THE SMC ART DEPARTMENT PREPARES ITEMS FOR UPCOMING HOLIDAY SALE
Students from across a variety of art classes were hard at work on their respective projects on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025 in the art department at Santa Monica College (SMC).
In the Intro to Printmaking class, SMC student Liam Jacobs utilized the linocut technique. This involves carving into linoleum, typically mounted on a wooden block, to produce a relief image.
Elsewhere, inside the hot shop, glass blowing students shaped molten glass. The students inserted blowpipes into furnaces heated to nearly 2,000 degrees F, then dipped the glass into bowls of colored frit—condensed, granular glass—before blocking and shaping it on the bench.
“It's a very physically challenging medium to work with and not easy to master,” said Terri Bromberg, the professor for glass sculpting and fusing. “For glass fusing, you're sitting in a classroom and you cut and assemble pieces of glass and then they're loaded into the kiln to melt.”
On the other side of the shop sits the flat lap grinder, one of the primary tools used by the glass fusing class. In contrast to the hot shop, students here cut cold glass and stack pieces into designs–such as stars or cardinals like those created by Community Education student Janet Zander–before firing them in a kiln. The heat fuses the layers into one cohesive object.
“I knew I wanted to be a glass artist before I even knew how to do it,” Zander said, working on star designs on a Taurus ring saw. “Right now, I’m making ornaments.”
On any given day, the art department is brimming with students from a variety of disciplines. Many of the students were preparing for the 47th Annual Holiday Art Sale, set to run from Dec. 19 through the 21st at the SMC Corsair Gym. Thirty percent of the proceeds will be funneled back into the art department. The sale is set to include a selection that will feature ceramics, hand-blown glass, fused glass, jewelry, prints, and more.
