The Crefeld Glassworks
The Crefeld School is unique in that it is one of just a half dozen high schools in the country which has a glass program. The Glassworks itself – built in the late 1990s – is a fully functioning glass studio with a new furnace (just installed in spring 2009!) operating at 2050 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition, the studio provides a lampworking area with blow torches.
The Glassworks and Crefeld’s glass classes not only provide students with an appreciation of glassblowing as a medium and as a creative process, but also teach the lessons of teamwork and trust.
The Glassworks also offers community programs in the form of both after-school classes for students and evening and weekend classes for adult members of the general community. Glassblowing and lampworking classes are taught by Crefeld faculty member, glass artist Josh Cole. Additional lampworking and beadmaking classes are taught by guest artists including Patti Dougherty.
For more information about the Glassworks, contact Crefeld at 215-242-5545In 2008, Josh Cole joined the Crefeld faculty as the new Glass teacher. Josh graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and received his M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art at Temple, with an emphasis in glass. Josh recently relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia from Ohio where he was teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Some of his glass work is currently on display at the Wexler Gallery in Old City.