Cortney Boyd: Raking & Combing Glass

At Flux Studio in Denver, Colorado, Cortney Boyd: Raking & Combing Glass offers a focused three-day kilnforming workshop at 1440 W 52nd Ave, Denver, CO 80221, USA. Designed for artists with prior fusing experience, this class teaches the raking or combing technique to create feathered, flowing patterns in fused glass. Over three full days (9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.), students work with layered sheet glass, strip constructions, and dam molds, load and fire kilns, and finish pieces on tile saws and flat lap grinders, leaving with two completed artworks.

The studio feels like a maker's lab: benches of pre-cut glass, racks of frit and stringers, and a line of kilns that glow during firing. Key features of the course are the raking demonstrations—where instructors pull molten or softened layers into feathered motifs using metal combs—the strip construction sessions that build complex layered panels, and the coldworking bench where saws and grinders refine edges and add borders. Students learn to read firing schedules, judge softening points, and plan companion firings so panels nest into final pieces.

Cortney Boyd leads the class with technical rigor and a teacher's patience. She is a glass artist and educator with over twenty years of practice, an MFA in Glass from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and a history of workshops and teaching appointments including Pilchuck Glass School. As co-owner/operator of Flux Studio LLC, Cortney emphasizes safety—proper kiln handling, ventilation, and eye protection—while encouraging experimental approaches to color and movement.

Class size is capped at nine to preserve individualized feedback and hands-on time. Practical logistics are simple but important. All glass and consumable supplies are included, and lunch is provided each day.

Participants should arrive a few minutes early to set up, and street parking is available on the west side of the building (enter through the classroom door by the chain-link fence). The minimum age is 14; anyone 15 or younger must have a guardian also enrolled. The studio is stroller- and wheelchair-accessible; contact the studio for accommodations.

Why book this specific workshop? For intermediate fusers, raking and combing is a technique that rapidly expands creative options: delicate feathering, bold directional strokes, and layered transparency that read differently when backlit. The three-day format compresses the cycle of design, firing, and coldwork so you can learn how changes during firing affect end results and iterate quickly under expert guidance. Students leave not only with finished panels but with firing strategies, templates for strip constructions, and hands-on experience on tools that are otherwise difficult to access.

This class is a compact, production-minded bridge between hobby fusing and sustained studio practice in Denver's active glass community. Book early—enrollment is limited to nine students and spots fill quickly each season in Denver.