Cover Story
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Seniors Lee Hughes and Tristan Soltero spin a portion of glass, called a “gather,” during an advanced art class at Palo Alto High School
Paly students find cozy ‘home’ in glassblowing program, a rarity among high schools by Chris Kenrick
eat, light and camaraderie fuel a well-ordered
space on the northern edge of the Palo Alto High School campus, where more than 100 students a year pass through for a primer in the “fiery arts” of clay and glass.
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Michael Sopkin, a Paly graduate, sits beside shelves full of his glass creations at his parent’s house in Palo Alto. He is pursuing “fiery arts” at Emporia State College in Kansas.
Paly’s glassblowing studio — one of a handful at public schools in the United States — is a home away from home for a diverse group of teens, for whom the work of shaping honey-thick molten liquid into solid objects has become a form of play. “It’s way too addicting and way too fun,” said senior Martin Ehrensvard, who began blowing glass at Paly 18 months ago. “It’s such a big fight — blowing glass is like working with no other material. “You’re shaping something super-hot, and when it’s not hot you can’t shape it. The hotter it is, the
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better you can shape it. I fell in love with it.” Shelves in Paly’s sculpture classroom — the glass furnace and reheaters are just outside — are lined with colorful glass pumpkins, apples, acorns, hearts, shells, reindeer, slugs and snails ready for purchase at the program’s “Big Fiery Arts Fall Sale” Sept. 13 and 20. Open to the public, the sale’s proceeds will support the glass program. Financing glassblowing at Paly requires $50,000 a year for things like glass and repairs to equipment, such as the furnace — which keeps molten glass at 2,000 degrees — and the “glory holes,” which keep the glass hot as students blow into it and shape it on the ends of rigid but hollow, 54-inch-long blowpipes. Art teacher Steve Ferrera estimates that glassblowers — including Paly students, former students and his two instructional aides — blew more than 600 glass pieces over the summer that will be offered for sale.
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ike sports, drama, robotics, debate, choir or journalism, Paly glassblowing enjoys a devoted following among parents and students, some of whom re-
turn to the studio even after they graduate for the opportunity to keep blowing glass, or just hang out. “This program changes lives,” said Cheryl Sopkin, whose son Michael, a 2010 Paly graduate, is a studio-art glassblowing major at Emporia State University in Kansas. “Glassblowing took over my life, and I’m glad it did,” the younger Sopkin said in an August interview, a day before he flew to Kansas to begin his junior year. “Once I knew glassblowing was there, I knew I didn’t want to be in a cubicle the rest of my life and work for headquarters, or whatever. I knew I wanted to do glass.” Though he describes Kansas as a “huge culture shock,” Sopkin said he was happy to get out of California to see a different part of the country. He plans on a career in studio glass production. Artist and teacher David Camner, who launched glassblowing at Paly around 2001, estimates that about 10 Paly graduates, like Sopkin, have gone on to pursue glass at places like Emporia or California College of the Arts in Oakland. One of Camner’s former instructional aides at Paly, glass