One of Ireland’s top artists working in the medium of glass, Róisín de Buitléar gave a master class over seven days to three apprentices. The three apprentices, one a life long craft hobbyist, one a mature student working in Ikea and one a student in NCAD were all placed into the challenging and hot environment of a fully functioning hot shop in Waterford City – The Irish Glass Company. The three apprentices set about realising their design concepts in hot molten glass which is heated to over 1000 degrees and would resemble honey on the end of a chop stick and there were many up’s and downs as the concepts took many shapes other than their intended form. 3 Apprentices: Aoife May Soden Mature Student/Ikea Employee Dublin/Australia Mature student working in Ikea part-time to self-fund her dream of studying glass. Aoife spent most of her childhood in Australia. Anne Marie Hayes Life-long artist and Finance Worker Dublin/Waterford Anne Marie originally from Waterford is trained painter living in Dublin who wants to break free from her day job in a financial institution and explore her creative side. Any holidays or time-off she has she enrolls on courses hoping to further her creative side. Italy has been her focus of late and she has been studying the stained glass process. Sinead Brennan Student Dublin/Wexford If you can’t find Sinead, check out the hot shop where she is always working on fundamental skills to improve her glass making. This art student from Wexford openly admits to being addicted to her craft and would some day hope to become Ireland’s top glass artist.