Beginner Glass Blowing Workshop

Hi! My name is Tam, I am the founder of Zadi Studios! I fell in love with glass as a child. There was just something about it. The colour, the movement, the fact that something so hot and wild could be coaxed into something beautiful. I never quite got over it.After a COVID “what am I doing with my life?!” moment, I decided to finally try it. Shortly afterwards, I was selected to study at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. That was it. I was hooked.What had started as a childhood fascination suddenly became a very serious obsession. I decided I wanted to learn the craft properly, and somehow managed to convince a Murano glass master to take me on as an apprentice. Then came the less glamorous part: months of immigration paperwork, working rights and trying to convince various authorities that this was, in fact, a sensible thing to do.Eventually, I quit my secure government job, packed up my life, spent pretty much all of my savings and moved to Italy. At 30-something, I left behind the sensible, stable path to start again at the bottom of a furnace.For three years, I lived and worked alongside Murano's glass masters, learning a craft that has been passed from maestro to apprentice for generations. I was one of only a handful of women working on the island and am believed to be the only Australian to have undertaken a traditional Muranese apprenticeship, becoming a 'serventino' within a Murano furnace.I love glass because it is a bit like dancing. It takes patience, practice and an enormous amount of repetition, but somehow, in the middle of all that heat and chaos, it quietens my mind.I love teaching for exactly the same reason I love making. Glass is wonderfully physical, playful and addictive. I want people to experience that for themselves, whether they consider themselves creative or not. I am passionate about preserving traditional crafts, and opening up accessibility to them.I would be honoured if you joined me. I currently offer beginner glassmaking classes, with expressions of interest open for longer courses and masterclasses with visiting Murano maestri.I can't wait to share the dream with you. Let's open up the furnace doors in Queensland!