What Makes a Good Class?

This is the time of year many people make plans for the next several months: How about taking or teaching a class to grow your glass skills?

How do you find a class? Many of our members teach. You can find them under Glass>Find A teacher (if you are a member who teaches log in and fill out the form on that page to get added to the list).

In addition some members hold less organized mutual learning experiences: Play Days are small groups exploring a technique together. Contact Karen Seymour in Seattle if you’re interested in organizing or joining a Play Day at her studio or want to offer one at your own studio. Sherlocking, a sort of forensic glass discussion group, meets at Margie Rieff‘s in Fairview (just east of Portland) Jan. 14th and Feb. 25th. It’s sort of monthly for Wednesday lunch.

A Play Day at Karen Seymour’s

Diana Wendt teaches glass at Green River Community College south of Seattle

1) Get familiar with basic hand-tools and learning how to use them: glass cutter, breaking/running pliers.
2) Don’t try to create a Mona Lisa if you’ve never taken a glass fusing class before.
3) Start with a simple design/concept that you are comfortable you can actually cut and produce.
4) Don’t try to force the glass to do something it can’t or that is beyond your skill level.
5) If you don’t think you’re creative, surprise yourself and have fun creating something in glass.
Diana Wendt

1) Most of us want a class that is something fun, not overly complicated or very difficult to repeat. Classes with large or very thick projects are really not practical for most glass artists to ever produce. They take too long, cost too much and too much can go wrong. Maybe nice to understand but not what most of us can or want to do again.
2) It is nice in every class to learn a procedure or two that you can or will use in some sort of general, practical manner, to improve the work you already do…. or try something new.
3) You really do need to know how to fire it, with some info on how to vary the size or thickness. If you can’t have a good chance of firing your projects correctly there isn’t much point in taking the class.
4) We don’t want to take classes and have everyone just copy the instructor or do almost identical future pieces. We want to know how to work the glass and then “make it our own”.
5) Affordable classes are a fun way to get together with other glass artists and interact in person. If the class is less expensive you can afford to learn a technique you might not plan to ever use and at the same time have some fun. And you never know when some of that information will help you do a better job creating something entirely different than that class project.

Greta Schneider instructs a class in
mold making

1) Demonstration of the project from beginning to end
2) Statement of necessary tools to bring to class
3) Tools specific to the class should be included in the cost of the class and given each person (paint and foam brushes for example)
4) Handouts explaining the process
5) Glass materials to be used per person laid out at person’s place
6) If torches or similar equipment is to be used, have enough for each class member
7) Use projection equipment if possible to help explain the process. And be aware of where people are sitting so everyone can see and hear.
8) Easy access to lunch
Margie Reiff

Carlyne Lynch, Diana Wendt, Barb Kienle and several thousand others are attending the Glass Craft & Bead Expo in Las Vegas NV April 15 to 19. This huge event offers lots of classes but they fill fast. Hotels also fill fast (I know from experience that if you wait too long the affordable hotels may have mirrors on the ceilings and noisy neighbors — KS). It can be an almost overwhelming amount of glass info in 5 days but you’ll have fun, learn new skills and get inspired.

Carlyne Lynch taught vitrigraph techniques at the Glass Craft & Bead Expo in Las Vegas in 2025 and will be doing it again this year