Brooklyn Glass

Artist-owned glass studio in Park Slope/Gowanus offering glassblowing, hot and kiln casting, flameworking, neon, and fusing across a 4,000-square-foot facility with two furnaces and five glory holes. Founded around 2011 by Alan Iwamura and David Ablon, the studio pairs open-access equipment rental, classes, and private lessons with custom fabrication work for artists and designers. The building had housed Ablon's neon-sign and glass-supply businesses, Precision Neon and Ablon Technologies, since the 1990s, before Iwamura, a California native who had studied glass art and moved to Bushwick in 2008, partnered with him to found the studio. Iwamura, who directs education programs, is known for a series of glass bonsai sculptures and for restoring Venetian-style chandeliers; introductory classes run eight weeks, after which students can typically use the facility independently.