THE STORY OF HOT SHOP GLASS

Liz Gabriel, Amanda Cosgrove Paffrath and Doug Chaussee have been intrigued by the art of working with hot glass for years. With diverse backgrounds -a social worker, small business owner and retired police detective - we were all introduced to glass blowing through The Prairie School and dreamed of one day having our own studio in which to create our art and share our love of glass. The time was right in early 2005 when we met to brainstorm an idea, only weeks later finding ourselves the owners of a dilapidated 1880's former stable in downtown Racine - with a little vision, our dreams were becoming reality! Now restored, this jewel is home to HOT SHOP GLASS, a state of the art glass blowing studio and gallery!

HOT SHOP GLASS strives to promote individual exploration and creative expression in hot glass through teaching in a supportive, respectful and safe learning environment which encourages skill development and teamwork.

As glass artists and instructors, we have had the pleasure of learning from many top glass artists from around the country including Jeremy Popelka, Scott Kelley and Stephanie Trenchard (Popelka Trenchard Glass), Ed Schmid (Glass Mountain Studios), Jerry Catania (Ox-Bow & Water Street Glassworks) Steve Feren (UW Madison), and locally renowned artist and instructor David Drewek. We look forward to sharing what we have learned from them with you!

The Racine community has an interesting history of commitment to glass as an artistic medium from the early days of the art glass movement to today. In 1969, The Prairie School, a private K-12 day school, created a hot glass shop as part of its art department under the direction of Kent Ipsen and David Drewek. Today the school maintains the popular glass art program for students from 7th grade through high school. Racine is home to the nationally renowned Racine Art Museum (www.ramart.org) with an impressive collection of glass in its permanent collection. 'The Johnson Family Chandelier' by Dale Chihuly hangs prominently in the center of the downtown headquarters of Johnson Financial. The Yellow Rose, a popular downtown eatery, is bedecked with beautiful blown glass fixtures and sculpture. Over 12 art galleries call downtown Racine home, many with the work of prominent regional glass artists' work. HOT SHOP GLASS opened as a public access studio to build on this community tradition and appreciation of hot glass!

Click here to view our studio.