FOCI Minnesota Glass Center for the Arts based in Northeast Minneapolis, the state’s only nonprofit glassworking nonprofit, has launched an ambitious crowdfunding initiative to fund the purchase of a new “mobile hot shop.”
The project aims to raise $50,000 to fund the purchase and retrofitting of a vehicle that will carry a fully functional glass studio to schools, community centers and special events around the Twin Cities. Individual donations for this “mobile teaching facility on wheels” are tax deductible and can be made through FOCI’s
Go Fund Me page.
In the past, FOCI has done mobile glassworking demonstrations at the St. Cloud State Lemonade Festival and the Swedish American Institute. According to Bryan Ethier, FOCI’s board chairman, the new shop would be a closed trailer with several benches to accommodate glassworkers and an open design to accommodate crowds of spectators.
The mobile hot shop would replace a smaller, less user-friendly mobile shop that contained a single furnace and “glory hole” for reheating glass. Outside spectators had to stand around it or use seating provided by the demonstration venue.
Ethier expects the initiative to enhance FOCI's visibility and reach. The organization’s old State Fair headquarters was demolished to make room for the Heritage Square project. FOCI’s now-defunct satellite shop at the Renaissance Festival formerly anchored its outstate presence.
“The only way we can provide demonstrations now is with a mobile studio,” says Ethier. FOCI’s 120 members, who are proficient in the art of glassworking, typically monopolize the company’s main location.
The new mobile shop will also solve accessibility challenges at FOCI’s headquarters. “We’re located on the basement level of a building with a non-functioning elevator,” says Ethier, making handicapped accessibility impossible.
The organization’s location in an industrial area of Northeast isn’t convenient for visitors without cars, so the shop will facilitate demonstrations in more transit-friendly locales. Eventually, FOCI would also visit suburban and rural schools whose students can’t afford to travel to Minneapolis.
Michael Boyd, FOCI’s artistic director, started Foci as a private studio in 2004 and converted the organization to nonprofit status in 2010. Foci now provides educational services for students and glassworking novices of all ages. It also rents space and supplies to its member artists. In addition to the mobile hot shop, FOCI plans on opening a new studio space at the State Fairgrounds’ West End Market project.