Pull It, Twist It, Bop It! 

Hot Shop, Furnace Glassblowing, Tube pulling, Neon Bending

Pittburgh Glass Center

Dates: June 24-28, 2024

Tuition: $850.oo

Skill Level: Intermediate

A student should have an understanding of basic skills and can perform those tasks with little or no instruction.

Class time will alternate between Hot Shop for pulling tubing and Neon Shop for Bending tubing with plenty of work time.

You are encouraged but not required to utilize the evening open studio.

Some experience working with hot glass will be helpful.

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⚡Summer enrollment: opens on DECEMBER 1st

Hand-pulled tubing is becoming highly popular in the glass and neon worlds as a perfect marriage for two distinct glass industries. This interdisciplinary class marries these worlds with students creating their own tubing to create a neon design. Hand-pulled tubing not only provides artists a way to create a distinctive artistic voice through unique tubing but also brings a level of sustainability to an industry that is shrinking by giving the power of supply to the artist.

This class will focus on making a “limited resource” of one-off patterns or student-driven tubing that wouldn’t be available elsewhere. The class structure starts in the Hot Shop and gradually moves into the Neon Shop. In the Hot Shop, the first focus will be single-color tubes and creating a stock of tubes to begin practicing with. As you begin to grasp the basics of tube pulling we will move forward to dual-tone tubing. Depending on your skill level and progress we may introduce more involved patterns like Graals and cane rollups for more intricate tubing.

Midway through the class, we will transition into the neon bending portion of the class, focusing on the nuances of bending hand-pulled tubing versus factory-ready glass. Depending on your energy level and eagerness there would be an overlap between the two segments. We will start with simple color tests of the tubes teaching you to electrode the tubes, followed by the basic bends. Once you have gained a grasp of the basic bends, designing a pattern will be introduced. The overarching goal is that you will leave this class with several color tests and one bombarded design bent with the hand-pulled tubing. This is not a limited goal but a minimum in which you should walk away from this class with.

Jacob Willcox is a glass and light artist from Tacoma, WA. He is an alum of the Hilltop Artists program where he began working with glass in 2012. He then went on to study at Alfred University where he obtained his BFA with concentrations in glass and neon in 2021. His work investigates ideas surrounding consumption, excess, and indulgence.

His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Glass, the New Bulgarian University, and the Tacoma Art Museum. Outside of his artistic practice, he maintains a position as the Neon Department Head at a Seattle sign shop. Willcox also works in the educational field as an instructor at Hilltop Artists while also teaching and demonstrating at various institutions like Pilchuck Glass School, Museum Of Neon Art, and the Glass Art Society.

Instagram: @Willcox.Studio

Dani Kaes is a light artist and educator based in Seattle, WA. Starting as a traditional glassblower as part of the Hilltop Artist program in 2012, she transitioned into neon after apprenticing as a commercial neon bender in a prominent Seattle sign shop. She has continued to work in neon independently and commercially, using it as her main artistic medium, often citing its inherently temporary nature as its most valuable and intriguing feature.

Interested in the innate humor found in nihilism and the absurd, her work plays with scale, brash color choices, animation, and repeating simple shapes to explore the idea of what has the potential to become art rather than setting out to make art itself. She often describes her work as “nothing she would ever want in her house” because it is “big, bright, and always flashing”.

Instagram:  @Dani.Kaes