By Isaac Nielsen OMAHA, Neb.-With fall underway, classrooms and workshops across Omaha are filling with students. But learning doesn’t stop after graduation. At Hot Shops Art Center in downtown Omaha, one retired radiologist proves you’re never too old to master a new skill.
For Jon Bleicher, golf was never going to cut it.
“I started doing this after I retired from a career in medicine because I never learned to play golf,” Bleicher always says.
Instead of the greens, he found his way to the fire. Nearly every weekday, Bleicher steps into Hot Shops, a collaborative art space, where the glow of a glass furnace now guides his work.
“I love the medium. It’s fun, it’s engaging—the zen of glass,” he said.
Bleicher’s path to the studio is as unique as the pieces he creates. For decades, he read x-rays as a medical professional. Retirement gave him the chance to explore something entirely different. Rather than analyzing images of the body, he now shapes molten glass into new forms—delicate animals and intricate designs inspired by the natural world.
“My passion, I think, is for botanicals—like Mother Nature there sitting on the counter, and trees, and flowers,” he said. “There’s a collection of glass flowers there at Harvard that are famous, and I think every glass blower would love to emanate that.”
Bleicher isn’t just producing art for himself. He also teaches several classes a week, passing on his growing knowledge of glassblowing to new students. Beginners often walk in with hesitation,
but Bleicher insists that anyone can learn with time and a willingness to fail forward. He embraces those failures himself as part of the process.
“I succeed by failing over and over, making the same mistakes over and over, and eventually, after years of failure, you get a success or two,” he said. “The saying at Hot Shops is, ‘the first hundred are the hardest.’”
On this particular day in the studio, Bleicher’s persistence takes the shape of a small glass turtle. Piece by piece, from glowing blob to polished form, the turtle represents more than an art project—it’s a reminder that even fragile things can endure when shaped with patience and care.
“He likes to make turtles, and he does a great job on them. Lots of detail. Usually, the shell has some sort of interesting detail,” Erin Hansen, a fellow glass artist at Hot Shops, said. “He does a great job on these. Everyone loves the turtles.”
Hot Shops is open to the public, giving visitors the chance to see artists like Bleicher at work and even sign up for classes. More information can be found at hotshopsartcenter.com.
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