I Can Tell We Are Going to Be Friends. . .
Amanda demoing a twisty cup during a 6-week class.
Let me start by introducing myself, for those who don’t already know me: My name is Amanda Gundy. I am the current owner and Executive Director of NOCA Glass School. Soon I will be one of two Executive Directors at Greater Boston Glassworks.
I started my glass journey like most do: after a long history of being slightly obsessed with fire, I saw glassblowing and had to try it. I don’t know that I knew until recently all the ways glass has helped me. Knowing what I do now about my brain, I realize it was mostly about focus. As a novice glassblower you are forced to concentrate on remembering what to do next, keeping the glass turning, and trying not to burn yourself. That focus was pure relief for my neurodivergent brain and the hotshop became the one place where my mind could truly center itself. Glass won’t let you get away with having wandering thoughts, it doesn’t let you think of anything else but what is in front of you. Even now that I no longer have to think about every single move, I find that using that muscle memory gives my brain space to compartmentalize rather than be a tornado of thoughts. To this day, a day of production glassblowing is the most relaxed you will see me.
I stumbled into teaching very soon after I started glassblowing, almost accidentally, and learned quickly that it acted as a turbo boost for understanding this material that I had fallen in love with. In addition to that self-serving benefit, I loved the other aspects and people that teaching glass brought to my life and it never seemed to get old.
“As students of diverse backgrounds entered my life, I began to see so many examples of the way this craft can heal a person”
As students of diverse backgrounds entered my life, I began to see so many examples of the way this craft can heal a person: I have seen a surgeon, beginning his journey of retirement, whose hands still yearned for a craft to practice ; a teen who finds comfort and purpose in such a physically demanding subject matter that is just the right recipe of discipline and danger; and a wife who lost a spouse too young decide to try something she never would have tried otherwise as an attempt to move through the grief. All three of these folks have stuck with it. Like me, they were changed by glass and this community. While I found focus and calm, they found a new way to have useful and purposeful hands, a means to be safe and adventurous, and a path to a new life after loss. The healing I have seen is touching in its diversity. We all need it, and somehow we are all the same in this space, no matter how different we are.
Amanda teaching long-time students Mickey Wheeler, Brian McLeod, and Arielle Cohen.
I took over NOCA Glass School in 2016, ten years after it was created. When it was first founded in 2006, it had one teacher and two students who met one night a week for class. By the time I arrived, it had grown a ton and was offering nine-person classes three nights a week, one- and two-day weekend workshops, and one-week intensives taught at least once a year by well known visiting artists. At that point there were about five teaching assistants on staff and still only one teacher, (bless his heart and his work ethic). This year NOCA is wrapping up its second decade in existence with 12 instructors and TAs, six-week classes running four nights a week at a nine-person capacity, upwards of 15 private lessons a week, as well as one-day weekend workshops. We have also expanded our studios so that we can now offer one-day workshops and six-week classes in both flameworking and cold-working as well as glassblowing. We offer private corporate events year round for up to 30 guests. So far this year we have scheduled three different world renowned visiting artists and may fit in a fourth this fall, if we are lucky. All this, and we still find that the demand that comes rolling in day-to-day is hard to keep up with!
As the person currently running NOCA, I come face-to-face with our current limitations on a daily basis. Many of you who are veteran students know the struggle I face turning people away from classes, rentals, and lessons because of lack of space and time.
“Glass has something to offer each of us, and we all deserve this.”
The ways in which an institution like Greater Boston Glassworks will improve things for me, and our community is endless, but the one thing I am looking forward to the most is being able to cast a wider net to find people who I get to share this magic with and grow that community. I think that becoming an educational non-profit will open a huge door that I have yet to fully understand the scope of and have only ever dreamed about. We will have funds allocated for programs which will allow folks who might not otherwise have the means to get their foot in the door to begin their glass journey. This craft takes so much time and hard work to become independent. This can make it prohibitively expensive, which means our communities can often look predominantly wealthy, predominantly white, and predominantly privileged.
I am so excited to have a broader reach. Touching back to what I said earlier about what draws people into the glass studio to begin with: Glass has something to offer each of us, and we all deserve this.
Thanks for sticking with us and reading through to the end. We hope you are as excited as we are at the potential Greater Boston Glassworks has to offer. Next newsletter you can expect to hear from a different one of us as we work toward this collective future of glass in New England!
See you in the studio,
Amanda
Director/ NOCA