After-School & Team Production Field Trip to Chihuly Boathouse and UW

Hilltop Artists is a proud partner of Tacoma Public Schools and we work within its CTE department (career and technical education). Our After-School and Team Production program students recently got to take an industry field trip to Seattle. Our day started with a visit to The Boathouse, Dale Chihuly’s private working studio. Our students and instructors were invited to engage with Chihuly’s Hot Shop team and tour the space with his staff.

It is always a privilege to watch professional glass artists at work. Seeing their mastery of the material firsthand can have a profound impact on a young artist. That example ignites ambition and vision in our students—to better themselves, improve their own skills, and potentially build a future in the arts.

Next up on our tour was UW Seattle to see the 3D4M (3-Dimensional Forum) program, where we were hosted by Assistant Professor Henry Jackson-Spieker. Students got to feel what it is like to be on a huge university campus and got a glimpse into college life. Touring the studio spaces provided an opportunity to see glass in conversation with other mediums.

Our third stop was to Chihuly’s Ballard Studio, where a team of fabricators, designers, engineers, and makers of all types constructs armatures for installations, mounting mechanisms, lighting schematics, and so many other components for the installations and exhibitions of Chihuly’s work. Staff shared their (often circuitous) paths to working for a renowned artist and told students about the range of jobs at the organization—administration, marketing, business development, logistics, and public relations as well as welder, glassblower, and quality control monitor, to name a few.

Chihuly’s work can be seen all around the world—inside museums, galleries, and public gathering places like Benaroya Hall in Seattle or the Union Station Courthouse in Tacoma, and it is also found outdoors in gardens and civic spaces, such as Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle and the upcoming exhibition CHIHULY: Venice 2026.

Taking a trip to see how the professional world works is just another way we expand upon the technical and social skills our students learn at Hilltop Artists. For them, in our hot shops, the glass is in conversation with other competencies they are building—communicating with peers, creating safety in uncertain circumstances, learning their own limits and abilities. These are skills they take with them long after they leave our shops. Like the professionals who welcomed us so warmly at The Boathouse, Chihuly Studio, and 3D4M before them, our students are the next generation of artists; but they are also the next generation of project managers and accountants and drafters and fabricators and marketing professionals.

Hilltop Artists’ programs are about so much more than glass art. They are about cultivating skills that can be applicable to so many walks of life. From learning the business development side of being a professional artist to experiencing what it takes to run a nonprofit, studio, or museum, we are able to show our students the unbound potential of their workforce development learning as they move from our hot shops into the “real world.”

Thanks to Dale and Leslie Jackson Chihuly, the Chihuly Hotshop team, and everyone at The Boathouse and Chihuly Studio for their generosity and hospitality. Thank you also to Assistant Professor Henry Jackson-Spieker and all the participating artists at UW Seattle’s 3D4M for hosting us.