Staff Biographies
Learn more about our team! Organized alphabetically.
Jacob Burket was born and raised in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. His love for glass began in high school by picking up the stained glass and kiln fusing art forms. Currently, he is growing his skills in the hot shop and flame studio to expand his artistic voice. Jacob is also taking welding classes to incorporate metal working into his future pieces. While not working or in school, you can find him rummaging around thrift stores in the Twin Cities. He started with Foci MCGA as a youth teaching assistant and time-trade volunteer in 2024. We welcome Jacob to the team as he is stepping into the role as an administrator and program assistant.
Kagen Dunn is a glass artist and interdisciplinary creator whose work explores the preservation of everyday ephemera and the traces of human interaction. With a BFA from the University of Texas at Arlington and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dunn combines various mediums, particularly glass, to examine memory, identity, and the ephemeral nature of human experiences through objects that serve as vessels for cultural expression and storytelling.
Passionate about sharing her love for glass, Dunn encourages engagement and growth in the medium among new participants and students. Prior to moving to Minneapolis, she was heavily involved in glass programming and education at UW-Madison, where she collaborated with Helen Lee to curate exhibitions and coordinate outreach workshops through Glass Madison. She also taught both beginning and advanced glassworking courses, fostering technical skill, conceptual development, and material exploration in emerging artists.
Victoria (Tori) Hansen has been working with glass since 2015, with a BFA from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. She is knowledgeable in a variety of glass processes including flameworking, glassblowing, kiln, casting, glass screen printing, and coldworking. Tori has been a staff member at Foci MCGA since 2019, filling a variety of positions - mostly administrative. You can almost always find her either in the studio office, flameshop, or home playing video games with her partner and their cats.
Mitchell Kile was born and raised in Minneapolis and first discovered glass art at Foci MCGA when he was a teenager. He found glass again at the University of Wisconsin- River Falls where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in glass. After school he moved to Pittsburgh to work as an apprentice at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and lived there for three years working for several different artists as well as teaching classes. Most recently he was a part of the Hollywood Hot Glass team where he spent two years teaching classes and doing glass blowing demonstrations aboard the Celebrity Cruise line. He now lives in Minneapolis and works at Foci MCGA as an instructor and a studio assistant. His work involves several different glass studios and processes. Mainly the hot glass studio, the cold glass studio, and the lost wax kiln casting studio.
Emily McBride’s love for glass began with an introductory class in glassblowing as an undergraduate at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. After receiving a BFA in Glass, she began her career traveling to various glass schools and centers around the country to work as an assistant for professional glass artists. Continuing her own artistic practice, McBride received her MFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, after which she moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Introduced to Foci MN Center for Glass Arts, she quickly became immersed in the Foci MCGA community fulfilling roles such as Time-trade assistant, Programming Chair on the Board of Directors, and Instructor. Her favorite volunteer run project that she led was the Foci Focus Group, a group open to community members that emphasized teamwork and collaboration in the Hot Shop and provided time for artists to realize larger scale projects requiring multiple assistants. In 2019, McBride was hired at Foci MCGA as the Program Coordinator and fulfilled this role until 2023 when she entered her current position as the Gallery Coordinator. She maintains her artistic practice, designing and creating functional and sculptural glassware using glassblowing, coldworking, and flameworking processes.
Ariana Merrick is an young artist who started out working with glass in 2024 for school credit. She later fell in love with the unique properties of the material, as well as how you can make an object out of nothing and share your own unique style! Ariana is helping to support Foci MCGA by fulfilling an apprenticeship program at our studio as a Glass Art Production & Arts Assistant Apprentice.
Julie Strand-Blomgren has worked at arts nonprofits for over twenty years. She started her work at literary arts centers, working with professional writers and teachers in the community. In 2016, she began to work with artists of all kinds at COMPAS where she was the Arts Program Director for 8 years. She joined Foci MCGA as Executive Director in 2024.
Isaac Theobald has been working with glass since 2012, and has probably worked in most hot glass studios in the state since then. He has done a little bit of just about everything we offer at Foci MCGA, but focuses on the hot shop and flame shop. He volunteered with Foci MCGA at the Minnesota State Fair for many years before coming on staff full time in 2020. He maintains an artistic practice based mostly out of Foci MCGA’s studios.