This September, the Washington Glass School will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a special exhibition at the Brentwood Arts Exchange — a place that feels strangely like coming home… to somewhere we’ve never actually been.
And that’s because, in another timeline, we might have been there all along.
Back in 2005, WGS was still located at 1336 Half Street SE in Washington, DC, inside the old Washington Sculpture Center building. It was raw, scrappy, experimental, and absolutely alive with energy — qualities that, honestly, still remain part of the school’s DNA today.
Then came the news that changed everything.
The neighborhood was being cleared through eminent domain as part of the massive redevelopment connected to the new Nationals baseball stadium. DC under Mayor Anthony Williams was hot property, and like many artists and creative spaces in DC at the time, we suddenly had to find a new home.
One of the most exciting possibilities on the table was becoming the anchor tenant for what was planned as the new Brentwood Arts Center, part of the emerging Gateway Arts District just beyond DC’s northeast border. The vision was ambitious: the Washington Glass School downstairs, Dave D’Orio’s DC GlassWorks hot shop upstairs, and a regional center for contemporary glass art unlike anything else in the Mid-Atlantic.
Then history intervened.
Construction bids for the project had to be re-tendered just as Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in late 2005. Almost overnight, construction costs surged nationwide, labor crews disappeared into massive rebuilding efforts, and timelines became uncertain. Delays multiplied, and what had once seemed imminent suddenly became unknowable.
So WGS pivoted.
In 2006, we opened what was meant to be a temporary space in Mt. Rainier. Then, in 2007, we moved into the building that became our long-term home — the center of hundreds of classes, exhibitions, collaborations, public art projects, and creative experiments over the next two decades.
Still, every now and then, you think about the road not taken.
Recently, while meeting with Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation to discuss plans for our upcoming anniversary exhibition at Brentwood Arts Exchange, we found ourselves looking again at an old 2005 concept sketch for the arts center — all dramatic angles and optimistic energy, the kind of drawing architects and artists make when anything still feels possible.
A little over twenty years later, the Washington Glass School is finally arriving at the place it almost called home.
Maybe some stories just take the scenic route.
