First Friday Open House at the Belger Glass Annex

First Friday, April 4 from 6 to 8pm

The Belger Glass Annex is excited to announce that the warm shop and cold shop are now open! What is a warm shop? What is a cold shop? Great questions!

Up to this point, you may be most familiar with the Belger Glass Annex's "hot shop." The hot shop is where we teach glassblowing glasses, offer glassblowing private parties, and host monthly free First Friday demonstrations.

The hot shop is called the "hot shop" because the glass stays hot the entire time the artist is working with it. Hot shop artists start with molten glass that needs constant reheating, and the finished piece is still around 1000 degrees when it gets loaded into an annealing oven to cool.

In the "warm shop," the glass starts out cold, gets warmed up, then cools back down. Warm shop artists start by cutting and arranging pieces of room temperature glass before loading a kiln to heat and melt the glass.

In the "cold shop" the glass stays cold the entire time. Through processes of cutting, grinding, and polishing, cold shop artists can change the shape and texture of glass while never needing to heat it up.

Free Artist Talk with Steve gurysh & Benjamin Sikes

Saturday April 5th at 11am
Belger Crane Yard Gallery

Join us for a presentation by exhibiting artist Steve Gurysh and Dr. Benjamin Sikes, a microbial ecologist at the University of Kansas whose research focuses on soil fungi. Each will talk about their research using Mars Global Simulant, a composite material used to simulate the mineralogy of another planet, and its applications in the fields of art and science.

Gurysh’s work is featured in Materialize: Visualizing Climate Change on view at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery through May 7, 2025.

Glassblowing Demo with Jason McDonald and Elliot Walker

Saturday, April 26 at 4pm
Belger Glass Annex

Join us for a glassblowing demo with artists Jason McDonald and Elliot Walker. Both artists competed on Netflix’s season 2 of Blown Away. Catch these two titans of glassblowing at the Belger Glass Annex.

More information to come soon!

Visiting Artist Jason McDonald

free Public Programs
APRIL 28 – MAY 2, 2025

Jason McDonald is a North Carolina-based glass artist with a passion for Venetian furnace glassblowing techniques. He was a contestant on Netflix’s “Blown Away” season two, a Windgate fellow, and is the Glass Annex’s 2025 Visiting Artist.

These free public programs coincide with his sold-out masterclass at the Belger Glass Annex from April 28 to May 2, 2025.:

• A free artist talk on Wednesday, April 30, 6pm at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery (2011 Tracy Ave., KCMO)

• A free glassblowing demonstration on First Friday, May 2, 6pm to 8pm at the Belger Glass Annex (1219 E. 19th St., KCMO)

• His masterclass will be open to the public on Monday, April 28 from 10am to 12pm, Tuesday, April 29 from 9am to 12pm, and Thursday, May 1 from 9am to 12pm.