Penn Township 8th grader's glass art earns spot in international showcase

Most 13-year-olds wouldn’t ask for a glass-blowing torch for their birthday.

But Penn Township native Caitlin Dolhi isn’t like most 13-year-olds.

Dolhi, an eighth grade student at Penn Middle School, learned three years ago about the Pittsburgh Glass Center, tucked along Penn Avenue in the city’s Friendship neighborhood, and enrolled in a class.

The flames of the torch sparked a passion in Dolhi for glass art, specifically in the flame shop — where heat is used to shape glass rods into sculptures or functional pieces.

Dolhi has dabbled in sculpture, ceramics, painting and drawing throughout her childhood. But glass art stands out above the rest.

“It’s so unique for me,” she said.

“I don’t know if it was the fact that I’m melting glass on a torch was so cool to me or just the fact that it’s so unique and there’s so many opportunities with it. I just think it’s such a cool medium to work in,” Dolhi said. “I guess there’s just something about it that made me want to keep working in it.”

Now, Dolhi’s work — a handful of delicate, clear glass flowers stemming from a piece of driftwood — will be displayed on the international stage during the Glass Lifeforms gallery, opening Friday at the Pittsburgh Glass Center.

Gallery draws international talent

Launched by the Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2013, the Glass Lifeforms gallery is hosted annually, rotating to a different city across the country each year.

Of the 100 people from across the world who submitted work to the gallery this year, only 50 will be showcased at the center, studio manager Melissa Fitzgerald said.

The center draws about 100 youth artists to classes and workshops each year, Fitzgerald said. But artists under 14 need approval from an instructor or studio manager to participate in programming.

“It is rare to have a 13-year-old in a flame shop multiweek class,” she said.

A year ago, Dolhi never would have imagined her work would be accepted into the gallery.

“It is such a crazy, big deal experience for me,” she said.

But it isn’t just a big deal in Dolhi’s eyes.

Sam Whitney has taught classes at the glass center for about seven years, working with Dolhi for more than a year.

“There’s a lot of incredible artists, even internationally, that are a part of (the gallery),” Whitney said. “It should be a pretty amazing show. I mean, there’s definitely some very big-name glass artists on the menu there, and Caitlin being so young, it’s definitely a big deal that she’s a part of it.”

Dolhi aims for career

The pairing of Dolhi’s talent, teachability and enthusiasm make for an ideal student, Whitney said.

“It’s a complicated thing to do. There’s a lot to think about with how your hands are moving, how much heat to get in the glass,” he said. “You have to rotate the glass to keep it moving with gravity, keep everything hot together.

“Everybody kind of picks it up at a different level, and Caitlin’s somebody that definitely caught on pretty quick and then was also super enthusiastic about it, which is kind of the combination you’re hoping for.”

When she’s not at the glass center, Dolhi spends her time in a 3-by-7-foot flame shop in the basement of her family’s home — complete with a torch, oxygen concentrator, oven hood, 1-pound propane tanks and a dining room table, cut in half.

Dolhi dreams of turning her hobby into a career.

She aims to take a college-level studio art class in high school, travel to Vienna, Austria, to hone her craft and enroll in an art school.

“I would love so much to do this as a career — more than anything in the world,” she said. “It’s my biggest dream.”

“I’m really, really hoping that with (the) gallery and me taking more classes, people will be able to notice who I am and kind of be like, ‘Wow, she is 13 and she has so much potential,’ and, ‘I want to know where she goes and I want to help her get there.’ ”