Steuben No More, Say NO!

The Cornell Daily sun reported today, September 8, 2011, that Steuben, the 100 plus year old American Crystal factory will close later this year.
In the press release, the company said its sole factory and a store, both located on the Corning Museum of Glass campus, will close Nov. 29
The flagship store in NYC will close when it's inventory is sold.
What a shock. I can hardly think. I know the costs involved in keeping the furnaces stoked. The increase in energy, materials, chemicals, transportation, labor, benefits, safety, and gosh what else? I know the drop offs in sales. Don't we all know the drop off in sales of objects of beauty for the American home?
It is truly an American Art Glass Armegedon. Nobody can imagine an American art glass scene without Corning New York's iconic century old lead crystal factory curning out those one of a kind designer works by visiting artists and the usual cigar ash trays, trumpet flower vases and the like. The polishing room there was as close as we, Americans got to a traditonal glass works where there were actual highly skilled glass finishers working daily on loads of fabulous flawless objects d'arte. The blowers were on a par with many other countries, it was in the melting and the polishing that Steuben in the later half of the 20th Century excelled.
It's all too much for me. I have to go and chill now.

A History of Glass Making

Glass art around the Nourot Glass Studio is considered as one of the hallmarks of human evolution. Art works are made to inform about life as we know it; to explain how we feel about beauty and value and simply to adorn our homes.

Vases that are made of glass were made to satisfy our craving for beauty and imagination while providing adornment to our living spaces.

Humans have been using techniques to make glass for vases and other adornments since the dawn of history, with the earliest evidences dating back to more than three thousand years ago, found in Mesopotamia.

The manufacturing techniques used for making the glass vases as we know them today, however, were inherited from the Romans. Trading and commerce in the Roman Empire has made the use of glass vases popular among the citizenry, ranging from clear glass to colored crystal, and this prompted glass makers to develop more sophisticated techniques for creating crystal and glass vases. Related manufacturing techniques created for more ornate and more beautiful crystal and glass vases are enameling, gliding and staining. The skill achieved by glass makers during the Roman times is embodied in the world-famous Portland Vase, a vase made of violet-blue glass with seven white-glass cameo figures.

It's important to remember the special qualities of glass that made it attractive in early history: perfect for holding liquids that might be effected by contact with unglazed surfaces in clay. Glass was overall more pleasing to touch and perhaps even see through, depending on the local ingredients available at the time and place of manufacture way back in history.

Unfortunately, many manufacturing techniques used for creating crystal and glass vases were lost and forgotten during the Middle Ages. Or perhaps with the rise of city-states there was a tendency to rely on local knowledge and materials. Simply, the techniques for making glass were not widely known and often fell out of general knowledge periodically.

The knowledge of glass making were thankfully kept and retained in the island of Murano, then in the Republic of Venice. In fact, the Venetian navy was a source of tremendous support for the glass arts, both bringing in supplies from far flung areas and in exporting the wares of the famed Venetian Masters.The small island north of Venice: Murano has a rich source of pure silica sand. The glass makers of Murano learned how to mix silica sand with soda ash to create their glass used for vases and other adornments. The addition of lead to clarify the clear glass may or may not have been a Venetian invention. Perhaps it was tried in as far away a place as the British Isles. In any event the practitioners of clear glass soon became affiliated with Venetians glass making and the reputation was set. The skill of Murano glass makers gave Venice a monopoly on vases and adornments made from glass and crystal.

Most art historians who have tried to trace the history of glass blowing and the making of glass vessels such as crystal glass are quick to mention the Roman connection in making glass vases a common household name. That is largely because trade within the vast Roman Empire. Secrets were stolen; men were enticed to move to glass making centers with their secrets or perhaps even enslaved because of their knowledge. Roman Culture in any event led to the development of techniques that made it possible for glass vases and other glass items to be manufactured on a wider scale.

Legend has it that the Phoenicians were responsible for the discovery of glass manufacturing, but proofs of its earlier existence have been found in Mesopotamia as early as three thousand years ago. Perhaps it was not so much an invention as a by-product of seasonal or ceremonial bonfire at the beach. Stories exist of a ship wrecked crew burning the remains of their boat and cargo ( a fortuitous combination of soda and minerals) as a signal fire on the beach and the result was hot molten glass.

Manufacturing glass vases and other vessels in Mesopotamia was a tedious process. Known as the core-form method, threads of molten glass are wrapped around a bag of sand or dung tied around a rod. Quickly thrust into the sand as a make shift annealing oven, the result was a pebbly textured small core vessel: like a small narrow bottle. Once the glass has cooled, the bag is scraped out. These glass vessels probably were haphazard successes at first; this tedious process of making glass vases and glass vessels has limited the use to the members of the noble class. In Egypt, only the pharaoh, the high priests, nobles and the rich merchants may possess such glass items.

During the time of the Romans, however, the technique now known as glass blowing was invented. Metal blow rods were used. Not only did glass blowing increase the speed and efficiency of the process by which glass vases and other glass vessels are made, it also improved the quality of the finished product. The process allowed more people, not just the nobles and the rich people, to own a glass vase or any other glass vessel.

Other than this, glass blowing also opened avenues of creativity for glass manufacturers. The cuts made on the mold used for making glass vases and glass vessels left imprints on the finished product, and the cuts could be made in different designs. Early Roman glass blowers also learned to put inlay on the glass vases that would enhance the beauty of the glass.

Today, the art of making glass vases is well represented by the works of American craftspeople. Among those whose work stands out is the Nourot Glass Studio of Benicia, California. The hand blown works by Micheal Nourot are made from a glass formula that has been passed down through the ages in Venice. Each and every work in glass by Nourot is a signed and numbered original. Nourot's Scarlet Nova and Red Satin Glass formulas are his own and are often imitated but never duplicated. The difficulty mixing and melting red formula glass is widely recognized. Cadmium and selenium are the two color forming agents. Nourot is the only contemporary glass studio that has such mastery of the red glass formula.

Others in contemporary glass making are Harvey Littleton, founder of the American Studio Glass Movement, and Charles Lotton, known for his handmade iridescent glass. Other well-known and influential glass artists are René Jules Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Dale Patrick Chihuly and the Murano-born Lino Tagliapietra.

"Myth, Object and the Animal"

-Hello glass fans here's a summer show to see if you are in the Ohio area

William Morris’ exhibition "Myth, Object and the Animal" at the Dayton Art Institute  illustrates his ongoing interest in addressing man’s relationship to nature and his mastery of the medium of glass.  

Janice Driesbach, Director and CEO of The Dayton Art Institute says that, "Visitors who walk through the Morris exhibition, will be able to see references to ancient civilizations represented in our collections, including those from South America, Asia, and Egypt, and will marvel at the artist’s ability to mimic diverse surfaces – stone, clay, leather, or metal – in glass."

William Morris opened his studio in 1980 in Seattle and distinguished himself initially as Dale Chihuly’s chief “gaffer,” or master glassblower.  Morris, has recently retired from working in glass.

Guess he's up to something, he was never one to just sit and watch others.   Notice this that is said about Billy Morris on the Dayton Institute site:  "Mr. Morris has an interest in early civilizations; he is an inveterate traveler.  He has spent extended time exposed to indigenous cultures in Central and South America. And, while his work is informed by his understanding of non-western traditions."

Morris avoids replicating past forms in favor of developing a personal response attuned to his sources. Mazorca references the role of corn in sustaining native American cultures and the process of regeneration through harvest and reseeding. His cobs, suspended alongside rings, animal forms, skulls, and small figures that function as talismans, appear to have emerged from an archaeological site. 

Billy describes his works as works as “objects of offering and abundance.”

He also is noted as saying that abundance is countered by famine in the cycles that define our experience.

Perhaps the current famine in the craft arts has caused his current detente with the glass arts?

The Dayton Art Institute’s will have William Morris: Myth, Object and the Animal exhibit until August 2, 2009.

Hot White Linen Nights in New Orleans Art Center

There is yet again a new slam against our most revered master, Dale Chihuly. The famous art walk titled: "Hot White Linen Nights" got off to a swelter this week in ole Nawlins. Here is what the art reviewer Doug McCash in The Times Picayune had to say.
"Many Julia Street galleries had apparently saved their most banal exhibits for the big night. The enormous crowd -- the envy of any art district in the nation -- was treated to forgettable decorative paintings, one or two heavy-handed political statements, amateurish pop culture photographs, and been-there-seen-that glass sculpture."
The theme was sweaty elegance, he also said and the fashions including paper dresses outshown the risk-taking in the artistic offerings. There was no artistic risk-taking unless you consider the shattering of a Chihuly glass work was his last backhand to the Seattle maestro.
Yee ouch! Will it become so commonplace to slam Chihuly work that it will no longer be notable? Tell that to the throngs in line at San Francisco's de Young were the tickets allow you in for a short period of time and that's it.
Making lots of money for the museum is no little deal. Other museums and art centers in the Bay Area should take note and put together another glass show soon that will please this art loving San Francisco public. Yes, perhaps even a retrospective of Nourot Glass works!
Beginning in 1974 Nourot has made all types of blown, cast and fabricated works and they are all on display in the "vault" at their gallery. Jobs for other artists, commissions for the Pope, and weird experiments like Glassmadness with James Erickson are all in there for curators to pick from. Wouldn't the public like to know that their own native sons and daughters who were trained and infulenced by Mr. Chihuly have been creating interesting and original works for the last three or four decades right under their noses? Many other Bay Area studio glass artists have much that would fit for a show like that and many have content more complex than anything at the Chihuly level.
Like Yogi Bera, the famous ballplayer said, "Could happen."

Ann Arbor Art Fair Swelters and Chihuly's Still Hot

"Knick nak patty wack give some crap a home." So says the first post on the news site reporting on the opening day of the annual Ann Arbor Art Fair.
American Crafts is the Rodney Dangerfield of the art field. That's for sure. Artisans doing the summer circuit this year are needing the dough. And finding themselves still on the street, mostly and not in any museums even after 30 year careers. Numbers of craftsmen and the economic slump are to blame for that more than the quality of the work. Not much thanks is due to the promoters of American Craft that have promised for decades to elevate the arts and artisans in America. Too many of them are still on the street, we think.
But for the top of the heap it looks just as bumpy. Last week the blockbuster Chihuly show in SF titled "Chihuly at the de Young", was completely slammed by the San Francisco Chronicle's art critic Kenneth Baker. Among other unfavorable comments he finally slams the great showman, whose show is drawing huge crowds by the way, saying "The history of art is a history of ideas, not just valuable property. Chihuly has no place in it."
Regardless of this position, people are drawn to the installations of art glass by Dale Chihuly where ever they are put on display. You can't stop a steamroller with a high brow opinion. And Chihuly is the greatest American showman since P.T. Barnum.
For years the elite have cow towed to Mr. Chihuly despite his obvious overblown ego and gaudy over the top works. For every person who finds his glass works too flashy, even cheap looking, there are a hundred who are awed.
Nourot Studio has an informed opinion about Mr. Chihuly. In the fall of 1971 Micheal Nourot was one of 16 "students" chosen to attend the first Pilchuck Glass School. The rub was there WAS no glass studio, nor any shelter for the whole group. The girls who had nowhere to plug in their hair dryers, took off downhill to a motel. Staying were Micheal and two others who had to go it mostly alone. Dale was busy schmoozing the patron of the school at her place and the other founding teacher, Jamie Carpenter, from Rhode Island School of Design, had gone back East. Fall turned to winter and Micheal stayed on.
But you don't spit into the wind and you don't pull the mask off the ol' lone ranger. Smithsonian's Director and the glass art historian William Warmus, to name two, stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Chihuly as he climbed the art world ladder in the 80's and 90's.
Studio glass artists who actually made their own work and sold it on a much smaller scale were always both in awe and sick to death of Chihuly and his latest exploits.
Now all that is water under the bridge. Pilchuck is a great place and will always be associated with Dale Chihuly. This will be his legacy. That and the strong popularity of his works will keep him at the top of the art glass world, if not the art world, long after we are all gone.
He's doing what he always wanted to do: a summer calendar of shows that is like a rock tour and he's at the top of his connections game. Must be fun, Dale. Way to go.