Mark Mitsuda & Punahou School segment
TEACHERS episode Mark Mitsuda segment including Punahou School. PBS premiere: September 15, 2016.
Mark Mitsuda was born and raised in Honolulu, HI. He learned the art of glassblowing in high school at Punahou School, working under the tutelage of Hugh Jenkins.
Mitsuda continued his studies at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University earning his BFA in glass in 1992. He also studied at Pilchuck Glass School and at the University of Hawaii with Rick Mills. During this time he was also a teaching assistant at the Punahou Glass Shop, an experience he relates “that really taught me how to blow glass.”
In 1995, he co-founded a glass studio with two classmates from Alfred in Saratoga Springs New York where they specialized in functional and decorative glass for the wholesale and retail markets. In 1998, he accepted a faculty position at Punahou School as the glass instructor. In 2005, he took a sabbatical from teaching and was the Artist in Residence at the Appalachian Center for Craft. Mark Mitsuda continues to teach glassblowing to high school juniors and seniors at Punahou School and actively shows his work. which is in numerous private collections as well as the Hawaii State Foundation for Culture and the Arts.
Punahou School was built on the lands of Ka Punahou, named for the fabled natural spring discovered centuries ago under a hala tree. The spring still flows today, at the heart of Punahou’s campus under the Thurston Memorial Chapel, and its waters not only form the iconic Lily Pond, but also are used to irrigate portions of the campus.
Founded in 1841, Punahou School was originally designed to provide a quality education for the children of Congregational missionaries, allowing them to stay in Hawaii with their families, instead of being sent away to school. The first class had 15 students. Today, this coeducational college preparatory day school, which is non-sectarian and retains a Christian heritage, enrolls over 3,750 students.
Located in Honolulu, Hawaii, Punahou is the largest coeducational, independent K – 12 school on a single campus in the United States. Students at Punahou have unparalleled opportunities to cultivate their unique interests and talents under the guidance of attentive and caring teachers. Rigorous academics, robust programs in athletics and the arts, and an array of co-curricular opportunities offer an integrated, 21st-century education. Punahou offered the first high school curriculum glass program, founded by Hugh Jenkins in 1972 and continuing today with Mark Mitsuda.