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There’s a thirst for creative expression in everyone. And, according to Neusole Glassworks studio manager Eric Dahlberg, art hobbyists often envision themselves as quickly becoming the next Picasso or DaVinci. It’s not that easy, he says, but it’s not that hard either.
More than 100 adults attend art instruction classes at Neusole’s Walnut Hills studio every year, Dahlberg says. Some go to multiple workshops to hone their craft, and others just come to a one-day workshop that’s geared toward folks who are curious and interested in recreation.
“You go to an amusement park, you go skiing, you go glassblowing,” Dahlberg says.
He says that students split the work with the instructors and end up with a solid sculpted flower, an ornament and a paperweight at the end of the day.
Serious hobbyists attend two-day intensives, he says, and learn to do a lot more with molten glass than they probably thought they could, producing drinking glasses and more by the program’s end.
“I think most people are shocked by the material itself,” Dahlberg says, describing the glass, heated up to 2,000 degrees, as practically hypnotic. “Most people think of glass as solid and fragile, and it’s really a liquid.
To experience it in its molten state is really quite incredible.”
Dahlberg says slight burns or cuts are common at the studio, but the injuries are extremely minor and outweighed by the experience.
“There’s quite a bit of camaraderie,” he says. “People get very excited about the material — just the uniqueness of it all, I think, lingers in the mind.”
Besides the excitement of the craft, glass-blowing has a communal aspect as well. The art form becomes a hub around which students and new friendships rotate, Dahlberg says.
Tom Funke, owner of Annie’s Mudpie Shop in Hyde Park, agrees. He says many of his students are transplants from other parts of the country who converge around the pottery wheel to make connections with people as well as art.
“There are some good friendships that form at the shop,” Funke says, adding that he’s also a transplant, having lived in St. Louis and Chicago before settling in Cincinnati.
The Mudpie Shop offers classes in hand-molding and using the potter’s wheel, he says, and the instructors present the craft with a bit of art history and cultural context so students can connect their projects to ancient cultures.
“Everyone’s not going to come out with a Navajo pot, they might come out with something totally abstract,” he says, explaining that students are often “surprised twofold. First they’re surprised at how not simple it is, and then they get really surprised at the pieces that they’re able to create.”
That non-exclusivity of art is a key component of Jennifer Sult’s Needle Arts classes, presented through UC’s Communiversity program.
Sult’s Beginning Shoemaking class helps students design their own hand-made flip-flops in one day.
“Everyone is able to finish the project,” she says. “I don’t think you have to be a crafty person or an artist to do it.”
Sult says the method she teaches uses simple tools and supplies available at craft and hardware stores.
“People who take the class leave with a pair of shoes that are ready to be worn,” she says.
Some create intricate beadwork designs and others make simple, flat-bottomed shoes. Often students give their work as gifts to friends and family.
Sult’s sewing machine class is a bit more utilitarian.
“I’ve found a lot of people have sewing machines that they just don’t know how to use,” she says.
Her class gives them this basic, foundational knowledge and also helps students learn the ropes of hemming and making buttonholes.
“I want people to be interested in crafts and to feel that they can do things even if they don’t consider themselves artists,” she says.
Sult also teaches the basics of knitting.
“It’s a great hobby to pick up because you can take it anywhere and it’s incredibly easy to put it down and pick it up again later,” she says.
The freedom to experiment in ways that students might not find in their daily lives is a common thread among the many different arts-related classes available throughout the area.
Michelle Markert, director of Community Education at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, says she processes more than 2,000 registrations a year and offers 60 different programs.
Glass-blowing is one of the most popular programs, she says, “and a lot of people come to us for figure drawing classes because that’s hard to find in other places.”
The Academy also teaches computer design classes, which serve as continuing education for design professionals. Other students run the gamut from children to retirees.
Markert says one retired doctor had always wanted to pursue art but went into medicine at his mother’s urging. Through classes at the Academy, she says, he finally had the chance to live out a childhood dream.
Arts education programs serve to help people realize their talents and explore their capabilities. And you might might even get to walk a mile in a new pair of shoes. ©
Neusole Glassworks, 656 E. McMillan Ave., Walnut Hills, 513-751-3292
Annie’s Mudpie Shop, 3130 Wasson Road, Hyde Park, 513-871-2529
Communiversity, classes at various locations; class registration at 2612 French Hall, UC’s main campus, Clifton Heights, 513-556-6932
Art Academy of Cincinnati, 1212 Jackson St., Over-the-Rhine, 513-562-8748
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.