
Thank you for being part of the PGC community in 2024!
Artists, members, donors, appreciators, students, and the community—you ALL helped us relaunch our new expanded facility. We never imagined that we would continue to grow as quickly as we have. We love looking back over the successes of the past year to put together these Top Ten lists and it is so much fun to share them with you, our friends and supporters.
—Heather McElwee, Randi & L. Van V. Dauler, Jr. Executive Director
1. Governor Shapiro Learns to Blow Glass
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family visited PGC on the Great American Getaway RV Tour in May! They were thrilled to explore our newly renovated space, asked great questions and then had the opportunity to blow glass and make paperweights.

2. Flourish Bubbles Up
Similar to a traditional buy-a-brick campaign, we invited everyone to buy-a-bubble and contribute to Flourish, a large-scale hanging glass art installation designed and created by PGC glass artist Jason Forck. This collaborative, community-based art installation has bubbled over with 107 small bubbles, 62 medium bubbles, and 59 large bubbles already claimed by supporters like you. The outpouring toward Flourish bubbles has already raised $114,000 as part of the Shattering Expectations capital campaign building expansion.

3. Cutting the Glass Ribbon
We officially reopened last fall with a unique glass ribbon-cutting in our brand-new professional glassblowing studio. Local officials and those closely involved with the completion of the project including: Cass Zielinski, PGC Board President; La’Tasha Mayes, PA State Representative, District 24; Ricardo Maiz, President of Vitro Architectural Glass; Rich Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission; PGC board member, Jim Patrinos, Shattering Expectations Campaign Chair and owner of T.D. Patrinos Painting and Contracting; and Twanda Carlisle, Outreach Advocate for Senator Jay Costa, acknowledged the achievement and stood side-by-side in front of the furnace to cut a molten ribbon of glass officially opening the new expanded facility.

4. Former PGC Highschooler Receives Ron Desmett Award
Gayle Forman received the 2024 Ron Desmett Memorial Award for Imagination with Glass. A Pittsburgh native, Gayle was introduced to glass at Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2006 as a high school student in PGC’s youth program. She returned to PGC for a project that reimagines the material that has been so central to her career. During our reopening celebration, she orchestrated a performance called A Hot Day at the Playground. She transformed the hot shop into a playground with teams of glassblowers exploring their new equipment through gravity, tension, and velocity.

5. New Community Space on Penn Avenue Underway
We’ve officially started renovations on a second 6,500-square-foot building located at 5431 Penn Avenue, at the corner of North Graham Street and Penn Avenue, two blocks away from our existing facility. This building, the former Horoscope Lounge, will be transformed into a flexible space for emerging artist exhibitions and community programming, as well as additional housing for technical apprentices and visiting artists.



6. Heather McElwee Selected as C-Suite Award Winner
PGC Executive Director Heather McElwee was recognized by the Pittsburgh Business Times as one of an elite group of individuals that included CEOs and other executives from major international organizations in the Pittsburgh region who are going above and beyond to make a difference not only in their respective companies and organizations, but also across the region.

7. An Epic Immersive Exhibition
Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers is a collection of 16 life-size glass busts of Black queer Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) deities. Created by Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd, co-founders of Rainbow Serpent, this project was a revival and expansion of the traditions of gatekeepers, an ancient African lineage of queer spirit workers, artisans, and diviners, and had a profound impact on Pittsburgh Glass Center. Not only did it introduce new audiences to PGC through its elaborate opening event and many private tours, it expanded the perception of what is possible in glass, and for the first time brought virtual reality into our gallery, transforming our exhibition space into another realm through the immersive use of projections, film, and lighting.

8. Bright Branded Boutique Now Open; Pickles Sell Out
The Shop at PGC officially reopened in September under PGC’s new retail manager Cecilia Sherwood. The unique gift destination showcased the work of 62 glass artists among other makers. The Shop had a 26% overall increase in gross sales compared to 2023 and from April to December 2024, we experienced a 55% increase in sales compared to the same period in 2023. For the first time, we kicked off the holiday shopping season by opening on Small Business Saturday and earned $5,500 on one day. The top seller for the season was a glass pickle ornament.

9. Community-Made Public Art Installed at PGC
The community was invited to contribute to our permanent art collection for the first time. The mosaic design consists of 180 circles mosaiced by staff, board members, students, and new friends who visited during our grand reopening. Inspired by molten glass with both the fiery color palette and circular shape of the individual mosaics, the design is mounted in the parking lot and is based on the idea of multiple studios swirling toward the middle to come together like Pittsburgh’s growing glass community. The mosaic greets visitors with beautiful glass art before they even enter the building.

10. Make-It-RIGHT-Now, No Reservations Necessary
Every Friday, Saturday, or Sunday from 1:00–5:00pm, anyone age 5 and up can now walk in and make a sculpted paperweight or blown ornament without a reservation. Walk In + Make-It-Now has been a big hit. This fall, in a trial run, we earned $22,275 and had 405 participants, many from out of town and as far away as Alaska! We plan to further expand the program in 2025 with more dates and additional offerings in other studios.
