Cedric Mitchell didn’t fall in love with making glass the first time he tried it. He was in a studio watching several artists work together for hours to make a six-foot-tall vase, when, at the end of the day, the vase broke. All of their hard work was shattered at their feet.

It was then, seeing how fragile glass work can be, that he was hooked.

“It was exciting and scary and tense and dangerous,” Mitchell says of that experience. “That’s what attracted me at first. That initial moment of danger and teamwork, and letting go of attachment and being able to bounce back. Everything about it was exciting. I was in.”