessons in glassblowing, lampworking & wax casting. Students use the furnace & kilns in the "hot shop" to blow glass & create everything from cups & bottles to vases & other figures. With lampworking, students use a blow torch to create intricate glass designs & with wax casting, students mold a figure out of wax then layer it in plaster. Then the figure is steamed until the wax melts out & filled with pieces of glass that are melted in the kiln & fill the crevices of the wax figure, leaving a glass figure as the end result. There are challenges with this art form, of course. Projects do not always survive the kiln, or glass gets dropped or malformed. Though the studio has existed at the school since the mid 90s, when Cole arrived he completely rebuilt the studio with more energy-efficient equipment. Cole studied glass in college, & loves being able to come to work at a fully functioning studio to work with his students. In the summer, Cole will be teaching 2 weeks of glass workshops for teens starting 20 June 2011. The glass studio, which is a nonprofit program of The Crefeld School, also offers evening adult & teen classes as well as parent & child classes, private & group lessons & studio rental time when school is out of session.
