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

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 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 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.

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 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

Graduate Glass II continues with the objectives of the preceding semester. It is expected that students continue artistic experimentation and individual growth at an increasingly professional level.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00

Major Requirement | MFA Glass

With assistance from department and outside faculty, the graduate student defines and organizes an evolved artistic viewpoint presented in both a comprehensive written thesis and a thesis exhibition. At the beginning of this semester, students are also required to present a slide source presentation to a department assembly that is a compilation of the previous three semesters' visual research. A professional portfolio is presented to the department at the completion of the student's graduate study.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00

Major Requirement | MFA Glass

All Glass junior, senior and graduate degree program students meet together to engage both practical and theoretical issues of a glass career through: field trips, technical demonstrations, visitor presentations, and direct exchange with visiting professionals from relevant disciplines through student/professional collaborations, artist residencies, individual consultations, critique, and organized group discussion. Class will require reading, active participation in weekly discussions, and prepared student presentations.

First-year graduate students register for GLASS-435G (Fall) and GLASS-436G (Spring).

Second-year graduate students register for GLASS-437G (Fall) and GLASS-438G (Spring).

Major Requirement | MFA Glass

All Glass junior, senior and graduate degree program students meet together to engage both practical and theoretical issues of a glass career through: field trips, technical demonstrations, visitor presentations, and direct exchange with visiting professionals from relevant disciplines through student/professional collaborations, artist residencies, individual consultations, critique, and organized group discussion. Class will require reading, active participation in weekly discussions, and prepared student presentations.

First-year graduate students register for GLASS-435G (Fall) and GLASS-436G (Spring).

Second-year graduate students register for GLASS-437G (Fall) and GLASS-438G (Spring).

Major Requirement | MFA Glass

This semester is directed towards defining and organizing an evolved artistic viewpoint that incorporates glass in a visual imagery. At the beginning of this semester, students are required to present a slide source presentation to a department assembly that is a compilation of the previous three semesters' visual research. Each student is also expected to further develop his/her artistic association with a designated "outside" advisor(s) and involve this professional artist in critique and consultation. Artistic premise and intention are comprehensively presented in a senior thesis exhibition. A complete portfolio is presented to the department at the completion of this semester.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

This class serves as an interface between the new technologies of digital and the old technologies of optics. New digital technologies are given alternative possibilities with the addition of specific projection apparatus (in terms of both, projection optics and projection surfaces), plays with reflection (such as the construction of anamorphic cylinders, zoetropes, and other optical devices), and in the fabrication of project specific lenses. Given the hands-on nature of the glass department, the actual making and/or subversion of traditional optics is possible. The class encourages collaborative work between students of varying experience levels and fosters the incorporation and dialogue between students of the two differing areas of expertise.

Elective