Redmond School Of Glass

This class was terrible. Both instructors acted as if they wanted to be anywhere but the hot shop and are clearly not educators. One was actually insulting while the other never smiled and hardly spoke. Very little information was given about glass. They provided instruction at the beginning of the class to all the attendees by quickly going through every step of the process without much explanation. Most instruction was focused on how the instructor didn't want to get burned by the attendees. Given the number of attendees, we spent about 10 minutes of actual glass work while the rest of the approximately 2 hour class time was spent standing around watching (many began speaking to each other due to lack of instruction) . Since the instructors spoke quietly and only to those actively working glass, there was very little learned by the rest of the attendees as the glass blowing was being done. I tried speaking with the owner and he was uncommunicative and also acted like it was an imposition for us to be there. Clearly, this is not a service business and we would not recommend taking a class there.

My daughter gave a fluted bowl making class to my wife and I for Christmas. We greatly enjoyed the experience and left with some nice decortaive bowls!

Beware of the group mini-lessons! It could be due to the Groupon deal, which my teen received as a gift and I bought for myself, but we were rushed through and overall it was just ok. We got pretty ornaments out of it, so it was maybe worth the half price deal ($30) but I feel bad for anyone who paid full price for what they got! There was NO explanation about the process - it would have been nice to hear just a few minutes on the history of glassmaking and the chemistry of how it all works. Instead a large number of us - at least 30 people - were herded into the hot shop where the instructor, Corey, raced through the instructions. The sign-up process for actually creating our ornaments was chaotic and disorganized with the result that my child and I weren't able to get the color of ornaments we wanted. Corey was visibly impatient and made snide comments if people didn't step up immediately when their number was called (most folks had cameras and were asking people to take photos). The overall impression was that they wanted us in and out as quickly as possible. Corey was so intent on rushing us through that my daughter got nervous and burned her arm (very slightly - she only mentioned it to me after we'd left). Companies should not participate in Groupon unless they are willing to expect an enthusiastic response and give good service to everyone who takes advantage of the deals they offer. I suspect that the private classes with smaller numbers of people are run quite differently and would be more satisfactory, but this introduction to the Redmond School of Glass was not very impressive.