Image: Museum of Glass, Bellingham
Museum of Glass will host brothers Einar and Jamex De La Torre for a Visiting Artist Residency in its Hot Shop from July 15 through 19, 2026. During the week, the artists will have full access to the Tacoma museum’s Hot Shop to create new work, and one piece made during the residency will be added to the museum’s permanent collection.
The museum describes the De La Torre brothers’ mixed-media sculptures as hybrids of glass-blowing and found materials. Their practice combines glass with antique printed matter, barbeque grills, metal racks, leather, and small objects gathered from dollar stores during their travels. In the museum’s announcement, the artists’ work is said to draw on traditional Mexican folk art, pop-cultural and religious imagery, and mythology, producing sculptures that comment on contemporary Mexican life and the art world itself.
The residency forms part of Museum of Glass’s broader Visiting Artist Residency Program, which brings artists from around the world into the Hot Shop to make new work with the museum’s team. The program is a central part of the institution’s public-facing glassmaking activity, with artists working in view of visitors and, in many cases, leaving an object for the museum’s collection. The application materials for the 2027 cycle say residencies are open to artists from all artistic mediums, can last up to five days, and include the support of the Hot Shop Team.
The De La Torre brothers’ biography, included in the museum’s newsletter, notes that both were born in Guadalajara, México, in 1963 and 1960, and moved to the United States in 1972. It also says they attended California State University at Long Beach, with Jamex earning a BFA in Sculpture in 1983, and that they now live and work on both sides of the border in Baja California’s Guadalupe Valley and in San Diego. The museum links their work to the complexities of immigrant experience and bicultural identity.
Museum of Glass is using the residency announcement to point visitors toward its wider Hot Shop lineup as construction continues on the museum’s 2026 capital project. The institution says its traditional gallery spaces are closed during renovation, while the Hot Shop, smaller exhibitions, and educational programming continue. In its project overview, the museum says the renovation began in April 2026 and is intended to improve and expand gallery spaces, create a new Lino Tagliapietra Legacy Gallery, and modernize visitor flow, lighting, environmental controls, and storage.
The residency dates place the De La Torre brothers in the museum’s Hot Shop from July 15–19, 2026 at Museum of Glass Hot Shop in Tacoma, Washington.
