WEB PAGE TEXT
PETER HOUK
9/03
The Glass Lab is a resource for glass blowing and glass art at MIT. Sponsored by the
Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), the Lab engages in many
activities related to glass art , including: glass blowing classes; lectures and workshops by
visiting artists; an artist-in-residence program; an outreach program with local junior high
schools ; on-campus glass sales; and various special projects.
CLASSES
Access to the Glass Lab is gained through beginning, intermediate, and advanced
glass blowing classes, which are open to all members of the MIT community. These glass
seminars are non-credit classes.
Students with little or no experience in glass blowing start with the BEGINNING
seminar, which is taught three times each academic year: fall semester (about 6 weeks),
IAP (4 weeks, and open to freshmen only), and spring semester (about 8 weeks). Entry to
the beginning classes is by lottery. Dates and locations of upcoming lotteries are posted
on this website. The Lab can accommodate 16 beginning students per semester. This
group is divided into four classes of four students each. The time commitment for a
beginner is two 2- hour classes per week: one instruction session and one practice
session. Currently, students have a choice of one of the following time blocks for the
Friday instruction session: 10:00 AM – 12:00 noon; 12:00 – 2:00 PM; 2:00 – 4:00; and
4:00 – 6:00 PM. Practice session times are announced each semester and are generally
from 4:00 – 6:00 and/or 6:00 – 8:00 PM. Scheduling is done for each student at the
lottery, immediately following admission into the class. There is a lab fee of $25 per
week for all classes.
Beginning practice sessions are taught by qualified alumni of the beginner
seminar and others invited into the program. Many of these monitors take the
INTERMEDIATE glass blowing seminar, which is taught by experienced glass blowers
working professionally in the field. Each semester there are a total of 12 students in two
intermediate glass blowing classes, usually conducted once a week in the evening.
The ADVANCED class, also held once a week, is composed of six of the most
experienced instructors in the Glass Lab, and is currently taught by a visiting artist.
To sign up for a beginning glass blowing seminar, you MUST be present at the
lottery. To find out dates and locations of upcoming lotteries, refer to this website. The
Glass Lab maintains a mailing list, which we use to inform people about important
upcoming events such as lectures and sales. If you wish to put yourself on this mailing
list …..
If you wish to contact someone in the Glass Lab to ask any question:
Peter Houk (Program Director): pbhouk@aol.com
Michael Cima (Faculty Advisor): mjcima@mit.edu
Glass Lab phone: 617-253-5309
PEOPLE
The Glass community is composed of a diverse and ever-changing group
of people ranging from MIT undergraduate and graduate students, to MIT alumni (who
are often instructors), to glass art professionals invited into the program to enrich the
Glass Lab experience. The “PEOPLE” section introduces some of the current instructors
and students in the Glass Lab, and the work that they do in the medium of glass.
THE PAGE HAZLEGROVE LECTURESHIP (we should have a photo here)
The Page Hazlegrove Lectureship in Glass Art was created in 1997 to
honor the memory of Page, who brilliantly directed the Glass Lab from it’s beginning in
1988 until her untimely death in 1997. During her life, it was a dream of Page’s to invite
young and upcoming artists to MIT to use Glass Lab and other resources of the Institute
to deepen their artistic visions. Page believed that an annual artist-in-residence would
also be a valuable experience for students in the Glass Lab.
In this spirit, the Hazlegrove Lectureship was born, and since 1997 a
number of outstanding artists working in glass have been invited to MIT to lecture, do
research, conduct workshops, and use the Glass Lab to further explore their own work.
Following is a list of participants to date:
1998:
1999:
2000:
2001:
Peter Ivy (lecture and residency)
Ruth King (lecture and residency)
Jamie Carpenter (lecture and research)
Josiah McLeheney (lecture)
The Bay Area Glass Institute (workshop/special project)
2002: Michael Scheiner (lecture)
Mariko Takada (artist-in-residence)
2003: Chris Taylor (residency)
Kiki Smith (lecture to be delivered 10/22/03).
SPECIAL PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS
SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING PROGRAM FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL
STUDENTS
Since 1992, the Glass Lab has collaborated with MIT’s Center for
Material Science and Engineering (CMSE), and a NSF- funded program created to
introduce young adolescents to the field of materials science and engineering. Every
summer several groups of boys and girls from Cambridge public middle schools come to
the Glass Lab, where they get hands-on experience designing and making their own
objects in molten glass. Here you can see images of students at work in the Glass Lab.
For more information, go to the CMSE website at:
Web.mit.edu/cmse/www/daycamp.html
SIMMONS HALL SCONCE PROJECT (2002-2003)
In 2002, the Glass Lab was invited to fabricate 30 cast glass shades
to be used in common area lighting fixtures in MIT’s new Simmons Hall dormitory,
designed by architect Stephen Holl. The project was carried out over several months by a
group of about 10 students and instructors. Technically challenging, the process involved
hot-pour sand casting and slumping onto steel forms in one operation.
Click here to see images of the fabrication process as well as the
installed lighting fixtures.
TRANSCULTURAL EXCHANGE: THE TILE PROJECT (upcoming)
Working with Mary Sherman, Artist-in-Residence in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Glass Lab will participate in a project
involving the creation of a piece consisting of 20 cast glass tiles which will be sent to a
university in another participating country, where it will be permanently installed.
To find out more about this project and the Transcultural
Exchange, please refer to the following website:
www.transculturalexchange.org/index2.html
GLASS LAB SALES
The Glass Lab conducts three annual sales: the MIT/BAGI Great Glass
Pumpkin Patch in October (our major annual fundraiser for the Lab), and the Mother’s
Day and Christmas sales in Lobby 10. Dates and times for all the sales are posted on this
website.
The Mother’s Day and Christmas sales in Lobby 10 at MIT are venues for
students at all levels and instructors in the Glass Lab to sell their work. A portion of the
proceeds from these sales funds the Lab’s ongoing activities.
The Great Glass Pumpkin Patch came to MIT in 2001 after a residency in
the Glass Lab by 14 members of the Bay Area Glass Institute (BAGI). The Bay Area
Glass Institute (a non-profit corporation located in San Jose, CA), was founded in 1995
by San Jose State graduate Bobby Bowes and MIT alumnus Mike Binnard.
Every week or so, beginning, intermediate, and advanced students work
together for a few hours in teams of six or seven to produce pumpkins for the sale.
Production for the October event continues steadily throughout the year in order to
achieve our goal of 1000-1200 pumpkins.
Click here to see images of glass pumpkin production in the Lab, and of
past pumpkin sales in Kresge Oval.