The Bloomington Creative Glass Center is a nonprofit organization committed to bringing affordable, high quality education about glass to people in southern Indiana. It is open to any and all who have an interest in hot glass, regardless of age or experience.
History
BCGC was founded in 2011 by Abby Gitlitz. After earning her Masters of Fine Arts in Glass in 2009, she moved back to her hometown of Bloomington to become a full time artist. At the first Great Glass Pumpkin Patch in 2010, in which all the pumpkins were made by Abby as a personal fundraiser, she was overwhelmed by the number of people clamoring to learn glass blowing. Soon after she began teaching classes, and in 2012 BCGC was incorporated as a nonprofit educational arts center.
What started out as a side project for Abby has turned into a growing and thriving non-profit. In the past years we have:
- Taught the basics of glassblowing to over 150 people
- Trained 25 advanced glass blowers
- Performed library/school workshops for 800 elementary school students
- Made glass fusing activities available to children as young as five
- Partnered with 6 classes and 70 students at IU
- Made and sold more than 5500 glass pumpkins