For Washington Glass School resident artist John Henderson, Jr., working with glass is both a creative pursuit and a spiritual practice. Since discovering kiln-formed glass at WGS, he has embraced the material’s beauty, technical challenges, and inherent unpredictability.
Discovering Glass
John’s introduction to Washington Glass School came while taking a stained glass class in the shared building that housed both the Washington Sculpture School and WGS.
“I had never worked with fused glass before,” he recalls. “As a result of taking a class at WGS, I became hooked on the process.”
What first attracted him was glass itself—its remarkable range of colors and textures, and the technical possibilities it offered. But it was something less tangible that kept him coming back.
“I enjoy working with my hands and creating beautiful objects,” he says. “The material has a spiritual quality due to its unpredictability when fire is applied. Not knowing the outcome is, in itself, stimulating and emotional.”
John Henderson “Warrior Shield”
Finding a Voice
Early in his artistic journey, John recognized something significant: very few Black artists were working primarily in glass.
Black Artists of DC (BADC) visit John Henderson’s studio space, October 2025. L-R Sharon Robinson, Jimmy James Green, Evalyn Hamilton & John Henderson at his studio in WGS.
“Glass as an artistic medium was not an established art form within the African American community,” he explains.
As his practice developed, opportunities followed—including exhibiting work, organizing exhibitions, and becoming an active member of the Washington Glass School community. Those experiences helped shape both his artistic direction and his commitment to expanding representation within the field.
John Henderson installs his work in the WGS Gallery.
The Value of Community
For John, one of the greatest strengths of Washington Glass School is the environment created by artists working together.
“I find working in a shared environment stimulating,” he says. “Sharing information with fellow artists, exchanging ideas, and participating in constructive conversations continues to influence my work.”
That collaborative atmosphere, he believes, is one of the things that sets WGS apart.
“There is no other facility in the DMV that provides a collective space for practicing artists whose primary medium is glass.”
Looking Ahead
As Washington Glass School celebrates its 25th anniversary, John reflects on being part of its continuing story.
“It is an honor and privilege to be a studio artist at WGS,” he says. “WGS has evolved into an artistic and educational center for everything having to do with the practice and techniques of using glass as an artistic material.”
His hope for the future is straightforward and ambitious:
“That Washington Glass School will be known as one of the premier glass centers in America.”
One More Question
If your work had a soundtrack, what would be playing?
“The rhythm of the drum.”
As Washington Glass School marks its 25th Anniversary, the celebration continues this fall with a major exhibition featuring works by Washington Glass School artists at the Brentwood Arts Exchange in Brentwood, Maryland. Running from September 10 through October 31, 2026, the exhibition will showcase the extraordinary diversity, innovation, and storytelling that have defined the School for a quarter century — offering audiences a chance to experience some truly remarkable contemporary glass art.
The exhibition opening reception will be held on September 19, 2026, bringing together artists, friends, collectors, students, and the larger arts community in celebration of 25 years of Washington Glass School. An artist talk is scheduled for October 17th, 2026.
Jeff Zimmer demonstrating his technique at North Lands Creative Glass, Scotland, 2018.
Jeff Zimmer was one of the earliest resident artists at Washington Glass School, working out of the original Half Street SE studio in the early 2000s. Since then, his career has taken him internationally — from earning his MDes s at Edinburgh College of Art to exhibiting in the British Glass Biennale and having work acquired by museums including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
For Washington Glass School’s 25th Anniversary, Jeff reflects on finding his voice, building community, and why WGS still feels like home.
On his first memories of WGS
Ca 2004 photo of Jeff Zimmer’s workspace at 1338 Half St, DC.
“My first memory of WGS is helping carry rolls of old carpeting down endless corridors to clear the original Meltdown studio site.
I had only been working with glass for a few years, and Tim brought me on to assist classes — even though sometimes I was learning something only minutes before the students!”
Later, as one of WGS’s first resident artists, Jeff spent countless nights cycling to the Half Street studio after work, often staying until midnight.
“The first works I really consider to have my own voice came out of that time.”
Jeff Zimmer, “Untitled Political Landscape“, 17 layers of enameled & sandblasted glass, lightbox, 2008
“WGS felt like it didn’t participate in hierarchy. I felt supported to pursue my own path.”
On finding his artistic voice
“At the time, I perceived the glass world as very hierarchical — dominated by glassblowing, with painting on glass seen as secondary or decorative.
Now, I love glassblowers and beauty, but that’s not my voice.”
What Jeff found at WGS was freedom to explore ideas outside those expectations.
Jeff Zimmer, “The Wake of The Hero“, layers of enameled glass, assembled in lightbox, collage, 2011
“There was already a concern with complexity and ambivalence in the work I was making then. That has stayed with me ever since.”
On thinking through glass
“As the years progress, I realize I think more and more through the material itself — not only its techniques, but its associations.”
For Jeff, glass carries centuries of layered meaning.
“I can draw on medieval associations of light and virtue reflected in stained glass, ideas of transparency and opacity, glass as both window and barrier, fragility and strength — even the ‘black mirror’ of our screens.”
“Ideas don’t really exist for me until I can find a way for them to exist in glass.”
On teaching and exchange
Jeff has taught internationally at Pilchuck, Bild-Werk Frauenau, Berlin Glas, and other institutions, while co-running Glass Lab Edinburgh in Scotland.
“Different glass communities shape artists in very different ways,” he says.
He notes how Germany’s technical school traditions, the UK’s emphasis on casting and painting, and resourceful studio cultures in South Africa and Latin America all create different relationships to the material.
“When those communities meet internationally, there’s a real exchange. That’s where things become interesting.”
On teaching beyond technique
“Technique matters, but it’s not the point.
I want students to use technique to find their own voice. The best moment is when you see someone take a process and immediately run somewhere unexpected with it.”
Teaching, he says, has also sharpened his own practice.
“It forces me to break instinct down into conscious steps.”
Jeff Zimmer chats about artist Audrey Wilson’s concept.
“The barriers to working in glass are high. Having a place that supports experimentation early on can completely change what becomes possible for someone.”
On success, recognition, and reality
Despite international awards and museum acquisitions, Jeff speaks candidly about the realities of sustaining an artistic practice.
“Some of the times I’ve had the most apparent ‘success’ were also the times I was supporting myself as a 45-year-old cycle courier.”
Recognition can help open doors, he says, but often quietly.
“The V&A acquired a piece of mine, and it sat in storage for nearly a decade before going on display. For most of that time, its biggest visibility was on my CV.”
Jeff Zimmer won the top prize at the 2019 British Glass Biennale, part of the International Festival of Glass, in Stourbridge
On returning to Washington Glass School
“How does WGS fit into my journey? It came into my life at exactly the right moment.”
Jeff Zimmer and WGS Founder Tim Tate.
More than two decades after leaving DC, Jeff says returning to WGS still feels deeply personal.
“WGS is home.
Whenever I walk through the door, I feel embraced like family. There’s warmth, curiosity, generosity — that hasn’t changed…I’m proud of what you’ve built. And I’m grateful it’s still a place I can come home to.”
As part of the Washington Glass School’s 25th Anniversary programming, Jeff Zimmer returns this summer to teach a special intensive workshop: 5701 – Obscuring and Revealing July 13–17 This five-day masterclass explores layering, transparency, dimensionality, and painted imagery in glass. Students will create personal three-dimensional layered compositions using glass painting techniques, collage, and spatial construction to investigate how glass can simultaneously conceal and reveal.
Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes in a working glass art studio? This July, the public is invited inside.
The American Craft Council (ACC) launches its inaugural National Craft Open Studios Weekend on July 18–19, 2026, from 12 PM–5 PM local time. Part of the nationwide Handwork 2026 initiative, the free event connects visitors directly with more than 1,500 craft artists, studios, and creative spaces across 36 states and Washington, DC.
Think of it as an “Independent Bookstore Day” for American craft — a rare opportunity to step into the spaces where artists actually make the work.
As an official participating studio, the Washington Glass School will open its doors during this national celebration of handmade culture. The event also arrives during WGS’ 25th Anniversary year, making it the perfect time to experience one of the DC region’s leading centers for contemporary glass art.
Visitors will be able to:
Explore the Washington Glass School’s working studios and specialized glass facilities
See firsthand how kiln-cast glass, fusing techniques, and glass-and-steel artworks are created
Meet resident artists and instructors
View works in progress and hear directly from the makers
Purchase original contemporary glass artworks, sculptures, and panels
More than a traditional open house, the weekend offers a chance to experience the energy, experimentation, and craftsmanship that happen inside an active arts community.
The event also extends beyond the school itself. WGS is coordinating open hours with neighboring creative spaces along the corridor, creating a walkable destination for DMV art lovers. Visitors can also explore nearby studios including Ampersand Art Space and Tyler Makes Things.
Whether you are a collector, artist, student, or simply curious about how things are made, this weekend offers a unique opportunity to experience the creative process up close.
As the Washington Glass School celebrates its 25th Anniversary, the stories that emerge are not only about artwork—they are about community, mentorship, experimentation, and finding creative refuge. For resident artist Kate Barfield, the School became exactly that: a place of encouragement, camaraderie, and artistic growth during a moment when the world felt uncertain.
Kate Barfield assembles her meticulous cut glass
A Washington, D.C.-area studio glass artist and former federal attorney for NOAA, Kate Barfield creates kiln-formed, cast, and fused glass works that balance humor, storytelling, environmental awareness, and political commentary. Her vividly colored compositions invite viewers into layered narratives filled with wit, beauty, and surprise.
Because she lived nearby in Mt. Rainier, Kate first encountered the Washington Glass School through occasional classes. But in 2020, during the isolation of the pandemic, the School became something far more meaningful.
Kate Barfield, “Homage to Ms Mailou Jones”, Photo by Pete Duvall
“When Covid hit in 2020, I took refuge at the School, to work on glass and to be with a great, close-knit community of artists,” Kate recalls. “The Glass School was a welcome oasis of camaraderie, creativity and encouragement.”
That connection eventually led her to become a Resident Artist, working more intensively in fused and cast glass techniques. Although she had prior experience in traditional stained glass, Washington Glass School opened the door to entirely new approaches to the medium.
“Glass—like no other medium—is unique in its color, light and depth.”
One of Kate’s earliest moments at the School remains especially memorable. After pulling a whimsical multi-armed cat sculpture from the kiln, she was met with enthusiastic encouragement from Tim Tate.
“Tim Tate yelped with excitement,” she says. “He held the glass in the air and told me to keep up the good work.”
That encouragement became foundational as Kate continued to develop her artistic voice. She credits not only Tim Tate, but also Michael Janis and Erwin Timmers, for helping guide her practice through technical advice, humor, and patience.
“Michael has shown great patience and offered advice from his long experience with glass,” she says. “And more than once, Erwin has been the source of a quick joke as he puzzles with me over glass equipment repairs.”
Kate Barfield, “Anarchist Pug”. Photo by Pete Duvall
Today, Kate’s work spans playful, political, and deeply environmental themes. Her pieces are united by a love of storytelling and fearless color. A rebellious pug gleams against fields of gold and scarlet. A blue heron triumphantly displays a fish while surrounded by crabs, turtles, foxes, and red-winged blackbirds. Another piece presents a monster stirring a pot beneath the dissolving colors of a flag.
Kate Barfield, “Homage to the Eastern Shore”, detail.
“All of these pieces welcome the viewer into a story—with a shot of color to delight the eye.”
Her artistic growth accelerated during preparations for the 2024 Artomatic exhibition, when Tim Tate encouraged artists at the School to create ambitious new work for public presentation. Inspired by an obscure Japanese female artist associated with images of the “Floating World,” Kate designed a sky-blue kimono-shaped triptych addressing climate change and global warming.
Kate Barfield, “Kimono Glass Homage”
The work balanced beauty with unease, drawing viewers close before revealing harsher realities embedded within the imagery, and the response was overwhelming.
“Two major glass artists emailed me to say they hung a photo of this kimono in their workspace—for inspiration,” Kate says. “For a fledgling artist, this is a big WOW!”
Kate Barfield talks about her work at Artomatic art fair, Washington, DC 2024
In the studio, Kate embraces both experimentation and unpredictability. Her favorite tool is surprisingly modest: a tabletop glass saw.
Kate Barfield, “The Influencer”
“I use it to make impossible shapes and fanciful images.”
She also embraces the unpredictable nature of kiln-formed glass, echoing advice often shared by Michael Janis.
“Glass has its own mind,” she says. “You do your best in composing a piece—then wait to see what happens in the kiln.”
Unexpected breaks or accidents are not failures, but opportunities.
“Often the unexpected creates a stronger image than the idea that you labored over.”
That openness to collaboration and feedback is central to her experience at Washington Glass School. Working alongside fellow artists allows for immediate conversation, shared technical knowledge, and collective problem-solving that would be difficult to replicate in solitude.
“If I were working alone, I would lose this valuable resource.”
As Washington Glass School reaches its 25th year, Kate believes the School’s greatest strength lies in its balance between national reach and neighborhood intimacy.
Kate Barfield
“The Glass School is large enough that it attracts talent from around the country, but small enough that it has a neighborhood, hometown feel.”
For her, the spirit of the School is reflected as much in shared celebrations and impromptu gatherings as in the kilns and classrooms.
Washington Glass School celebration of Kate’s B-Day = cake and guac!
“The School’s spirit is captured—in part—with the many parties that we enjoy—celebrating birthdays, milestones, congratulations—reminding us how much we appreciate one another. The tasty margaritas and champagne are also welcome.”
Looking ahead, Kate hopes to continue learning, experimenting, and pushing her work into new territory. She sees glass itself as an endlessly evolving field filled with astonishing diversity and invention.
And what should Washington Glass School be known for 25 years from now?
Kate answers without hesitation:
“The Glass School is a beacon of creativity—both a home and a welcome respite for artists passing through.”
Then she adds a perfect final image:
“Where else but the Glass School can you come in—on an ordinary day—and watch an Italian Glass master craft the tiniest purple elephant in the world? That’s the Glass School!”
As Washington Glass School marks its 25th Anniversary, the celebration continues this fall with a major exhibition featuring works by Washington Glass School artists at the Brentwood Arts Exchange in Brentwood, MD. Running from September 10 through October 31, 2026, the exhibition will showcase the extraordinary diversity, innovation, and storytelling that have defined the School for a quarter century — offering audiences a chance to experience some truly remarkable contemporary glass art.
The Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s annual Summer of Glass exhibition returns this season with the opening of the Habatat International Glass Invitational, now in its 54th year and recognized as the oldest and largest annual contemporary glass exhibition in the United States.
Presented at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana, the exhibition gathers leading contemporary glass artists from around the world whose work expands the possibilities of the medium through new forms, techniques, and ideas. Organized by Habatat Galleries, the invitational has long been regarded as one of the major surveys of international studio glass.
Among the artists selected for this year’s exhibition is Washington Glass School Co-Director Michael Janis, whose cast glass artwork A Secret Place I Go was chosen for inclusion in the juried exhibition.
Janis’ work — known for its layered figurative imagery, narrative complexity, and technically innovative kiln-formed glass processes — continues his exploration of memory, identity, and psychological space through contemporary glass art. The selected piece reflects the artist’s signature approach of combining sculptural depth with painterly imagery embedded within translucent glass.
The exhibition was juried by Brit Micho, Curator of Exhibitions at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art; James Gerhardt, AACG President and Guggenheim Museum Officer; and Sharon Karmazin, theater producer, arts supporter, and noted glass collector.
Artists included in the 2026 exhibition represent an international cross-section of contemporary glass, including Lino Artists included in the 2026 exhibition are Rick Allen, Shelley Allen, Alex Bernstein, Michael Behrens, Geoffrey Bowton, Wendy Saxton Brown, Nancy Callan, Ekin Aytec & Josh Davids, Bandu Dunham, Philip Baldwin & Monica Guggisberg, Willfried Grootens, Michael Janis, Claire Kelley, John Kiley, Laura Kramer, Lucy Lyon, Crista Matteson, Stephen Powell, Toland Sand, Carrie Seid, Lino Tagliapietra, Sarah Vaughn, Littleton Vogel, Brent Kee Young, and Public Choice artist Trina Urrata Weintraub.
Habatat Galleries co-owner and director Aaron Schey described the current moment in contemporary glass as a period of rapid growth and renewed energy:
“I think contemporary glass is experiencing a rebirth. The community is growing, new talent is appearing every day, and artists are sharing ideas and techniques in ways that were never possible before.”
Schey emphasized that increased museum visibility and public engagement remain essential to the future of the medium:
“Glass elevates every space it enters. It interacts with light, architecture, and the viewer in a way few materials can.”
The 54th Annual International Glass Invitational is on view at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, 311 E Main Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana, from June 20 through August 23, 2026.
About Michael Janis
Michael Janis is a contemporary glass artist, architect, educator, and Co-Director of the Washington Glass School in Washington, DC. His internationally exhibited artwork combines kiln-cast and pâte de verre glass techniques with figurative imagery influenced by printmaking, street art, and narrative painting. Janis’ work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide and is included in numerous public and private collections.
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.
WGS, ca 2004. Art consultant Binnie Fry chats with Michael Janis about the WGS winter exhibit
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.
Original plan for Washington Glass School at the Brentwood Arts Center in 2006.
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.
Tim Tate and Erwin Timmers welcome all to the new (temporary) location for WGS in Mt Rainier, ca 2006.
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.
WGS chats show logistics at Brentwood Arts Exchange. L-R Erwin Timmers, Patricia de Poel Wilberg and Phil Davis.
A little over twenty years later, the Washington Glass School is finally arriving at the place it almost called home.
As part of Washington Glass School’s 25th anniversary series, we invited artists, instructors, and longtime members of the WGS community to reflect on their experiences with the school and the role glass has played in their lives and work.
Artist April Shelford first encountered Washington Glass School through a Glass Lover’s Weekend workshop and later became a studio artist known for her fused glass work exploring color, rhythm, and pattern bar techniques. Before retiring from American University as Associate Professor of History, Shelford built an acclaimed academic career as an intellectual historian of early modern Europe and the Caribbean, earning national recognition for her scholarship and publications.
In the reflections below, Shelford writes about discovering glass later in life, the meditative qualities of studio practice, and the creative community that has sustained her through changing times.
April Shelford at opening of NCAGG exhibit May, 2026
I don’t remember how I heard about Glass Lover’s Weekend, but I was casting about for things that my husband and I could do together. This was maybe a dozen years ago, and the whole weekend was obviously great. But what really struck me was when Tim Tate gave us a tour of the studio and introduced the class to one of the studio artists. She was making these beautiful baptismal fonts, and she looked right at me and said, “Glass Lover’s Weekend was how I started.”
Statements like that accumulate meaning in hindsight, of course—contingencies from which we construct just-so stories, so be warned about what you’re reading.
April Shelford assembling glass art into mold for “Summer” glass panel
Yes, both my parents were creative types, opening up worlds of possibilities for me: literary, musical, visual. But honestly, I never imagined that I’d end up devoting so much time to working with, exhibiting, and teaching fused glass after essentially two careers: one arc spanning my 20s into my early 30s in production and printing, graphic design and advertising; the other, three decades and counting as an academic historian.
That said, there were aspects of my family background and that first arc that inclined me to like fused glass. Working in printing, I came to appreciate what you can do with noisy machines. This made the semi-industrial processes—the chopsaw, the grinder, the sandblaster—appealing. Slicing up a pattern bar on the chopsaw, shaping pieces on the grinder—these things can get pretty tedious, but can also be very meditative.
I developed some skill and took real pleasure in graphic design, producing attractive and (I’m proud to say) readable, if not terribly original work. And my mother’s lessons in knitting, crochet, sewing, and embroidery—not to mention meticulous work as a fabric artist—made me value craft: learning about the materials you’re using, practice-practice-practice, and avoiding “good enough.”
April Shelford “Catching The Wave”. Photo Pete Duvall.
Miscellaneous remarks, curiosity, and serendipity shaped my practice more than intentions once I’d become interested enough to take more courses and work more independently in WGS’s open studio. Years ago, for instance, Tim remarked that I have a good color sense. What’s color, but light reflected and transmitted? What does glass do but transmit and reflect color and light?
Free-form pattern bars struck me as a technique especially well-suited to experimenting with color and design, variety and rhythm. But whether working with pattern bar or other techniques, I wouldn’t have made much worth looking at if I hadn’t learned to set aside accidents and failures long enough to make the best of them.
There are ways to exert some control over a piece’s final appearance, but humility’s necessary because the results when the kiln’s opened are unpredictable given how glass flows. Some of those surprises are delightful; some, not so much. My best work happens when I’m co-creating with the glass, respecting rather than futilely attempting to dominate it.
April Shelford with her glass artwork “Fossil” at Women Artists of the DMV exhibit at McLean Project for the Arts, fall 2025
The secret sauce to my making (hopefully) good work is having more experienced folks around who are generous with good advice. First, there’s Michael, Tim, and Erwin. Despite their stature as real artists (unlike me!), I got the vibe early on that if I’m serious, they’ll take my questions seriously.
Then there are the other studio artists engaged in very different projects utilizing very different techniques whom I can always ask, “Does this work?” “What do you think?” “How did you manage that?”
So what’s WGS at 25 for me?
A creative community anchored by Tim, Michael, Erwin, the indispensable studio coordinator Arden Colley, other stalwarts like me, and folks who rotate in, out, and sometimes in again.
WGS kept me sane during the pandemic; it does the same now amidst our calamitous political culture and challenges like AI. Communities are complicated because people are. But occasional crankiness or tension aside, we cherish each other because we ultimately care about the same things:
Make beauty. Make joy. Make truth.
Women of WGS at opening of 10th Annual Glass International. L-R: April Shelford, Kate Barfield, Patricia de Poel Wilberg, Arden Colley.
Tim Tate co-founded the Washington Glass School to break every rule he’d inherited. A quarter century later, it’s still running — and so is he.
Washington Glass School in Mt Rainier, MD
The first thing you should know about Tim Tate is that he didn’t expect any of this to last.
When he and his co-founders — Michael Janis and Erwin Timmers — opened the Washington Glass School in the early 2000s, Tate gave the whole project maybe three years. He was running an experiment, not building an institution. The question driving it was deceptively simple: what would a glass school look like if it wasn’t tethered to the conventions of classic studio glass? Could it survive? Could it actually make something?
Twenty-five years and thousands of students later, the answer is self-evident.
Tim Tate circa 1999. (so young!)
Tate began his art career as a young HIV-positive queer man in the full, brutal heat of the AIDS crisis. He was the founder and director of the Triangle Artist Group in Washington, DC, and the director of the city’s first Art Against AIDS charity event — a benefit that raised funds for the newly established DC LGBTQ+ Community Center and the HIV-positive children’s ward at Washington Children’s Hospital. He was shaped by that community, trained in its values, fluent in its urgency. Civil rights and human justice weren’t themes he would later introduce into his work. They were the water he swam in from the beginning.
Tim Tate, “Two Paths Taken”, photo by Pete Duvall
That formation never left him. It structured how he thought about art, about purpose, and eventually about what a school could be.
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The Washington Glass School was founded on a principle that sounds obvious but is, in practice, radical: everyone’s success is not achieved at the expense of anyone else’s. Tate had spent time in studios corroded by envy, watching artists diminish each other. He wanted something different. A rising tide, he believed, floated all boats — and so the school was built with that ethos embedded in its architecture.
Images from The Washington Post newspaper article about the Glass School, 2002. Photos by Mark Sypher.
The governance structure reflects the same logic. Tate, Janis, and Timmers operate as equal co-directors, each carrying a different set of responsibilities. When disagreement arises, they vote — and two out of three must agree. “We all had the same goal,” Tate says simply. “To keep the school alive and thriving.”
L-R Washington Glass School trinity: Michael Janis, Tim Tate, Erwin Timmers
That structure has held for 25 years. Not because there have been no disagreements, but because the underlying commitment was always shared.
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The artistic agenda was never modest. Tate wanted to use electronics. Video. Wood, plastic, ceramics, paint. He wanted to find out what glass could become when it wasn’t required to stay within the boundaries drawn by 20th-century studio tradition.
Early on, he and William Warmus — the former curator of glass at the Corning Museum — founded a Facebook discussion group they called “Glass Secessionism,” a deliberate echo of Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo Secessionism movement. The name alone provoked. People were annoyed. Definitions were demanded. The two men eventually produced a 17-page warrant articulating what they meant.
Tim Tate and William Warmus reviewing artwork at Chicago art fair, 2014
Monica Moses, the then-editor of American Craft Magazine told them the controversy would be short-lived — that the ideas would simply become the norm. “And so it did,” Tate says now, with something closer to relief than triumph.
American Craft Magazine, April May 2014
Technology in his work, he explains, was never an end in itself. It was a tool. A metaphor. “A video was worth a thousand words” — an expansion of a single image, a way of deepening what glass alone could carry.
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The work deepened alongside the politics. What had seemed to wane in the calmer early 2000s — the appetite for socially engaged art — came back hard as the political climate grew more charged. Today, one of Tate’s favorite classes to teach is called “Using Glass for Social Justice.” The curriculum, in a sense, is his biography.
Tim Tate, 12 Souls, 12 Resurrections, photo by Pete Duvall
His sculptures move through reliquary traditions and Victorian curiosity cabinets, through early cinema and the formal logic of Georges Méliès. They are blown and cast, embedded with video screens, built around found objects, animated by the tension between fragility and permanence that glass uniquely embodies. They hold names, poems, histories.
His piece Nine Future Supreme Court Justices imagines an LGBTQ+ legal future — nine figures, each identified, each carrying biographical weight. In Service, In Secret animates archival photographs of queer men and women in uniform, from the Civil War through World War II. When the Armor Becomes Wings places two glass figures in the act of shedding the armor of survival — one holding a crocus, one a red bird — beneath a blown glass dome crowned with a winged heart.
These are not decorative objects. They are arguments in glass.
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The recognition has arrived steadily, and Tate wears it carefully. He has shown at the Venice Biennale exhibitions three times. He exhibited at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg before the Russia–Ukraine war made that world inaccessible. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery. He designed the New Orleans AIDS Memorial.
New Orleans AIDS Memorial
He carries all of it back to DC deliberately. “I want DC and the glass school to be realized as major players in the art world,” he says. “It’s such a great city with astounding artists. I add what I can.”
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Now comes the largest undertaking of his career.
Imagining Utopia: What Would America Look Like If It Were a Queer Accepting Country? is a major solo traveling exhibition that opens in September 2027 at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in Washington, then travels to the Lowe Art Museum in Miami, the Asheville Art Museum, and finally the Palm Springs Art Museum, where it runs through all of 2029. It is the kind of show that, as Tate acknowledges quietly, he couldn’t have imagined mounting a decade ago. He credits a seven-month collaborative relationship with the MacArthur Fellow Joyce Scott — an artist who works at the intersection of beadwork, performance, and social critique — as a turning point. Scott showed him the scale his thinking could reach.
Tim Tate, Charter of 36 Points of the LGBTQIA+ Bill of Rights, kiln cast glass, mixed media
The exhibition poses its question directly, without softening. It does not ask audiences to abstract the politics into aesthetics. It asks them to imagine — concretely — what a more accepting America would look like, feel like, be.
The piece The Common Thread, a six-foot collaborative cast glass tile wall made with Michael Janis, anchors the exhibition’s material ambition. The Resurrections series — which includes 12 Souls, 12 Resurrections — enacts a different kind of memorial, one that refuses finality.
Tim Tate & Michael Janis, The Common Thread, 2026, 3′-0″ H x 6′-0″W, kiln cast glass, mixed media. Photo by Pete Duvall.
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Ask Tim Tate what he’s most proud of that has nothing to do with his own artwork, and the answer comes without hesitation: Over 6,000 students in 25 years. A school that chose DC and that DC chose back.
Ask him what belief he’s completely reversed in 25 years: “That there is but one way to do anything. Everything has numerous paths.”
Ask him what he would do if he couldn’t make glass for five years: “I would become the world’s best pie maker.”
And ask him what would happen if that 25-year-old version of himself walked into the studio today — the young HIV-positive artist navigating the AIDS crisis, running benefits, learning to make things out of fire — and he pauses.
“He would probably start crying tears of joy.”
Stay tuned for exhibit updates!
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The Washington Glass School celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, with a group exhibit at Brentwood Arts Exchange in Brentwood, MD. Tim Tate’s touring exhibition Imagining Utopia opens at the Katzen Arts Center at American University in September 2027.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally received news of their freedom — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The holiday stands as both a celebration of liberation and a reminder of the long, unfinished struggle for equality and justice.
This fused glass artwork by Michael Janis, created as part of his commemorative public art practice, reflects themes of freedom, resilience, memory, and connection. Flowing white and blue forms suggest the American flag in motion and transformation, while the central star references Texas, where emancipation news finally reached enslaved communities. Merged silhouettes of West Africa and the eastern United States speak to the enduring ties of the African diaspora and the histories carried across generations.
The vibrant red and orange panel evokes both celebration and struggle — the heat of transformation, the energy of gatherings filled with music, food, and storytelling, and the enduring spirit of community carried forward through time.
Through light, color, and glass, the work reflects on remembrance, resilience, and the continuing pursuit of freedom.
Jeff Zimmer, The Disconnect Between Action and Consequences (Drone 1)
As Washington Glass School celebrates its 25th anniversary, we find ourselves reflecting on the artists who passed through our studios and helped shape what this community has become. Some arrived as emerging makers searching for a new language in glass. Others helped define the adventurous spirit that has long distinguished the School. Few embody that journey more completely than Jeff Zimmer.
Before his work entered the collections of major museums and international exhibitions, Jeff Zimmer was one of the early artists working alongside Washington Glass School during its formative years. Originally trained in theatre in Washington, D.C., Zimmer brought with him a storyteller’s sensibility—an understanding of staging, atmosphere, and the emotional charge created by light, distance, and ambiguity.
That instinct eventually led him to glass.
Jeff Zimmer working in the WGS studio circa 2017.
Zimmer later earned a Master of Design degree in Glass & Architectural Glass from the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland, developing a practice that has become internationally recognized for expanding the possibilities of glass painting. Today, his work can be found in prestigious collections including London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, the European Museum for Modern Glass in Germany, and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.
We’re thrilled to welcome Jeff Zimmer back to WGS!
His return to Washington Glass School this summer is more than a visiting artist workshop. It is something of a homecoming.
Painting with Space
What makes Zimmer’s work extraordinary is not simply technical mastery—though there is plenty of that. It is the way he transforms the traditional language of glass painting into something cinematic and spatial.
Jeff Zimmer, Whitewash Cove
Working across multiple layers of glass, Zimmer fragments an image into separate planes. Individual sheets are painstakingly painted using vitreous enamels, kiln-fired repeatedly, etched, sandblasted, and aligned with meticulous precision. As viewers move around the finished work, the imagery shifts and reforms. Space itself becomes an active participant in the experience. The effect can be startling.
A figure appears and dissolves. Focus sharpens, then slips away. Light penetrates the layered surfaces only to be interrupted and redirected. The viewer becomes acutely aware that seeing is never neutral—that perception is always mediated through distance, memory, technology, desire, and expectation.
Glass does something painting cannot: it creates actual depth rather than the illusion of it. Zimmer exploits transparency, reflection, and layered space to produce works that exist somewhere between painting and sculpture, image and object. The result is profoundly human.
Beauty, Ambiguity, and Unease
Critics have often remarked on the emotional complexity of Zimmer’s work. It seduces viewers with technical virtuosity and luminous beauty while simultaneously unsettling them.
Jeff Zimmer, The Disconnect Between Action and Consequence (Drone V)
His images frequently hover at the edge of recognition. You cannot quite focus on their subjects. The eye searches for certainty but encounters atmosphere, suggestion, and instability instead. That longing to see clearly—and the frustration of being denied clarity—becomes part of the work itself.
Themes of power, morality, queer experience, surveillance, and historical erasure emerge through this haze.
Jeff Zimmer, You Shall Know Them By Their Deeds
In recent bodies of work, Zimmer has expanded his investigations through opaque black glass and laser engraving, exploring contemporary anxieties surrounding polarization, mediated violence, and the technologies that increasingly shape our understanding of reality.
He takes a medium historically associated with transcendence, devotion, and beauty and asks it to bear witness to more troubling truths. The seduction becomes the critique.
A Rare Opportunity
For students, opportunities to study with artists of this caliber are increasingly uncommon.
Zimmer’s own process is notoriously labor-intensive. A single pane may undergo four or five separate kiln firings. Layers are repeatedly refined, altered, and reassembled. Antique frames are transformed into illuminated environments. Transparency itself becomes material to sculpt.
Yet behind the sophistication of the finished works lies an approach grounded in experimentation and curiosity.
In his upcoming Washington Glass School workshop, Obscuring and Revealing / Hide and Seek, participants will explore layering, dimension, and the expressive potential of glass surfaces to create their own visual narratives. Through demonstrations and hands-on exploration, students will investigate how images can be concealed, fragmented, transformed, and ultimately revealed through the interplay of light and space.
For emerging artists, it offers access to techniques rarely taught in depth.
For established artists, it presents an opportunity to rethink how glass can function conceptually and physically.
And for Washington Glass School, it serves as a reminder of what twenty-five years of teaching has always been about: creating a place where experimentation is encouraged, boundaries are challenged, and artists return—not simply to teach technique, but to inspire new ways of seeing.
As we celebrate this milestone anniversary, welcoming Jeff Zimmer back into the studio feels especially meaningful. It reminds us that artistic communities are built over decades through shared knowledge, generosity, risk-taking, and the continual exchange of ideas.
Twenty-five years on, those conversations continue.
And this summer, they continue with Jeff Zimmer- learn more about his special class HERE –
