Glass

Yesterday we took our exchange student Nils to see the glass museum in Corning.

Of course we wandered about and saw the exhibits and the gift shops, and Jocelyn got me a snifter I am planning to leave at the Bug Jar, where they don't have snifters and always serve my Grand Marnier in an on-the-rocks glass.

Among the exhibits, some of those I remember:

A bit of Chihuly, looking (as usual) like a living anemone. We are very familiar with his style, having seen an exhibition in Chicago where his pieces were exhibited interspersed with plants in their botanical gardens (conservatory).

A number of works by Tagliapietra. I had never heard of him before, but he is an impressive artist from the island of Murano (near Venice), where I first saw glass blowing practiced as a little boy. I don't have links to large images of the ones WE saw (the most memorable was a collection of curved glass shells hanging like birds in flight), but here is one from his web site:



(OK, the Corning site DOES have a small image of the one I meant:)


There were also works by Czech artists, some involving interesting pieces done by cutting.

There was a transparent torso of a woman, suggesting something malignant inside.

There was an opaque black cube...the plan exhibited showed that the walls were bulging a bit, as though a sphere inside were straining to escape. Good concept, but I doubt I would have noticed if it hadn't been pointed out.

We also saw four presentations, Magic of Glass (properties of glass, stretching, bending, electrical conductivity), Breaking Glass (types of glass and how it breaks), Flame Working (using glass rods in flames to create ornaments - a fish in our case), and Hot Glass (blowing a glass pumpkin).