Do you have an idea for a creative project that can only be achieved in a glass factory setting?
Wissmach Workshop is a program devised to support artistic experimentation and collaboration that would not otherwise be possible without the resources of a factory operation.
Jocelyne Prince is an artist working with the material and the conceptual properties of glass. Her process explores how actions can be recorded through material. Transparency, optical phenomenon, and projection are key tools that translate these poetic acts into performative events or into objects that highlight ephemeral occurrences.
In 2024, Jocelyne was the first official participant in Wissmach Workshop. She worked with Wissmach’s factory team for a few test sessions, exploring different methods of incorporating glass ladled into historic molds from Wheaton’s collection onto Wissmach sheet glass. Temperature management, glass thickness, and annealing speed were factors that presented challenges requiring adjustments and repeated testing.
Prince created a site-specific window installation, Ghost Optics, at the Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Arts, which opened on April 2, 2026, using the results of her experiments at Wissmach. Prince hot cast various emblems and then fed them into the industrial glass roller. The emblems are stretched, crackled, and sometimes even fractured – their ghost-like watermark characteristic becomes visible at certain angles and invisible at other angles. This material process mirrors the ways in which we test our patriotism and democracy… challenging its limits and sometimes going beyond them.
She exhibits her work in museums and alternative venues across North America, Asia, and Europe. She has been awarded the Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching and a George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship. Prince is a full-time member of the faculty in Rhode Island School of Design’s Glass Department and a 2024-2025 Fulbright Scholar in the Czech Republic.
Wissmach Workshop Inquiry Form
