The Studio at Rush Creek hosts art classes for adults that create both classy and glassy results. You can make glass-fused jewelry, plates, home decor and many other items thanks to glass kilns in the studio that allow for fusing glass designs together to create wearable or functional glass art.
Stained glass classes are also offered every month. The Studio carries all the tools and a collection of glass sheets to enable the creation of sun catchers or a glass panel for a window or garden.
If you’re more adventurous, torchwork (also called lampwork) class can teach you to use flame to shape rods or pieces of glass into objects such as beads or figures.
Frequent student Michelle Bertch loves the atmosphere at the studio. “I wouldn’t consider myself a creative or ‘artsy’ person in the least,” she says, “and from the first class that nervous feeling melted away.”
The second most popular classes after glass are metalworking classes, which create sterling silver or fine silver jewelry. Classes range from bezel setting stones in rings, to stamping words on jewelry, to working with art clay silver.
Each month, the Studio also offers a class in oil painting and one in watercolors, a knitting, felting or sewing class, and occasionally an acrylic or pastel class as well.
While these classes are part of the regular repertoire, the Studio offers other types of rotating projects like: hot wax painting, copper enameling, concrete sculpture, metal ribbon art, Ukrainian egg painting, wire knitting, bead crochet, chainmaille, silver and copper etching, soapmaking, drawing, mosaic, polymer clay, beading and wire wrapping, book arts and more.
Most classes cost $12 per hour (plus materials) and happen in a single session. Students can sign up online at studio-rush.com or by calling 763.315.3001. Available classes are listed the month before they begin, so check the site often.
“In a short amount of time,” Bertch says, “you can learn to make some really cool stuff.”
