Pilchuck Glass School

Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education. The school was founded in 1971 by Dale Chihuly, Anne Gould Hauberg and John H. Hauberg (1916-2002). The campus is located on a former tree farm in Stanwood, Washington, United States and the administrative offices are located in Seattle. The name "Pilchuck" comes from the local Native American language and translates to "red water". Pilchuck offers one-, two- and three-week resident classes each summer in a broad spectrum of glass techniques as well as residencies for emerging and established artists working in all media.

Dale Chihuly, then head of the glass program at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Ruth Tamura, who ran the glass program at California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC, now California College of the Arts) applied early in 1971 for a grant from the Union of Independent Colleges of Art to operate a summer workshop in glass, and in late spring the sum of $2,000 had been awarded. From the outset, this was planned as an unusual kind of workshop. Without yet having a site, but knowing he wanted to be somewhere in the Seattle area (Chihuly was born in Tacoma), Chihuly distributed advertising posters for "the no deposit lots of returns glass etc. workshop. Free tuition --- you provide food and camping equipment." Sketches of lakes and forests and camping decorated the posters.

Through friends and contacts in the Seattle area, Chihuly was introduced to John Hauberg and his wife Anne Gould Hauberg. Hauberg offered Chihuly the use of a site on property he owned an hour north of Seattle. The workshop was held here, and in time this became the location of the Pilchuck Glass School.

The first workshop, in 1971, began with little time for advance preparation of the site. Chihuly, with two other teachers and 18 students, pitched surplus tents, made a makeshift lean-to with toilets and showers, built a hot shop with glass furnaces (and a roof of sewn-together surplus tents), and, just sixteen days after arriving at the Hauberg's tree farm, began blowing glass. Some of the glass that was blown was sold at a craft fair in Anacortes, nearby, and after that sale was well-received the group held an open house on the site and sold more, the proceeds being used to pay for the propane they used. Even so, Chihuly spent far more than the $2,000 grant, and ran up a considerable debt. John Hauberg, buoyed by the success of that first summer, paid off the bank loan and agreed to provide the location and financial support for a second summer workshop, and then a third. A few years later, realizing that Pilchuck glass workshops had become a summer mainstay rather than an occasional happening, the Haubergs established the school as a non-profit, solidifying the framework for today's Pilchuck Glass School.

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