Glassblowing
with Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez
$500 lab fee | July 26–August 8 | Skill-building
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of glassblowing while inviting them to consider how working with molten material engages both body and environment. Through hands-on instruction and daily demonstrations, students will learn to gather glass from the furnace and shape it into blown and solid forms using a range of traditional and experimental techniques. Demonstrations will include basic vessel making as well as approaches to color application, form development, and teamwork in the hot shop. Techniques for cold working—such as sanding, polishing, and engraving—will also be covered. Lectures and screenings will provide historical and contemporary context for the material. We will view short documentaries such as Glassmakers of Herat, Glas, and Nancy Callan: Vision and Process, and discuss how artists like Rui Sasaki, Hiromi Takizawa, and Fred Wilson use glass to explore themes of body, space, and identity. Selected readings from Making & Being will support reflections on how artists cultivate awareness and intentionality through their practice. Assignments will progress from foundational skill-building to more open-ended creative work. Early projects may include crafting a series of simple vessels that explore proportion, balance, and gesture. The course will culminate in the design and fabrication of an individual sculpture or installation to be exhibited in the hot shop at the end of the session.
SAIC students: This is a 3-credit course; use the course code GLASS 681 001.
Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez (she/her) creates poetic installations that merge glass, neon, imagery, and text, drawing from her Puerto Rican and Persian heritage. She was the inaugural winner of the Adele and Leonard Leight Glass Art Award from the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, and has held residencies at Blue Mountain Center, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Pilchuck Glass School, and the Corning Museum of Glass, among others. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco; Traver Gallery, Seattle; Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA; BWA Wrocław, Poland; and Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Denmark. Passionate about social change and arts education, she previously directed the Bead Project at UrbanGlass, supporting femmes from diverse backgrounds in learning glasswork. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Tyler School of Art, where she earned her BFA, and holds an MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.