Summer Glass School in Pilchuck, the USA 2008

The headmaster Acad. Painter František Janák was invited to teach together with an American artist Fritz Dreisbach in August at the summer glass school Pilchuck, Washington, the USA. Both the artists together led the glass blowing and cutting workshop Hot and cold, where students could try new processes when using graal and ariel techniques for their works. The participants also got acquainted with printing from a glass plate. František Janák gave a lecture of the SUPŠS Kamenický Šenov, which was accepted very positively. Numerous participants gave an indication of their interest to study our school.

The glass camp in Pilchuck was established by an American glass artist Dale Chihuly with Anne Gould Hauberg and John Hauberg, a philanthropist and owner of the land where the camp grew up in the early 1970s. The most prestigious summer glass school in the world with perfect professional facilities, employing tens of both voluntary and paid organizers and engineers developed from exiguous beginnings when participants themselves built annually a furnace and sleeping shelters in its neighborhood. Every year persons interested in glass art from all America and the world to learn from outstanding world artists and glassmakers. Among the teachers coming to Pilchuck to propagate their knowledge there were numerous Czechs. Among them for example Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, Jiří Harcuba, Jan Mareš, Marián Karel and Dana Zámečníková as well as many others. The glass artist Fritz Dreisbach, who has taught this year together with František Janák, was one of the first teachers at the famous glass school when established. In 2002 Gabriela Volná, an engraver and student of SUPŠS Kamenický Šenov, participated in the summer glass school Pilchuck on the scholarship basis.