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“Forging lives through fire and glass”: it’s not just the phrase GlassRoots uses underneath their name on the organization’s website. The Newark-based glassblowing shop and education nonprofit puts the slogan to practice through its learning initiatives, providing an outlet for Newark youth to explore their creative side, develop career-molding skills, and become practicing entrepreneurs.

Located just off Halsey Street at 10 Bleeker Street, the nonprofit, which is funded by individual donors, foundation grants, and sales of glass products produced at the facility, has been serving the community for more than a decade now. The two-story facility features a flamework studio, a flat shop, and a glass melting shop.

But it’s not all about the glass, as was evident during a recent visit to their workshop.

“With all the pressures kids might have to deal with outside of this place…GlassRoots can be a fun, productive way for them to let loose a little bit,” said 25-year-old artist James Blake, reflecting on the influence Glassworks has had on the lives of his students, as he worked with three teenagers on their glass mosaics.

Blake said that when he graduated from Boston College with a degree in studio art five years ago, he had no idea at the time that he would later use those skills to transform kids’ lives.

Reflecting on his own experience as a student, Blake recalled not being the best at reading, writing, and arithmetic in the traditional sense. Instead, he found applications for all those skills in art, and hopes to pass that possibility onto the students. Blake believes kids don’t have to learn everything from a book. “It’s better to learn it by seeing it for yourself visually and doing it. You might make mistakes along the way, but that’s the challenge about it,” he explained.

GlassRoots’ focus as an institution is on providing a comprehensive “STEAM” curriculum: instructors use science, technology, engineering, arts, and math as the basis for teaching, and hope students who emerge from their program are college- and career ready, and gain skills that are transferrable to many life situations.

Glassroots was founded in 1999 by Pat Kettenring, an avid glass collector and former director of the Business and the Arts program at Rutgers-Newark Business School.

In 2001, Ketternring visited the Glass Museum of Tacoma, Washington. It was during that trip that she learned about a program that had been launched by people in the glass industry there. The program, called Hilltop Artists-in-Residence, provided homeless youth a path towards self-sufficiency through glassmaking and art.

GlassRoots provides instruction in the same vein to its student participants, but took the Hilltop program a step further by adding formal training in color, spatial concepts, learning skills, communication, and entrepreneurial know-how. As Executive Director Barbara Heisler explained, “We use the glass as a vehicle to teach other skills.”

One of those skills is focus. “When making a [glass] bead, it’s a very singular process. You’re sitting in front of a 2,200-degree flame. You have to be aware of what’s going on around you,” Heisler said. “In essence, you’re learning how to ‘pat your head and rub your tummy’ at the same time, because you’re making your hands do two very different things,” she added

The program also emphasizes teamwork. In the flatshop – the area where students make mosaic art out of glass – students often work in groups. “The flat shop is very collaborative…it’s not only [about] color and learning geometry. [There’s also] a lot of open communication… [and] problem solving,” Heisler said.

And in the hot shop located in the back of the studio, the teamwork takes on a new dynamic. “It’s almost intuitive,” said Heisler. “You have to anticipate someone’s needs.”

Back in the workshop session, the mosaics were coming together, and Jarod Carm, 16, was experiencing the satisfaction of making his first piece of mosaic art. “The people here are awesome. It’s not all work, work,” Carm said. “We get to express ourselves and make what we want,” he added.

Find GlassRoots on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Read about their programs and find glass products for sale at GlassRoots.org.

Photo credit: Andaiye Taylor