This spring—meet Hilltop Artists and best
friends Lily and Jasmine

This summer, Hilltop Artists is blooming with creativity, hope, and opportunity.

Our programs encourage positive, healing outlets for underserved youth to blossom and thrive, and we need your help to sow the seeds of success.

By showing your commitment to Hilltop Artists, you help sustain positive, collaborative, and healing spaces for youth in our community—youth like Lily and Jasmine, whose friendship flourishes in our programs!

Growing up, we don’t always get to choose where we’re planted. But when given a nurturing environment, there is potential for spectacular beauty. That’s why when Lily and Jasmine met at Stadium High School, it was important that they had an affirming environment for their friendship to grow.

“We had a couple of classes together. We were kinda starting to bond,” Lily says of first meeting Jasmine. Now a freshman at Stadium, Lily was the first to join Hilltop Artists.

When she started in the After-School program, it took some time before Lily felt comfortable in the hot shop. It was a challenge to begin working with students she didn’t know, with a medium as demanding as glass, all during a global pandemic.

“In the beginning, I was very much not committed. But I started in the After-School program and I really connected with one of my instructors. When he left, I thought, ‘Do I even want to keep doing this?’ I didn’t really know a lot of other people very well.” That was when Lily decided to bring her friend Jasmine along to the program. “They [Jasmine] say I didn’t introduce them to it but I like to think I did.”

“Lily was a big influence on me joining,” Jasmine admits. “I felt super safe when meeting her. She helped me around the hot shop, showed me the routines and how things work. I learned a lot from her.”

Jasmine notes that Hilltop Artists gave them a space to make art and be truly themselves. “Working in Production feels like a community. Everyone feels safe and happy. We all look forward to coming in every week.”

“We work,” adds Lily. “but it’s also the time when Jasmine and I get to hang out.”

Jasmine and Lily are able to build community and explore their passions at Hilltop Artists thanks to generous gifts from donors like you. By giving to Hilltop Artists, students like them have a place to collaborate, learn, and have fun together.

Not only do Lily and Jasmine encourage one another, they’ve benefited from the care of fellow students and from the teaching artists who encourage them to challenge themselves.

Jasmine emphasizes how much the trusted relationships with their dedicated teachers means to them: “Some of our biggest supporters here are Trenton [Quiocho] and Jess [Hogan]; all the leaders. They give us a lot of cool opportunities.” Opportunities like visiting the Pilchuck Glass School and the Appalachian Center for Craft in Tennessee. 

Much like the instructors and students who have given guidance to Lily and Jasmine, they have encouragement for their fellow artists and for you!

“Put yourself out there. Go for these opportunities,” Lily shares. “Even if you don’t have a goal in mind, just taking these opportunities is going to get you somewhere that you didn’t think you were going to be before.”

Jasmine reiterates the importance of courage and vulnerability for a Hilltop Artist. “My advice is to put yourself out there. Don’t feel a certain way—that you’re being judged or like you shouldn’t do something. I think you should just go after it, be yourself, let your creative spark come out.”

“And communicate,” Lily mentions. “What you want to make, what you want to do, what your goals are—because a lot of people have different goals and motivations than you and if people aren’t clear about what those are, there can be a lot of confusion.” 

With that spirit of communication and connection, and with the generosity of our giving community, Lily and Jasmine are able to grow their friendship into an even deeper collaboration—a prospect both find exciting even if they don’t know exactly what the end result would be.

“I don’t think it would be one specific thing,” Lily says about their partnership. “I think the experience itself would be the final collaboration. We don’t really care what the final piece is like.”

“Our different backgrounds coming together is the collaboration,” adds Jasmine, “I feel like glass is very much the same way.”

“Our whole life is a collaboration!” exclaims Lily.

Together, let’s cultivate welcoming programs and caring spaces at Hilltop Artists: today, tomorrow, and for many generations to come.

Please help us reach our spring fundraising goal of $75,000. Join us by making a donation and investing in the creative and collaborative futures of artists like Lily and Jasmine.

If you want to invest in the futures of our youth and in the sustainability of Hilltop Artists, please take this opportunity to join the Murrini Club.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about our wonderful students and to show them you care. We’ll see you in our hot shops soon!

With gratitude,

Katy Evans

Deputy Director

P.S. Did you know? You can make a stock gift or Qualified Charitable Deduction to Hilltop Artists! Learn more here or by sending me an email.