In a society that elevates individualism and expertise, glassmaking refuses these modes of making and instead opens artists to a space of community and experimentation. This course introduces students to concepts of creative refusal and values-based making through glassmaking, drawing on a long history of artists who challenge norms to critique and reimagine the world around them. Glassmaking is an inherently community-oriented process as it can’t be done alone. So what does it mean for us to connect to the value systems embedded in a process - such as refusal and community in glass - and relate them to our own exploration of a material and our act of making with it? And how can we bring our own values into this creative process?

By connecting the communal nature of glassmaking to artistic and personal values, students will explore how material and process might intersect with their own beliefs. Through lectures and creative prompts, students will engage with art movements like Dadaism and Relational Aesthetics, discovering how the ideas of these movements relate to the dynamic, collaborative nature of glass. As students experiment with traditional and nontraditional glass techniques through glassblowing, casting, and imagery creation—they will develop technical skills while reflecting on how these methods inform their own creative process. This hands-on, experimental studio course is open to all experience levels. Students will learn through demonstrations, lectures, discussions, readings, and critiques, gaining both technical proficiency and a deeper understanding of the values that shape their own lives and artistic practices.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

Elective

This five-week studio course introduces students to fundamental glassblowing and casting techniques including glass hot casting, plaster blow mold and kiln slumping while challenging conventional notions of the connection between glass and vessel. Glass has long been shaped to contain, preserve, and transport. Yet what does it truly mean to hold? This course centers on reconsidering glass vessels more than functional objects; they define space, create boundaries, and mediate the relationship between inside and outside. In addition to material and technical skill-building, this course emphasizes research and conceptual problem-solving. Assignments will be introduced with presentations focusing on specific themes. Demonstrations will introduce both traditional and non-traditional glass working methods. Students will develop work in response to evolving conceptual frameworks. By the end of the course, students will create a project that redefines the glass vessel in their chosen forms. A field trip to the RISD Museum’s special collections will provide opportunities for students to analyze and reinterpret vessels across cultures and time periods. What stories do these objects tell? How can glass extend beyond its functional role to become a carrier of meaning, memory, or transformation?

This introductory-level class welcomes students eager to experiment and push the boundaries of glass, encouraging creative risk-taking and a deeper exploration of what glass can be. No prior experience is required—just curiosity and a willingness to question, deconstruct, and reconsider expectations.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

Elective

Students will be introduced to various methods of utilizing molten glass in the hotshop and work towards creating works that emphasize the aspects that characterize the medium in its molten state, (for example):

- Time-based

- Movement, Choreography, and the Body

- Fluidity

- Amorphous

- Performative

- Collaborative

In lecture we will visit historical artworld references such as Fluxus, Surrealism, Happenings, and Performance Art, as well as contemporary examples. We will also cover material characteristics of glass, with an emphasis on the material in its molten state. Students will be strongly encouraged to experiment and push aside any preconceptions of what type of art can be made from molten glass. Students will work in pairs and small groups on a series of weekly exercises and prompts that will lead to finished works.

Estimated Materials Cost: $200.00

Elective

This hands-on experimental course will give students the opportunity to investigate a wide range of hot casting methods. The class will focus on exploring and innovating with a variety of mold materials: sand, CO2, refractory, wood, metal, organic and found molds. Hot glass ladle casting will be our primary working technique. Demonstrations will not linger on the technical but rather, will function as a catalyst for students to engage in an aesthetic and/or conceptual dialogue with technique and material. Both the studio process and the information presented in this class will encourage collaborative as well as individual work. This class will permit a deep investigation into the process of casting and into the innate properties of glass.

Elective

Glass, a material that is derived from natural processes and human ingenuity, has occupied the threshold between man and nature for millennia. In natural form it can be the byproduct of volcanoes, lightning strikes, extraterrestrial impacts (tektites, moldavites, ...) and deep-sea sponges.  Early civilizations, recognizing the potential of its wondrous properties, used volcanic glass (obsidian) to create mirrors and arrowheads.  The myriad optical and physical qualities of manmade glass have been used to create telescopes, magnifying glasses and a vast array of alchemical and scientific instruments.  From the ubiquitous glass vessel, to the most advanced technology of silica-based nanostructures, glass has been instrumental in our ability to perceive and conceive of nature.  It has shaped our understanding of nature and our place within it. 

Through a process of material investigations and site visits/ explorations we will conduct an intensive study of the role that glass has played in our observation and understanding of nature over time.   Using both traditional and experimental hot glass working techniques we will create works inspired by, and responding to specific themes each week. Themes will highlight ideas that present and contain nature, that magnify nature, that duplicate nature, and that vitrify nature. 

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Elective

This beginning glass major studio combines studio practice, critical discourse and contemporary issues through assignments, reports, and scheduled critiques. The course develops awareness of three-dimensional issues concerning material, concept, process and light to establish criteria for artistic striving. Students are required to develop the sketchbook as an essential creative tool.

Estimated Materials Cost: $200.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

Glass IIA is an intermediate studio course in which students continue their ongoing investigation of material processes. Emphasis is on developing personal concepts and imagery and visual research skills through investigations of regularly assigned topics. Students develop a substantial idea sketchbook, participate in scheduled class activities, and group critique.

Estimated Materials Cost: $200.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

Glass IIIA is an advanced major studio that requires intermediate glass working skills and familiarity with the material. This course stresses the continuing development of personal imagery, viewpoint, visual source research and the refinement of material processes in terms of individual artistic requirements. As preparation leading to the senior thesis project, independent studio work and individual consultation are emphasized. During this semester, each student is expected to seek out at least one professional artist outside the Glass Department and develop an artistic association with this advisor for the duration of the senior year.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This course is a studio survey of glass as a three-dimensional medium. The course explores traditional and non-traditional techniques of glassblowing casting, and coldworking. The greater part of the class is spent in the studio working directly with glass.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Elective

This beginning course introduces basic glassblowing and molten glassworking processes. It includes offhand" glassblowing, "solidworking" and glassblowing with molds. Students apply new technical skills to self-generated projects. Students maintain detailed technical notes and a project sketchbook.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $400.00
 

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This beginning course introduces the materials and processes necessary for basic glass casting of solid objects and includes various mold making methods. Molten glass casting, glass fuse casting, pate de verre, optical slump casting; the techniques for making refractory molds, sand molds, metal or graphite molds; and the proper use of annealing ovens are introduced. Students apply new technical skills to self-generated projects. Students maintain detailed technical notes and a project sketchbook.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This course is the second half of an intensive, two-semester introduction to studio practice. Objectives introduced in the preceding semester are refined and furthered through assignments, reports, and scheduled critique. Students are required to develop the sketchbook as an essential creative tool.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

Glass IIB is the second half of a two-semester intermediate studio course in which students will continue their ongoing investigation of material processes. Emphasis is on developing personal concepts, imagery, and visual research skills through investigations of regularly assigned topics. Students develop a substantial idea sketchbook, participate in scheduled class activities, and group critique.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This seminar/studio course is centered around a series of invited artists, writers, scientists who work at the intersection of diverse identities and lived experiences to model their specific perspectives on making as a counterpoint to historically euro-centric and monolithic approaches that have burdened glass as a creative medium. Readings, discussions and class activities prioritize issues of identity, culture, gender, race, colonialism - questioning past cannons of making and proposing challenging alternatives. The participatory and collaborative work done for this class is fundamental to our thinking and making community; a willingness to share ideas and make earnest attempts to connect and support one another is central. Our lecturers and HotNights participants set a broad and challenging spectrum of topics which are built on by the research and perspectives of everyone in the class. In each case, we will strive to address topics, discussions and shop time problem solving in a manner that is respectful to all individuals.

Junior Glass Students register for GLASS-4316 (Fall) and GLASS-4318 (Spring).

Senior Glass Students register for GLASS-4320 (Fall) and GLASS-4322 (Spring).

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This seminar/studio course is centered around a series of invited artists, writers, scientists who work at the intersection of diverse identities and lived experiences to model their specific perspectives on making as a counterpoint to historically euro-centric and monolithic approaches that have burdened glass as a creative medium. Readings, discussions and class activities prioritize issues of identity, culture, gender, race, colonialism - questioning past cannons of making and proposing challenging alternatives. The participatory and collaborative work done for this class is fundamental to our thinking and making community; a willingness to share ideas and make earnest attempts to connect and support one another is central. Our lecturers and HotNights participants set a broad and challenging spectrum of topics which are built on by the research and perspectives of everyone in the class. In each case, we will strive to address topics, discussions and shop time problem solving in a manner that is respectful to all individuals.

Juniors register for GLASS-4316 (Fall) and GLASS-4318 (Spring).

Seniors register for GLASS-4320 (Fall) and GLASS-4322 (Spring).

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This primarily technical course builds on basic, traditional glassblowing skills - and challenges students to move toward more complex, technical proficiency. Demonstrations and supervised practice will introduce alternative methods, refinement and new techniques. Also, student innovation with traditional process is encouraged. Students improve both individual and team skills, maintain a technical notebook, and develop an idea sketchbook.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This first semester of graduate study emphasizes varied experimentation, extensive visual source research, maximum productivity and conceptual growth. Students are expected to develop professional associations with artists outside the glass department in addition to the department's faculty and its scheduled roster of Visiting Artists and critics.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00

Major Requirement | MFA Glass

This seminar/studio course is centered around a series of invited artists, writers, scientists who work at the intersection of diverse identities and lived experiences to model their specific perspectives on making as a counterpoint to historically euro-centric and monolithic approaches that have burdened glass as a creative medium. Readings, discussions and class activities prioritize issues of identity, culture, gender, race, colonialism - questioning past cannons of making and proposing challenging alternatives. The participatory and collaborative work done for this class is fundamental to our thinking and making community; a willingness to share ideas and make earnest attempts to connect and support one another is central. Our lecturers and HotNights participants set a broad and challenging spectrum of topics which are built on by the research and perspectives of everyone in the class. In each case, we will strive to address topics, discussions and shop time problem solving in a manner that is respectful to all individuals.

Junior Glass Students register for GLASS-4316 (Fall) and GLASS-4318 (Spring).

Senior Glass Students register for GLASS-4320 (Fall) and GLASS-4322 (Spring).

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This beginning course will provide comprehensive technical instruction on basic glass coldworking" processes including glass polishing, sandblasting, etching, cutting, engraving, gluing, laminating, glass drilling. Students will apply new technical skills to self-generated projects. Students must maintain detailed technical notes and a project sketchbook.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This seminar/studio course is centered around a series of invited artists, writers, scientists who work at the intersection of diverse identities and lived experiences to model their specific perspectives on making as a counterpoint to historically euro-centric and monolithic approaches that have burdened glass as a creative medium. Readings, discussions and class activities prioritize issues of identity, culture, gender, race, colonialism - questioning past cannons of making and proposing challenging alternatives. The participatory and collaborative work done for this class is fundamental to our thinking and making community; a willingness to share ideas and make earnest attempts to connect and support one another is central. Our lecturers and HotNights participants set a broad and challenging spectrum of topics which are built on by the research and perspectives of everyone in the class. In each case, we will strive to address topics, discussions and shop time problem solving in a manner that is respectful to all individuals.

Juniors register for GLASS-4316 (Fall) and GLASS-4318 (Spring).

Seniors register for GLASS-4320 (Fall) and GLASS-4322 (Spring).

Major Requirement | BFA Glass