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 Glass Question at our Rakow Research Library.
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Experience the genius of master glassmaker William Gudenrath in the latest installment of the Glass Masters at Work series. Like the others in the series, this film was shot at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass by award-winning documentary filmmaker Robin Lehman.
Watch as glass artist Martin Janecky demonstrates blown sculpting as he creates one of his signature pieces.
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).
Outreach is an important part of the Museum's mission. Each year, the Museum's mobile hot shop travels to art fairs and other museums, providing live glassblowing demonstrations. An all-electric hot shop also sits on the top deck of three Celebrity Cruises ships, where Museum glassmakers
This video shows the technique of making a Façon de Venise (a French term meaning "manner, or style, of Venice") goblet, an object in the exhibition Beyond Venice: Glass in Venetian Style 1500-1750, which was on view at The Corning Museum of Glass from May 20, 2004, to January 2, 2005.
This video shows the technique of making a Nuremburg goblet, an object in the exhibition Beyond Venice: Glass in Venetian Style 1500--1750, which was on view at The Corning Museum of Glass from May 20, 2004, to January 2, 2005.
This video shows the technique of making a Spanish wine glass, an object in the exhibition Beyond Venice: Glass in Venetian Style 1500-1750, which was on view at The Corning Museum of Glass from May 20, 2004, to January 2, 2005.
This video shows the technique of making a St. Augustin (Rouen) Goblet, an object in the exhibition Beyond Venice: Glass in Venetian Style 1500-1750, which was on view at The Corning Museum of Glass from May 20, 2004, to January 2, 2005.
Glass that gradually shades from one color to another has ingredients such as uranium and gold, which are sensitive to heat. When part of the object is reheated, it "strikes" or changes color. Heat-sensitive glass became very popular in the late 19th century. Many companies used heat
Watch Loren Stump demonstrate for his Studio course, Advanced Floral Murrine, how to use to use a variety of complex murrine components to achieve high detail in miniature floral design. January 11, 2012, at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass.
Watch William Gudenrath demonstrate for his Refining and Solidifying Your Techniques class at The Studio. Gudenrath's class focuses on advanced Venetian techniques: well-formed and thinly blown vessel bodies, excellent necks, delicate mereses, and blown feet and stems.
In the 1930s, the Pairpoint Glass Corporation introduced a bold new design called "twist glass," consisting of swirled stripes of ruby or deep blue glass and clear crystal. The complicated technique, already used in Sweden, required many stages including cold working. Watch as William
In the second half of the 19th century, many glass firms used experimental techniques to create decorative art glass. In 1878, the Mt. Washington glass company introduced Sicilian glass. As part of their marketing, the company claimed to have used lava, that is, molten rock spewed out by volcanoes,
Watch as William Gudenrath demonstrates the Reticello technique. Reticello (Italian, "glass with a small network"), is a type of blown glass made with canes organized in a crisscross pattern to form a fine net, which may contain tiny air traps.
Glassworkers made ring-shaped decanters as early as the Roman period. Due to their novel shape, much like buoys, the personal flotation devices carried on ships, decanters in the early 20th century were called "lifebuoy decanters." Watch as William Gudenrath demonstrates the technique.
Glass makers throughout history have gone to great lengths to eliminate all bubbles from glass. But here, we see bubbles purposefully put into the glass for their decorative effect. In this paperweight, the bubbles surround another gather of glass with twisted canes of colored glass. Watch as
In March of 2012, artist Josh Simpson and his wife, Cady Coleman, a renowned astronaut, presented a joint lecture at CMoG. Simpson creates wondrously detailed imaginary "planets" and "worlds" in glass. Coleman spent six months on the International Space Station in 2011. They
"I want the viewer to expereince the process of blurring boundaries between cultures by looking at my work." Min Jeong Song studies ornamental styles across time periods and geography, and her work explores how certain attributes of glass can be used to create ambivalent objects: objects
As a Corning native and the younger brother of a glassblower, Dane Jack was exposed to glass from a young age. Jack took Dan Mirer's Glassblowing, Design, Production class with the assistance of the Celebrity Cruise Scholarship fund. Learn more about the Celebrity Cruises Glassmaking
Mathieu Grodet is a French-born artist living and working in Canada. He creates thin and elegant glass objects in classic Venetian style, engraved with imagery that addresses modern-day ideas and issues. In his March 2012 Residency at The Studio, Grodet used the Museum's Rakow Library to
Studio glass pioneer Fritz Dreisbach offers a survey of the first decades of American studio glass. Dreisbach was a founding member of the Glass Art Society, 2002 recipient of the Society's Lifetime Achievement Award, and is an unofficial historian of the American Studio Glass movement. He was
Watch Davide Salvadore demonstrate for his Studio course, Creating and Using Murrine, the Muranese technique called tociar piere —the roll-up technique. It consists of putting a composition of canes, murrine, tesserae, etc., on an iron plate, fusing them together in the glory hole, then rolling the
Watch Gianni Toso & Matthew Urban demonstrate for their Studio course, Reinterpreting Italian Techniques, which will focus on reinterpreting the glassblowing techniques that defined Italian glass in the modern era, between 1930 and 1960. A broad survey of hot-working techniques, including
Watch as Michael Schunke demonstrated goblet-making skills for his Studio course, Goblet Thinking for the Modern World. Students detached from expectations and remained open to the unexpected, enabling both success and—more importantly—failure. Students learned the skills to manage these opposite
Watch Boyd Sugiki and Lisa Zerkowitz demonstrate for their Studio course, A Step-by-Step Approach, in which focus was on refining skills of basic forms such as the tumbler, cylinder, bowl, and bottle. Moving logically from one shape to the next helped students build a solid foundation for the
Watch Martin Janecky demonstrate for his class, Blowing and Sculpting Inside the Bubble, which will focus on unique techniques and approaches to solid and blown sculpting, emphasizing the freedom to explore process, as well as the potential of the material.
Watch Ethan Stern demonstrate for his Studio course, Form and Surface: An Anatomy Lesson, glassblowing through a sculptural lens, focusing on form, scale, layering, and color application techniques.
Many American studio glass artists turned to the traditional glassworking centers of Venice, central Europe, and Scandinavia for inspiration and knowledge. Lino Tagliapietra, the highly influential Italian maestro and teacher, provided a special glassblowing demonstration for the Museum's
Many American studio glass artists turned to the traditional glassworking centers of Venice, central Europe, and Scandinavia for inspiration and knowledge. Lino Tagliapietra, the highly influential Italian maestro and teacher, provided a special glassblowing demonstration for the Museum's
In her May 2012 Residency at The Studio, Ingalena Klenell worked on a project called Travelers. The project is based on the history of cultural exchange in trade relations between Venice and Egypt, inspired by a collection of glass shards found in Egypt that date from 1100 A.D. to 1400 A.D.