Fireside: A Holiday Night at Museum of Glass

December 21 • 5–9pm

Join Museum of Glass for a festive holiday evening as we welcome the Tacoma Yacht Club’s annual Lighted Boat Parade to the Thea Foss Waterway! Enjoy the parade from the Museum’s Grand Plaza, where we’ll have an outdoor fireside station set up to keep everyone toasty while they enjoy the lights. Inside the Museum, explore newly opened exhibitions Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature and Nancy Callan: Forces at Play through docent-led tours, watch live glassblowing in the Hot Shop and flameworking demos in the Grand Hall, create your own works of art in glass in one of our Glass Tile Workshops or By the Furnace: Hot Shop Experience sessions, and more.

Learn more and get tickets.

Goblet Week

January 15–19 • Artist Reception + Wine Tasting and Goblet Sale on January 18

In the Pacific Northwest, artists and makers have been steeped in the Italian approach to glassmaking through the Studio Glass movement, and Venetian-style goblets are a fixture in our local glassmaking scene. As our culture becomes increasingly dependent on technology, it also becomes detached from the handmade. Goblet Week began with the mission to highlight the magic of handmade functional glass pieces — specifically, Venetian-style goblets.

Goblet Week will feature five Visiting Artists who are some of the best in the game in this style: Jason Christian, Jen Elek, Jason McDonald, and Michael Schunke. Learn more here.

Additionally, Museum of Glass will host an Artist Reception + Wine Tasting and Goblet Sale the evening of Saturday, January 18.

Give the Gift of Membership

This year, give an extraordinary gift that continues all year long. Give the gift of Museum of Glass membership and give a year’s worth of exclusive member access to a one-of-a-kind experience including exceptional exhibitions, live glassblowing demonstrations, educational programming and unique member benefits. With so many different levels to choose from, there’s something for everyone on your list!

Learn more about Museum membership.

Holiday Music Week

December 26-31

Spend some of your holiday week at Museum of Glass, where we will host performances in the Grand Hall every day at 1pm. Additionally, the Museum is offering By the Furnace: Hot Shop Experience workshops throughout the week, as well as educational activities in conjunction to the new installation Wild Within: A Lens on Wolves.

Click here to learn more.

Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature

November 16, 2024 — June 15, 2025

Not surprisingly, artists have looked to the natural world for inspiration for millennia. And, since the turn of the 20th century, there have been significant moments in which artists have sought to mimic the forms and patterns of nature in glass. Field Notes: Artists Observe Nature begins with works from the Art Nouveau period, roughly between 1890 and 1910, centered in France during the Belle Époque. More than a century later, contemporary glass artists have been similarly inspired by the natural world as a focus in their work. These innately curious artists have trained their prodigious skills in glass to honor the natural world; their work reminds the viewer of the marvelous phenomena outside of the studio walls.

Spotlight on Chihuly

March 30, 2024 - January 2025

Dale Chihuly’s boundless artistic vision has elevated the Pacific Northwest to an internationally acclaimed center for glassmaking. A native of Tacoma, Chihuly was one of the first Studio Glass artists to travel to the island of Murano, Italy to observe the secretive processes of Venetian glass factories. He was struck, not only by their technical prowess, but the importance of working as a team. These two ideas: experimentation to push the limits of glass, and the importance of collaboration, have had a lasting impact on Chihuly’s career and, subsequently, the culture of glassblowing in the Pacific Northwest.