The GEEX Flame Affinity Group connects educators, co-learners and onlookers through discussion and shared materials across the practice of flameworking.
Who is this for?
This group is open to artists, designers, fabricators, makers and autodidacts working in and thinking with the practice of flameworking.
GEEX aims to facilitate a supportive space outside of traditional academic structures to flesh out a history of flame-working serving the architecture of the flameworking community.
Fall 2025–Spring 2026
Getting Started as an Educator
Thursday, October 23, 2025
6:00-7:30pm US-Central
In collaboration with the GEEX Educators Group
Meeting sponsored by High Volume Oxygen.
Join us for a conversation on taking the first steps toward teaching flameworking and glassmaking—whether through workshops, classes, or demos.
We’ll cover how to prepare content, find opportunities, and build confidence. Topics include:
- Lesson Planning Basics: How do you structure engaging and clear beginner lessons?
- Finding Your First Teaching Opportunities: Where can new educators start sharing their skills?
- Communicating Your Value: How do you present your teaching offerings professionally?
- Building Confidence: What strategies help you feel ready to lead?
- Low-Barrier Entry Points: How can guest teaching or co-teaching ease your start?
- Troubleshooting Common Workshop Challenges: How do you adapt when things don’t go as planned?
- Documenting Your Work: How do you create a portfolio or teaching resume?
We’ll share resources and encouragement for new educators ready to light their teaching spark. Bring your questions and ideas as you begin your journey. Not a flameworker? No problem! This meeting is open to anyone interested in glass teaching.
Exploring Alternative Income Streams for Artists
Monday, April 6, 2026
6:30-8:00pm US-Central
Meeting sponsored by High Volume Oxygen.
Join us for an in-depth conversation on diversifying your income as an independent flameworker, moving beyond the traditional model of direct art sales to create a more stable and resilient financial foundation.
We’ll explore a variety of creative and alternative revenue streams tailored to your unique skills and artistic practice. Topics include:
- Teaching Opportunities: How to start offering workshops or online classes?
- Commission Work: What are best practices for custom orders?
- Licensing and Collaborations: How to partner with other makers or brands?
- Merchandising: What role do prints, apparel, or accessories play?
- Crowdfunding and Patronage: How can platforms support ongoing work?
- Grants and Residencies: Where to find and apply for funding and opportunities?
Bring your questions and experiences to this interactive session designed to help you build a sustainable, multifaceted income as an independent artist.
How do I participate?
- Read the Code of Conduct.
- Register for the GEEX Flame Affinity Group through this Google Form to receive event information.
2025-2026 Sponsors
Thanks to High Volume Oxygen for sponsoring this season of the Flame Affinity Group!
Interested in supporting the Flame Affinity Group? GEEX is currently seeking industry sponsors for two meetings across the 2025-2026 season. Become a sponsor by contacting us.
Past Meeting Notes and Recordings
The Economics of Flameworking
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith
Join us for an open discussion on the economics of flameworking. Our goals are to survey the many avenues of generating income through flameworking and glass adjacent content, consider points of entry into marketplaces, and discuss monetization strategies.
How have opportunities for making a living through glassworking shifted, and how do we adapt?
Thanks to our sponsors!
View the Meeting Recording and Meeting Notes in the Glass Resource Exchange
Equity and Access in Public and Private Spaces
Thursday, February 23, 2023
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith
Join us for an open discussion exploring equity and access in public and private spaces. Our goals are to survey some of the different ways studio space is accessed for making, learning, and connecting with community. We will explore some of the concerns involved in navigating personal and physical safety in the studio, and consider other spaces that are reliable for practicing flameworking. Tuning in from the studio? Share a rapid fire tour of your studio space in two minutes or less!
How do you access a studio? Do you work at a studio/rent time/have your own shop? As a student/co-learner, do you prefer a particular format/type of location? Where do you go to learn and why? What do you look for in a shared space that makes you feel like you want to work there? How do you assess the safety of a space?
Thanks to our sponsors!
View the Meeting Recording and Meeting Notes in the Glass Resource Exchange
Teacher Roll Call
Monday, October 16, 2023
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith
Join us for an open discussion exploring equity and access in education. Our goal is to activate this space as a peer to peer exchange for educators, and create a network of support in the field of education and learning.
By exploring the shifting definitions of students, teachers, and co-learners, can we reconsider the fluidity and overlap of these roles? We will tease out new models and language for education by identifying essential skills for instructors, discussing what content fills classes, and what motivates and drives students.
Thanks to our sponsors!
View the Meeting Recording and Meeting Notes in the Glass Resource Exchange
Flame Business Practices Toolkit
Monday, February 19, 2024
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith
Join us for a collaborative meeting where we’ll create a comprehensive resource kit tailored to help budding entrepreneurs in the world of flameworking. We will discuss and identify the tools and resources that professional artists and makers require to thrive.
Fostering mutual support and growth within our industry, this meeting will provide a platform for the community to contribute to the success of the next generation. We will cover topics including budgeting, tax advice, ecommerce, social media management, gallery outreach, and negotiating a fair wage. Come prepared to ask questions and share your expertise and learn from fellow flameworkers!
Thanks to our sponsors!
View the Meeting Recording and Meeting Notes in the Glass Resource Exchange
Building Bridges
Monday, October 28, 2024
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith
Join us for a collaborative discussion focused on fostering a community where knowledge flows in all directions – across experience levels and generations. We’ll tackle bridging the gap between being seasoned professionals and newcomers, celebrating the courage it takes to be both a student and an expert at the same time. This is an opportunity to build meaningful connections, and ensure that the voices of the next generation are heard and uplifted.
This meeting will provide a platform for discussion around how we define “experience”, how we facilitate bridges between generations, and how both students and professionals can engage in conversations that lead to growth.
Special Guest, Ghislaine Sabiti, Director of the Bead Project, will join us for an omni-directional conversation. Come prepared to ask questions, share your own experience, and most importantly, listen and learn from others as we collectively shape the future of our growing community.
Thanks to our sponsors!
Anonymous
View the Recorded Meeting and Meeting Notes in the Glass Resource Exchange
Learning Without Boundaries
Monday, April 21, 2025
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith
Join us for an open discussion focused on self-directed learning in flameworking. We’ll explore the strategies and resources that autodidacts use to shape their creative and technical skills without (or in addition to) formal instruction. Topics include:
- Designing Your Personalized Learning Path
- Balancing Technical Skills and Artistic Exploration
- The Role of Digital Mentors
- Staying Motivated
- Building Connections as a Solo Learner
- The Journey of the Self-Made Artist
We’ll share strategies for developing technical skills, fostering creativity, and staying motivated. Bring your experiences, successes, and questions to this community-driven conversation that celebrates the power and challenges of self-directed learning.
Thanks to our sponsors!
Anonymous
View the Recorded Meeting and Meeting Notes in the Glass Resource Exchange
About the Facilitators
Beth Hylen
Beth Hylen was a reference librarian at The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass, where she helped researchers, students and artists find information about the art and history of glass. She also investigates the history of lampworking. As an artist, Beth creates multimedia wearable sculpture that explores line and gesture. It conveys movement – flowing, organic – evoking the essence of natural forms. Nature and landscape, and the accident of found objects, are woven into her work.
Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries nationally and is featured in publications such as New Glass Review, Women Working in Glass; 500 Glass Objects: a Celebration of Functional & Sculptural Glass; and Showcase 500 Rings: New Directions in Art Jewelry. Her artist talk was highlighted on Torch Talk: “Beth Hylen – ISGB Gathering Keynote Lecture.” She creates and models glass dresses at Glass Art Society Fashion Shows. A frequent speaker, Beth lectures at glass and library conferences and articles by Beth have appeared in The Flow, Fusion, GAS Newsletter, Behind the Glass, and other glass-related publications. She was awarded the Lifetime Membership Award by the Glass Art Society in 2024.
Links
Amy Lemaire
Amy Lemaire is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. An explorer at heart, her work reveals an interest in currency systems, material language poetics and the production of histories.
Lemaire studied at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA) and Pratt Institute (MFA). She has taught at Pilchuck Glass School (WA), Penland School of Crafts (NC), and UrbanGlass (NY), where she served as the Director of the Bead Project, a creative entrepreneurship program for women in NYC. Lemaire works with institutions across the country as an educator and advocate for flameworking, and currently teaches at Salem Community College (NJ) and the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC.
Recent residencies include University of the Arts, Tyler School of Art, UrbanGlass, CGCA Fellowship at Wheaton Arts, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Lemaire has lectured at Universities across the country, including NYU, the International Flameworking Conference, and her essay, “Flame Grows Up”, was published in Glass Quarterly magazine. Her work has recently been included in exhibitions at Heller Gallery (NY) and Traver Gallery (WA) and is represented by Heller Gallery in NYC.
Links
Sally Prasch
Sally Prasch started working in glass in 1970 with Lloyd Moore. Received BFA in Ceramics and Glass from the University of Kansas, also degrees in Applied Science and Scientific Glass Technology from Salem College. Both her scientific and artistic glass work is shown worldwide.
Sally has taught at Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Crafts, Niijima Glass Center, Urban Glass, Pittsburgh Glass Center and many other schools around the world. She helps coordinate the Glass Lifeforms Exhibit, and is the curator of the Leverett Arts and Crafts yearly glass exhibit. Currently is the Scientific Glassblower and instructor at the University of Massachusetts, and continues to run her home studio.
Links
Madeline Rile Smith
Madeline Rile Smith uses glass as a performative vehicle to consider notions of intimacy, compromise, and embodiment. Informed by her background in music, she creates objects and videos that explore connection and isolation.
A passionate educator, Madeline has instructed glassworking in schools and institutions, including Rochester Institute of Technology, UrbanGlass, and The Crefeld School. She is currently an adjunct professor of glass art at Tyler School of Art and Salem Community College.
Madeline’s work has been exhibited in venues throughout the US and internationally, including the Museum of Arts and Design, The Toyama Glass Art Museum, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, and in New Glass Review 41 and 35. Madeline earned an MFA at Rochester Institute of Technology, and a BFA from Tyler School of Art. She is a recipient of a commission award for Glass Meet the Future 2021 with North Lands Creative.
Links
madhotglass.com
instagram.com/madhotglass
tiktok.com/@madhotglass