Philadelphia-based artist Christopher Lydon makes organically inspired sculptural and vessel forms as well as works with intense color contrasts that reference street art and anime. At 2300°: Blues in March 2012, he made a glass guitar modeled on BB King's signature guitar, Lucille.

As a Corning native and the younger brother of a glassblower, Dane Jack was exposed to glass from a young age. Jack took Dan Mirer's Glassblowing, Design, Production class with the assistance of the Celebrity Cruise Scholarship fund. Learn more about the Celebrity Cruise Scholarship fund: www.cmog.org

"I want the viewer to expereince the process of blurring boundaries between cultures by looking at my work." Song studies ornamental styles across time periods and geography, and her work explores how certain attributes of glass can be used to create ambivalent objects: objects that don't belong to pre-existing stylistic classifications.

Artist Josh Simpson and his wife, Cady Coleman, a renowned astronaut, provide a joint lecture. Simpson creates wondrously detailed imaginary "planets" and "worlds" in glass. Coleman spent six months on the International Space Station in 2011. They will discuss their unique experiences and share stories with the audience.

Glass makers throughout history have gone to great lengths to eliminate all bubbles from glass. But here, we see bubbles purposefully put into the glass for their decorative effect. In this paperweight, the bubbles surround another gather of glass with twisted canes of colored glass. Watch as William Gudenrath demonstrates the technique.

In the 1930s, the Pairpoint Glass Corporation introduced a bold new design called "twist glass," consisting of swirled stripes of ruby or deep blue glass and clear crystal. The complicated technique, already used in Sweden, required many stages including cold working. Watch as William Gudenrath demonstrates the technique.

Watch as William Gudenrath demonstrates the Reticello technique. Reticello (Italian, "glass with a small network"), is a type of blown glass made with canes organized in a crisscross pattern to form a fine net, which may contain tiny air traps.

Glassworkers made ring-shaped decanters as early as the Roman period. Due to their novel shape, much like buoys, the personal flotation devices carried on ships, decanters in the early 20th century were called "lifebuoy decanters." Watch as William Gudenrath demonstrates the technique.

In the second half of the 19th century, many glass firms used experimental techniques to create decorative art glass. In 1878, the Mt. Washington glass company introduced Sicilian glass. As part of their marketing, the company claimed to have used lava, that is, molten rock spewed out by volcanoes, as one of the raw ingredients. Watch as William Gudenrath demonstrates the technique.

Watch William Gudenrath demonstrate for his Refining and Solidifying Your Techniques class at The Studio. Gudenrath's class focuses on advanced Venetian techniques: well-formed and thinly blown vessel bodies, excellent necks, delicate mereses, and blown feet and stems. William Gudenrath, resident adviser at The Studio, is a glassblower, scholar, lecturer, and teacher. An authority on historical hot glassworking techniques from ancient Egypt through the Renaissance, he has presented many lectures and demonstrations.