New Street Glass Studio

Recently several friends and I signed up for Friday Night Fun with Glass Blowing: Saint Paddy’s Beer Glass with the Worcester Center for Crafts/​New Street GlassWorks. Both the Center for Crafts and New Street GlassWorks are affiliated with Worcester State University.
The New Street GlassWorks is equipped with a glass furnace that keeps 400 pounds of clear glass melted and ready for instant red-​hot use. Three «glory holes» are cranked up as needed for glassblowers making use of the hot shop. There’s also a cold shop, a mold shop, a flat shop, six rental studios and a flame working studio.
The cost for our class was very reasonable (about 80 $) and it was a fun way to spend a Friday night with friends. Our instructors were Caitlin, Emory and Ian. After a quick safety lesson, description of the tools and equipment, Caitlin got to work demonstrating what we would soon be doing ourselves. They regularly reminded us about safety because of how easy it is to get burned. If you are not careful with molten glass heated to about 2000 it isn’t hard to see how you could get burned given how closely you are while were working with the materials.
We had two options; we could make a colored beer stein with a handle or we could make a clear beer stein with a green shamrock. I decided on the clear beer stein since I didn’t want a handle and I thought it would be cooler to have a clear glass to see my beer in.
I went first and I was paired with Emory as my instructor and assistant. Emory had a great personality and immediately put me at ease. He made the process both fun and informative. I am absolutely going to take another class here and can’t wait for my next experience.