VISITING ARTIST EVENTS
***What a Lineup We Have for You***
This Year We Are Bringing In Seven Visiting Artists to Entertain You!!!
Each year the Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts brings in truly renowned glass artists from all over the world to perform demos for the public. On Thursday nights we sometimes hold a sit-down "Meet the Artist Dinner" held in our beautiful gallery. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet the artist, learn about their inspirations, mentors, methods and to ask them specific questions. Friday nights we have these artists perform a dynamic fiery demo for three hours. This is an exceptional opportunity for the citizens of Palm Beach County to see these famous artists up-close and personal. These 'Artist Blow-Outs' include live music, 2 drink tickets and nibbles. All this for only $25 per person. Tickets are non-refundable 2 hours before event starts.
We are now offer 'Premium Reserved Seating' for $50 per person
Our 2025-2026 Lineup:
Evan Schauss will be Visiting from his Studio in Hawaii for a weeks Residency and Artist Blow-Out
Friday, November 7 , 2025 6:30-9:30PM Artist Blow-Out $25 per person
***$50 for Reserved Premium Seating***
Born in Tacoma, Washington in 1985, Evan Schauss began his journey in glass art at the young age of 12 through the Hilltop Artists program, a youth initiative founded by legendary glass artist Dale Chihuly. By 17, he was working full-time as a professional glassblower in Seattle, collaborating with renowned artist Martin Blank and The Glasshouse Studio. At just 18, Evan invented the “Hott Shop in a Box”—a revolutionary all-in-one mobile glass studio. This innovation allowed him to bring live glassblowing to art and music festivals across the West Coast, including the iconic Burning Man. That same year, he began traveling internationally to expand his craft, working in the Czech Republic, Murano, Iceland, and Hungary.
Evan later established his studio in Seattle’s Chinatown and, in 2009, built a second mobile studio in Maui, Hawaii. By 2011, he relocated permanently to Maui and opened a private studio in Haiku. In 2014, he donated a complete glassblowing studio to the Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center—launching Maui’s first glass education program and leaving a lasting legacy for future generations of artists. Today, Evan continues to live and work primarily in Maui, where he creates groundbreaking works in his private studio. He also travels globally to teach advanced glass sculpture techniques and maintains a permanent residency at Rural Modern Glass in Mumbai, India, where he explores new concepts and pushes the boundaries of the medium. With nearly three decades of experience, Evan Schauss is considered a significant contributor to the contemporary studio glass movement—recognized for his energy-efficient studio designs, technical mastery, and boundary-pushing creativity. Always innovating, always exploring—you never know what he’ll create next, or where his journey will take him.
South Florida Studio Showdown at the Benz!
Friday, December 12, 2025 6:30-9:30PM 'Artist Blow-Out' $25 per person
***$50 for Reserved Premium Seating***
Featuring the Head of the Corning Hot Shop, George Kennard
Along with Some of the Top Artists Working in South Florida:
Rob Stern, Josh Fradis, Chadd Lacey, Dan Alexander and Charlyn Reynolds
George Kennard is visiting from Corning, New York to head up an incredible collaborative artwork creating the anchor of the piece...one of his large-scale encalmo spheres. He will be joined by our own staff and other talented artists working in South Florida. You will not want to miss this amazing show!
George Kennard
George Kennard is a seasoned glass artist and a prominent member of the Corning glass making community. Since 2001, he has been instrumental in both instructing and demonstrating glassblowing techniques at The Studio, as well as creating his own designs. George enjoys the limitless opportunities for creating with molten glass and is renowned for his large-scale incalmo works, a technique where two blown glass bubbles are joined to create distinct bands of color. He has collaborated with teams of up to 10 glassblowers to produce some of his most notable large-scale pieces, including a life-sized snow family and the world’s largest glass pumpkin .
Rob Stern
Over his 28 year career in glass, Rob Stern has risen to the top of the field. From 1990-95 he trained at John Lewis Glass factory in Oakland, Calif., and has advanced degrees from San Francisco State University and the University of Miami. Stern has traveled, lived, and studied extensively in numerous countries, and has worked with the most accomplished glass artists and masters throughout the world. He trained to be a master in the Czech Republic where, in the glass factory Ajeto of Master Petr Novotny, he continues to design and execute monumental site-specific sculptures. Stern has participated in and led numerous workshops worldwide and travels annually to teach and serve as a gaffer at the most prominent institutions for glass – Pilchuck Glass School (Wash.), Penland School of Crafts (N.C.), Bildwerk, (Frauenau Germany), and The Glass Furnace (Turkey). He was a professor at the University of Miami Glass program from 1997-2004 and was most recently a visiting professor at the Glass Department University of Texas, Arlington for 2010.
He is also on the Benzaiten Board.
Josh Fradis
The history of glassblowing and the fact that it has hardly changed over the past 2,000 years is what I respect and admire. The only thing that has changed is technology and how we achieve our heat. Glassblowing is an art form that not anybody can do at any time. You cannot go to the art supply store and buy the equipment and materials needed to create a beautiful piece of glass and begin tonight. It is a relationship that you build and nurture over a lifetime in a very uninviting and intimidating environment.
What is beautiful and captivating is the way the glass and light interact with each other. This harmonious interaction is something that you cannot achieve in any other medium. This process is such a personal interaction between medium and artist that no two glass artists can create anything in the same way, shape, or feeling of expression. Almost like an interpretive dance, everybody has their own way of expressing their individual “olé!” that is different from everyone else. It is not necessarily better or worse, just different so you just have to go with what appeals to you.
Other Participating Artists :
Charlyn Reynolds
Dan Alexander
Chadd Lacy
Tim McFadden
Tim McFadden will be Visiting from his Studio and School in Baltimore, MD to Demo
At Our Fundraiser, 'A Night in Venice' and Our January Artist Blow-Out!
Friday, January 16 , 2026 6:30-9:30PM 'Artist Blow-Out' $25 per person
***$50 for Reserved Premium Seating***
A Baltimore native, Tim McFadden, found his love for blowing glass in 2001 while attending Salisbury University on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He was introduced to glassblowing by his older brother, Marty, who found the glassblowing courses offered at Salisbury University. His interest in this medium grew quickly. In the Spring of 2005, he won first place and $5,000 through Salisbury University’s Annual Bernstein Business Plan Competition to open a glassblowing studio and qualified for the Fortune Small Business Magazine Student Showdown Competition. Tim McFadden’s business plan gave him a head start to put his plans into immediate action after graduation from Salisbury.
By the fall of 2006, he had retrofit a custom glassblowing studio and gallery in an existing property in Southeast Baltimore, Maryland on Eastern Avenue. Tim McFadden began teaching local glassblowing courses privately, through Towson University, and the Community College of Baltimore County, while refining his craftsmanship at the same time. Tim’s work is strongly founded on Italian techniques that he has studied and developed at some of the most reputable glass schools in the country, most notably the Corning Museum of Glass and Pilchuck Glass School. His work is sold internationally and has been exhibited in some of the top galleries and museums, most recently the Walter’s Art Museum here in Baltimore.
He will be creating one of these beautiful Venetian Goblets during his demo for our fundraiser, 'A Night in Venice'
Jason Christian
Jason Christian Returns to Benzaiten!
Thursday, February 19, 2026 'Meet the Artist Dinner' 6:30-9:30PM $100 per person
This is a beautiful sit-down dinner held in the gallery with a short demo during cocktails and lecture during dinner
Friday, February 20, 2026 'Artist Blow-Out' 6:30-9:30PM $25 per person
***$50 for Reserved Premium Seating***
I still don’t know if I chose glassblowing, or if it chose me. I just knew that the moment I walked into that studio and saw what was being created I had to be a part of it. Finding glassblowing felt magical like I was made for it. It provided something I lacked in my younger years. The urge to create, grow, and express myself through my work. To witness a person, handle molten glass, manipulate it, and form it as if it were water was amazing to me. I knew that I had to be a part of it.
I have been inspired by many facets of my life; that being, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, my family, and personal life experiences. Nostalgia is what inspires my most significant works. Being fueled by emotion, I don’t know precisely why I am creating a piece; I know I must. I try to interpret that feeling in my work to have someone see it and evoke the same emotions I used to create a piece.
With this fueling my creativity, I continually create new works, inspiring new ideas. My confidence as an artist continues to grow, allowing me to bring pieces to life that seemed impossible when I first began. As long as my inspiration drives me, I will continue pushing the boundaries of my craft
Danny White & Sibelle Yukvek
A Unique Double Header on One Night!
Danny White who combines flame-worked items with blown glass to create wild and intriguing creatures and Sibelle Yukvek whose small and insanely intricate flame-worked sculptures are sold almost immediately as soon as they're created will be performing at the same time side by sidee in our large and expanded Hot Shop. Two shows for the price of one!
Friday, March 27, 2026 6:30-9:30PM 'Double-Header Artist Blow-Out' $25 per person
***$50 for Reserved Premium Seating***
Danny White
My name is Danny White and I have been entertaining with art for as long as I can remember. In 2008 I received my BFA Degree from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Painting and drawing had always been my primary focuses until 2007 when I first discovered glass. I was able to develop a relationship with the material by approaching it much as I would a painting. From then on, I have focused my energy on creating work that bridges the gap between the different mediums using a cohesive aesthetic. I love traveling to new places and meeting new people. Through this I create what I experience and enjoy telling the story.
Sibelle Yuksek
Sibelle Yuksek, aka Sibelley, is a visual storyteller whose glasswork draws from the organic rhythms of human anatomy, natural forms, and the art of movement. Based in Evergreen, CO, she creates elevated conversation pieces and statement accessories that act as portals to other worlds. Each piece is handblown with a torch using traditional flameworking techniques. Precious metal accents are then meticulously painted and kiln-fired to finish.
Her practice blurs the line between molten transformation and spiritual grounding, exploring the mysteries of life and beyond. She is captivated by what we cannot see, but can only imagine. Life is constantly being decoded, revealing fragments of a past that inform her creative intuition.
Through glass, collaboration, and cultural exchange, Sibelley builds bridges between community and creation. Each object she crafts has a story—an invitation to wonder. By manifesting forms unique to her imagination, she hopes to evoke a sense of excitement in her viewers, encouraging them to let go and fully immerse themselves in the world of her creations.
John Moran
We are Proud to be Featuring the Winner of Netflix's "Blown Away" Season 3
Thursday, April 9, 2026 6:30-0:30PM 'Meet the Artist Dinner' $100 per person
This is a beautiful sit-down dinner held in the gallery with a short demo during cocktails and lecture during dinner
Friday, April 10, 2026 6:30-9:30PM 'Artist Blow-Out' $25 per person
***$50 for Reserved Premium Seating***
John Moran is a contemporary artist, using glass as his primary medium. He was the winner of Season 3 of the popular Netflix program, “Blown Away.”He seamlessly blends impeccably sculpted glass components into representational sculptures, weaving in fabric, found objects, resins, and a variety of other materials into his work. He creates lifelike objects and emotionally charged installations that give the viewer pause in both their concept and their stature.
John Moran’s works are inspired by both the contemporary and the past, pop culture and politics, they are both humorous and tragic, refined, and unkempt.
