All About Glass
All About Glass
This is your resource for exploring various topics in glass: delve deeper with this collection of articles, multimedia, and virtual books all about glass. Content is frequently added to the area, so check back for new items. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered, send us your suggestion. If you have a specific question, Ask a Librarian at our Rakow Research Library.
Cage cups were made by Roman glasscutters in the fourth century AD. The entire vessel was cut from a thick-walled glass hemisphere. The metal attachments show that the object was a hanging lamp. Imagine the shadows the "cage" would have cast as the lamplight flickered.
Listen as former curator David Whitehouse describes the Corning Ewer, an outstanding example of Islamic relief-cut cameo glass. A layer of transparent light green glass was applied to a layer of colorless glass. Most of the outer layer was then cut away, leaving the decoration in relief. Although
Listen as glass artist William Gudenrath describes the technique used to make this Ravenscroft goblet. In March 1674, the English glassmaker George Ravenscroft applied for a patent to make colorless lead glass. Unfortunately, this glass was prone to crizzling, a chemical instability that results in
During their long careers, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka made many thousands of models of small animals and plants. They sold these all over the world, including to Harvard University.
Listen as glass artist William Gudenrath describes the technique used to make this cameo glass vase. This unusually large piece of cameo glass is filled with action! The scene of warriors fighting is taken from a medieval Chinese story.
Davide Salvadore speaks of his profound love and respect for glass, and his family. He demonstrates working with Murrine. Master Class VIII: Working with Murrine with Davide Salvadore (30 minute DVD presented by The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass)
Katherine Gray talks about her work, her demonstration at the March 2010 2300 Degrees, and her new installation in the Museum's Contemporary Glass Gallery.
Joe Miller from M-Space explains how creativity and performance are judged at the annual competition, now in its 8th year.
Shin Azumi discusses his project at GlassLab at the Vitra Design Museum in June 2011. GlassLab is a design program of The Corning Museum of Glass that introduces designers to the material of glass, offering rare access for designers to experiment with and explore the properties of the material.
On June 23, 1972, Corning suffered a major natural disaster. Tropical Storm Agnes inflicted three days of incessant rain on western New York and Pennsylvania. Corning's normally peaceful Chemung River became a torrent. The river overflowed its dikes, and downtown Corning was inundated. At the
Introduction to the Hot Glass Roadshow at the Glass Art Society Conference in Seattle, June 1-5, 2011.
On May 19, 2011, The Corning Museum of Glass celebrated its 60th birthday- and treated its first visitor in style. Here's a brief overview of that day.
Listen as curator David Whitehouse describes an ancient Egyptian furnace. This is a full-scale model of a furnace that was used for making glass at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt, nearly 3500 years ago. The model shows half of the furnace. The lower part was constructed in a pit, with only the dome above
Listen as curator Jane Shadel Spillman describes the Morgan Vase. The Victorian sense of "good taste" emphasized ornate works. Some glassmakers met this demand by creating dramatic color effects. Several American factories produced Peachblow glass, which had a surface that shaded from
Corning Museum of Glass, November 30, 2007 When you look at great artists, you see content in their work. I mean, you see something unique, you see something coming across that’s challenging. Challenging your intellect; challenging your thought process, which is what art is all about, in my opinion
Welcome. You are listening to a podcast by The Corning Museum of Glass focused on the Museum’s 2007 special exhibition, Botanical Wonders: The Story of the Harvard Glass Flowers. The exhibition, which is on view through November 25, 2007, tells the story of the creation of the extraordinary glass
The Botanical Wonders exhibition celebrates the singular triumph of glassmakers Leopold Blaschka (1822-1895) and his son Rudolf (1857-1939) and offers close-ups of the people and the craft process behind the Glass Flowers. David Whitehouse narrates. "Botanical Wonders: The Story of the Harvard
Dr. Samuel R. Scholes established the first glass science program in the United States at New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, in 1932. He continued to be a leader in the field of glass science and technology at Alfred for over 40 years. In the essay below, he demonstrates his
Corning Museum of Glass, June 24, 2010 Tina Oldknow: Thank you all very much for coming out tonight. I think many of you will remember the snowstorm that you braved to hear Dante Marioni speak last February. Tonight is a thunderstorm that heralds the “Meet The Artist” lecture, which will be
"It was only a few months ago that plans were drawn for a house to be built of compressed opalescent glass bricks to be erected at Beechhurst; L.I. The house will be built, as regards material, very similar to some small one and two story office buildings which have been erected in Des Moines,
Here’s the ultimate jigsaw puzzle: take 40 pieces of shattered glass in varying sizes, and hundreds of tiny chips of glass, and put them together to restore a rare Tiffany Peacock Eye Lamp base to its full glory. That’s just what the Museum’s conservator, Stephen Koob, has done. Unless you examine
The ever-evolving work of American artist Richard Craig Meitner, distinguished by its wit and poetry, reflects a variety of influences and ideas, ranging from Japanese textiles, Italian painting, and German Expressionist graphics, to science and the natural world. A new survey of his work, Masters
The Tradition of Glass Furniture The tradition of glass furniture began in the early nineteenth century when the Russian Imperial Glass Works created several tables for members of the imperial family. But it was the opening of the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in
In the late 17th century, European glassmakers scored two major successes. In Bohemia, the British Isles, and Germany, they produced crystal glass vessels that resembled natural rock crystal. And in Brandenburg, Germany, they also manufactured red vessels—from gold ruby glass—that looked as if they
An Interview with Tina Oldknow, Curator of Modern Glass This interview was conducted in December 2001 in preparation for the opening of the 2002 summer exhibition at The Corning Museum of Glass: Glass Behind the Iron Curtain: Czech Design, 1948-1978. The Corning Museum of Glass is known for the
(Italian, “excavation”) A technique involving the application, to the surface of an object, of substances that, when heated to about 1470°F (800°C), fuse and create an effect similar to weathering, thereby imitating glass from an archeological excavation.
Potassium carbonate. It is an alternative to soda as a source of alkali in the manufacture of glass.
Sodium sesquicarbonate, originally obtained mainly from the Wadi el-Natrun, northwest of Cairo. It was commonly used by Roman glassmakers as the alkali constituent of batch.
René Roubícek is another Czech artist who disguised his obvious interest in abstract art in glass design. Like Jirí Harcuba, Roubícek used glass as expressively as possible. While Harcuba focused on engraved decoration, Roubícek experimented with the actual form of the glass, creating shapes that