Our Artists

Renee Ayers Co-Founder and Operations Manager. When my daughter, Sydney, was three years old, she announced that she was an artist. My experience was in business but in order to help support her goals, I started exploring art with her. Sydney's passion for art ignited a flame of creativity in me. I work in metals, printmaking, and figurative sculpture, but have found my passion in glass. As an avid traveler, I assemble glass pieces or abstract images to evoke a feeling or sensation from an experience far removed from my everyday life.With the onset of Covid-19, I felt the isolation and lack of community that is generally present in glasswork. My long-time glass collaborator, Elizabeth Fortunato, and I began to draft out the plan for Spring Street Studios; a teaching and working glass studio as well as a retail shop. As the owner and operator of Spring Street Studios, my goal is to cultivate our existing glass community, educate and inspire those new to glass, and support our local artists.

Co-Founder and Education Coordinator.

After pursuing glass full time and receiving a BFA from Kent State University in 2010, I expanded my practice to include mixed media including paper, steel and found objects. Through these mediums, I received my MFA from the University of Washington in 2017.

I have since returned to my forever home just north of Pittsburgh to remodel and build my studio in a former church. I am the store manager and educational director here at Spring Street Studios.

Spring Street Studios provides me the opportunity to work with glass as a material, stay in touch with my peers and educate those new and old to the medium.

FiG Studios: Forms in Glass, located in Pittsburgh, PA, was founded in 1996 by Michael “FiG” Mangiafico.

This fully operational Glass Studio is equipped with a hot furnace, kiln, torches for lampwork, and lapidary and polishing equipment. FiG Studios specializes in collaborative art pieces, glass jewelry and components, glass insects, and glass fossils. FiG designs and creates sculptures and crafts items from glass by blowing, casting, torchworking, and coldworking.

Michael Mangiafico / FiG Studios has work in Fine Art galleries around the country.

PetalVision Glass transforms flora and fauna into beautiful designs that you can wear and gift proudly. With sustainability in mind, shed feathers often from the National Aviary in Pittsburgh and shed snakeskins and flowers come from local farms. Sarah Cohen is an interdisciplinary artist but mainly works in glass to transform natural materials into art.

The area of factories and abandoned buildings that separated the city from the neighborhood I grew up inspire me; places where there are not people living or communicating. There is only concrete, and so the factories and abandoned buildings rely on the architecture to speak for the landscape. It is these voids in scenery and the forms of these buildings, structures, and objects that influence my work.

Jarred Futscher designs and creates functional hand-blown glassware. He launched his production line in 2017, after nearly a decade of studying and making contemporary studio glass. TAKTTIME’s glassware is refined and contemporary, merging traditional blown glass elements with modern form and feel. Jarrod’s attention to detail and artistry shine with this collection.

As a glass artist, I explore what occurs naturally with the material, harnessing heat and flow to encourage the glass to speak for itself while conveying my vision. Currently, I am torn between two passions, one of Pattern and Chaos, the other an exploration of the Formation of Planet Earth. My endeavors are supported by Pittsburgh Glass Center, home for the past 10 years, where I currently serve as the Kilnforming and Hospitality Coordinator.

After a 20-year career in engineering. Rob left to pursue his passion for glass art in 2015. Prior to leaving engineering, Rob spent many years learning glass blowing, fusing, and cold working through numerous classes and summer intensive programs at the Pittsburgh Glass Center. When not working with the public through teaching workshops, leading demonstrations and tours, fields trips with the “Hot Wheels” mobile furnace.

Travis Rohrbaugh is from Baltimore, Maryland. Since graduating from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, he has lived in Pittsburgh teaching classes and working as an artist. Rohrbaugh currently works as a studio technician at the Pittsburgh Glass Center.

John Sharvin's work explores the separation between reality and the imaginary through the use of miniatures and glass sculptures. Creating these miniature landscapes draws the viewer into a new and intimate realm, reminiscent of a shadowbox or dollhouse. These dreamlike worlds create deceptive memories and locations for the viewer to reflect on. Recollection of a place or memory is often distorted through the lens of time. When recalling past memories he often wonders what is made up and what is true. He has been working in glass since late 2008 where he graduated from The Ohio State University in 2012 with a BFA in the glass. He stayed in Columbus for a few years working in galleries, doing public glass demonstrations, and tutoring students. He took a Technician Apprenticeship in Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2014.

My love for art began with a box of crayons and has evolved from there. During my childhood summers in Puerto Rico, I learned to paint from next-door neighbors in the yard. Since then, I have used whatever means around me to make new things. It is my nature to create. Relocating to the U.S. for my adolescent and high school years, ceramics became an integral part of my exploration into other mediums. From crayons to paint to fibers to ceramics, discovering the medium of glass has challenged me in new ways. After receiving BFA in Glass from the Appalachian Center for Craft I relocated to Pittsburgh, PA where I continue to pursue my art. Combining my love for art with my interests in science and nature, working with glass satisfies my need as a maker and pushes me in ways no other medium has.

Pittsburgh’s manufacturing history and tradition of innovation have stoked my admiration of nineteenth-century glassmakers such as Lalique, Tiffany, and Gallé. In living and working here, I am inspired by the juncture of functionality and elegance in the lighting, housewares, and architectural embellishments that these artists pioneered and are seen throughout the city and its environs. I see my work as emerging from this movement; my designs are steeped in tradition but deeply influenced by technologies of the 21st century that incorporate new processes and materials. Likewise, I named my art practice Studio Glass Company as an homage to the American studio glass movement that started in the1960’s, and from whose members I learned the love of the medium of glass.

Rachel Strittmatter grew up in the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where she obtained her Associate of Arts degree from Harrisburg Area Community College in 2016. Her work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions and she has had international residences in Japan and the Czech Republic. Rachael completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rochester Institute of Technology in May 2020 and is currently a Tech Apprentice at the Pittsburgh Glass Center. When she isn’t in the glass studio, Rachael can be found outside, painting her nails, or talking to strangers.

Founded in 2015 by Alyssa and Drew Kail, Camp Copeland strives to improve everyday lives through considered design and intentional living. Trays, bowls, and plates serve not only as art objects and focal pieces suitable for any room in your house, but also are the perfect place to collect items you need readily available; a bowl on your entryway table to hold your keys and sunglasses, a tray on your nightstand for jewelry and your phone, or a platter on your dining table for fruit. They believe in clearing the clutter that can bog us down and living with objects that enhance the everyday.

March Soracco is a professional photographer based in Pittsburgh, PA, specializing primarily in location photography but also does high-quality studio imaging. He has been shooting professionally for almost four decades, running a large commercial studio in Pittsburgh for fifteen years before starting his own business twenty years ago. He shoots for a wide variety of clients nationwide with subject matter that includes Architecture, Aerial, Executive and Editorial Portraiture, Industrial, Medical, Food, and Public Relations Photography, as well as Drone Aerial Still and Motion Imagery.

Jason Forck was raised on a small farm in Kansas. He learned early on the value of working with one’s hands. In 2005, he moved to Pittsburgh to pursue an opportunity at Pittsburgh Glass Center where he continues making his sculptures and working as an education and creative projects coordinator. His work has been exhibited across the U.S.

Gillian Preston is an artist working out of Pittsburgh, PA, where she creates fine art in addition to her line of glass wearables. She studied glass at the Cleveland Institute of Art under Brent Kee Young with a strong emphasis on drawing, earning her BFA in glass. As a result of these dual interests, she combines the intimate qualities of hand drawn imagery with contemporary and traditional glass practices to bring light and character to her ideas and narratives. Her work has been recognized In New Glass Review 29 and 31 and is currently on exhibition in boutiques and galleries internationally.

My sculptures bring a physicality to systems and forces that are indescribable. I assemble blown glass to create light and amorphic shapes that are simplistic and coherent. Then painted, each sculpture becomes a model of movement and flow that denotes rhythmic patterns and spatial awareness. I hope those who have feelings or thoughts that are difficult to comprehend can utilize these sculptures to confirm their imagination.Description goes here

Zach is a Pittsburgh-based glass artist, who travels frequently to blow glass at studios across the country. Zach works with hot glass from the furnace and also carves and engraves glass to make his works of art.

Mary Costello is a glass artist working north of Pittsburgh PA. She fused and manipulated glass in a kiln to create custom pieces. Mary shows her work locally and at galleries across the North East.

Ashley McFarland has been working in glass for the past 12 years. She moved to Pittsburgh for the PGC tech apprenticeship in 2009 and has been honing her glassmaking skills ever since. She loves the challenge of repairing broken glass objects and turning non-glass objects into glass through coldworking, casting and hot shop methods.

I have been involved in designing, creating and marketing glass art for nearly thirty years. Beginning as a Graphic Designer, through the years I experimented with different mediums until I discovered fused glass. I was drawn to the colors and the way the light plays off it's surface, which made each piece vibrant and alive. All of my artwork is handmade, precisely crafted down to the smallest detail. Growing up in a fairly religious family, in my later years I gravitated toward creating Judaica art specializing in Mezuzahs, Menorahs and Judaic Jewelry. My glass art is now offered in galleries throughout the country.

Tom Oliverio is not only Zelienople’s long time Mayor, he is also a talented glass artist! Working primarily out of his home in Zelienople Pa, Oliverio creates both intricate stained glass works and whimsical fused glass pieces. His stained glass works include traditional techniques including copper foil and dimensional works. Fused glass pieces feature a “shatter” technique of breaking and reassembling glass before melting it back together, giving a spider web effect. Oliver also features woven glass works and pieces featuring natural elements such as real leaves to create stencils and patterns.

Atelier is a Pittsburgh based glass studio specializing in Fused Glass and Mosaics. Our exclusive glass artworks combine function and beauty to create products that can be used everyday. At Atelier, we Upcycle, Recycle and Make from Scratch! Our products are handmade in the USA. We live for vivid color and progressive design.

Atelier’s Artist/Owner, Meeghan Triggs, has been doing kiln-work for 20 yrs. Meeghan received her BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore and studied at The Glasgow School of Art, Scotland.

I’m drawn to old brick structures. I may not have the language to speak on architectural terms; my appreciation is purely aesthetic. The time I spend drawing each structure feels like a meditation or becoming part of a time in history with that structure. Since landmarks and skylines connect people who have a shared love of them, I’m very interested in the intimacy my drawings and products provide with the buildings and places we love most.

“We need to question what it is and what feminism means in this new century. We need to question the meaning of empowerment and seek power rather than work to corrode it in others. We need to question equality, and whether we shouldn’t this desired ideal with that of freedom. We need to question the impulse to decenter women. We need to imagine what feminism looks like in action, in policy, and in society. And, then, we need to develop the strategies to achieve those ends” by Marcie Bianco (2017)

I support Marcie Bianco’s statements, as we need to address and likely re-define what “Feminism” is now and what it will look like in the future. Most of my artwork involves transforming usually appropriated domestic objects which are often associated with women into quite dangerous, possibly foreboding, vessels. As see each piece as a cautionary tale manifested in an everyday object.

My painting journey is a great example of when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!! The summer of 2020, I shattered my femur. I was forced to sit days which became months, unable to bear weight on my leg, so that my bone could heal. I had purchased the dotting tools, wanting to try to paint beautiful mandalas, so sitting healing was a great time to try.

With great support and encouragement from friends I have joined with Spring Streets Studios and opened my own Etsy store. The name, LuLu's Dot Shop came from one of my pups, LuLu, my beagle. While healing, LuLu sat in my lap everyday. Painting around her could be a challenge. Both were very important to my healing.

Reimagined Recycling uses handcrafted from materials saved from the landfill, shredded, and then reformed, these products were created to add more sustainability into your lifestyle and home.