Students at RISD Reconstruct Natural Forms of Glass in the Studio

In the natural world, glass is formed in the same way it is made in a glass-making studio: by heating sand and then cooling it quickly. Obsidian or volcanic glass, for example, is molten rock that has quickly cooled. Other kinds of glassy rock, such as tektites and Libyan desert glass, were created by the intense heat and force of meteors hitting the Earth millions of years ago. 

This fall, students in a Glass department course are attempting to re-create natural forms of glass in the studio and embedding biological materials into hot-casted and kiln-formed glass. The course is designed to inform students’ understanding of the role glass has played in human culture over time and to more generally build a sense of how materials attain meaning through process.

For their first assignment, they worked in the hot shop with such materials as animal bones, seashells, and sugarcane. “We began by conducting research in the library,” says faculty member Ashley Harris MFA 21 GL, who is teaching the course. “There are so many examples of glass in nature. Sea sponges have silica skeletons, obsidian is a form of glass, and other forms are created through forest fires and lightning strikes. Today is the first time many of these students have ladled molten glass,” she adds, “so part of the assignment is getting comfortable with the technique.”

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Brown | RISD Dual Degree student Maximos Spatharaki BRDD 29 GL wants to see how an apple will interact with molten glass. “I love this class because it involves applying research to our art practices, and I am really getting to know a new side of the material,” he says. “RISD’s Glass department offers a balance between rigor and freedom, giving us the chance to explore our own interests while being provided with structure and support.”

As the students work together, moving from the mouth of the furnace to the surface where they pour the glass to the annealing oven, their teamwork becomes smoother and smoother. The chicken bones one student adds create a kind of pearlescent effect due to the calcium they contain. Harris nixes one student’s proposal to add eggshells because she knows from experience that the smell will be overpowering.

“I did a demo earlier in which I poured glass over ice cubes,” she adds, “and the results were really cool. The top surface cracked in a beautiful way, and the bottom surface was imprinted with the shape of the ice cubes.” The exercises she assigns are intended to inform students’ understanding of the role glass has played in human culture over time and to more generally build a sense of how materials attain meaning through process.

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After cleaning up the hot shop, the class moves to the kiln room for a demonstration of the proper technique for cutting sheet glass, the next material they will explore. Harris explains that there is a smooth side and a rough side, and it’s important to cut on the smooth side. She beings by scoring the sheet from one end to the next using even pressure and then crimps the score line to break the sheet.

The class will use premade sheets to start with and then learn to make their own, rolling the glass out and cutting it down to sheets. “We’ll create our own glass recipes to make clear glass, orange, light blue, and dark blue,” Harris tells the students, “stack the sheets, and then embed natural materials between the layers.”

Simone Solondz / photos by Kaylee Pugliese
October 5, 2026