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Virtual Journeys into our Collection: Looking through a Wider Lens

This recurring blog series will feature virtual gallery walks with staff members from The Corning Museum of Glass. Everyone at our Museum interacts with the collection in different ways depending on the job they do and the perspective they bring. Hear from fascinating people and learn about their favorite objects as they provide a virtual peek at some of the treasures in our collection—and make plans to come see them in person when we reopen! This next comes from Richard Whiteley, senior program manager at The Studio.

I work at The Studio and our team brings the magic of glass to life by engaging with people through hands-on experiences, like classes and residencies. Within my role as Senior Program Manager, I lead a tour of the Contemporary Art + Design Galleries for students enrolled in winter and summer classes.

As an artist myself, I enjoy the conversations that spark when I take other artists into the Museum’s newest extension to show the many diverse works it holds and engage in conversation around their interpretations. As these tours are not possible right now, I was invited to share an aspect of them for this blog.

The Contemporary Art + Design Galleries are predicated on seeing and understanding glass through a wider contextual lens. Out of the many artworks we have to spotlight, I choose to share two pieces that sit in contrast to each other, but for me, also capture the essence of this magnificent space.

A Look Back in Time: Museum Volunteers, Then and Now

Here, at The Corning Museum of Glass, volunteers are hugely important. They help us open our doors (figuratively, and sometimes literally) every day so that we can provide a world-class experience for all of our guests. Not only can you find volunteers giving tours and providing vital information about our collections, but quite often they’re also working behind the scenes, providing services to our staff that keep the whole operation running.

Museum volunteers celebrate during a volunteer appreciation event, with Jessica Trump, volunteer and internship program supervisor, and Myrna Hawbaker, volunteer program coordinator.

To celebrate National Volunteer Appreciation Week (April 19-25, 2020), we asked our volunteers about their best memory at The Corning Museum of Glass. Overwhelmingly, what we discovered is that many of our volunteers had some connection to the Museum a long time before they started volunteering.

Virtual Journeys into our Collection: Thoughts from a Conservator

“rain hail snow ice / I love watching the river”
Ikkyu (15^th century Zen Master), translated by Stephen Berg

Conservators tend to like predictability. We study how materials deteriorate over many years and rely on research and input from our colleagues to make decisions about how best to steward, or care for, artwork. While most of the historical artwork in the Museum was made using glass and glassmaking techniques that have been studied extensively, contemporary work is often purposely experimental.

Experimental work can and should encourage questions. For a conservator, the questions are about materiality: How was the piece made? What is it made of? How will unconventional materials or combinations of materials age over time? If part of the artwork breaks, should it be repaired, replaced or left broken? How do changes in the original material affect the piece as an artwork? And on and on.

Stay Connected Through Poetry: Celebrating National Poetry Month

This year, National Poetry Month comes in the midst of a global pandemic, providing an opportunity to consider how poetry might deepen our connections to one another as we grapple with a range of challenging emotions–uncertainty, grief, guilt, isolation, vulnerability, and mortality.

In The Music of Time (Princeton University Press, 2020), John Burnside asserts that poetry “contributes to our grieving and our healing processes, it gives focus to our loves and to our fears, allowing us to sing them, at the back of our minds, in a deliberate and disciplined transformation of noise into music, of grief into acceptance, of anger at pointless destruction into a determination to save at least something of what remains.”

“The brevity of a poem and its precision help us tune out the world and its excesses, so we might return, if only momentarily, to ourselves.”
Poet Mary Jean Chan writes for The Guardian’s book blog

Books at the Rakow Research Library. Photo credit Gary Hodges.

While the Rakow Research Library contains a range of poetry related to glass, below I share brief excerpts and interpretations from a few poems that may speak to glass artists, glass lovers, and friends of The Corning Museum of Glass.

New Glass Review 43: An Outside Perspective on the Best of Contemporary Glass

Get excited and check the mail, because New Glass Review returns this month for its 43rd issue.

An annual exhibition-in-print, New Glass Review features 100 of the most timely, innovative projects in glass produced during the year. Artworks include sculptures, vessels, installations, and other works in glass by emerging and established artists.

A flagship publication of The Corning Museum of Glass since 1980, New Glass Review is a cyclical reintroduction into the world of contemporary glass and the artists who inhabit it; artists who continually push the boundaries of the material and the limits of their expression.

Following an open call for submissions that receives hundreds of entries every year from countries across the world, New Glass Review is curated by the Museum’s curator of postwar and contemporary glass and a changing panel of guest curators. While the search for the Museum’s next contemporary curator was underway this past summer, Samantha De Tillio was invited to lead the selection process. De Tillo was joined by Davin K. Ebanks, Kim Harty, and Kimberly Thomas.

Amy Schwartz & William Gudenrath Honored with 2023 James Renwick Alliance for Craft Award

The Studio’s Amy Schwartz and William (Bill) Gudenrath were honored on Saturday, May 6 in Washington DC with the James Renwick Alliance for Craft (JRA) Distinguished Craft Educator Award for excellence and innovation in education. The biennial award was celebrated at the JRA Spring Craft Weekend with a Symposium, Gala, and Awards Brunch. Recognized for their influence on future artists and significant contributions to American education in the craft field, Amy and Bill’s selection as honorees was the first time in the ceremony’s 20-year history that both makers and educators were honored at the same time.

William (Bill) Gudenrath and Amy Schwartz with their award at the Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC, May 6, 2023. Photo courtesy of the James Renwick Alliance.

Amy and Bill are the latest on a long list of distinguished honorees—the JRA Award has recognized some of the most influential craft artists in American history. This year, the other nominees included ceramic artist, social activist, and spoken word poet Roberto Lugo (the youngest artist to ever receive the Master of the Medium award); furniture maker Kristina Madsen; and curator, quilter, author, art historian, and aerospace engineer Carolyn Mazloomi.

CMoG Named One of the “7 Glass Wonders of the World”

Capping a truly momentous year for glass, The Corning Museum of Glass has achieved a new distinction: being named one of the “7 Glass Wonders of the World.”

The announcement was made during the closing festivities of the United Nations International Year of Glass (IYOG) 2022. The year officially concluded with a Conference and Ceremony at the University of Tokyo, Japan, on December 8-9, which was attended by our very own President and Executive Director Karol Wight. This event was followed by an official debriefing held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on December 14.

Lino Tagliapietra in the Museum’s Amphitheater Hot Shop, May 13, 2022.

Lino Tagliapietra may be retiring, but not before one final visit to The Corning Museum of Glass. Last weekend was a monumental one for Lino, the glassblowers and staff at the Museum, and all the guests who filled the Amphitheater Hot Shop to see the Maestro at work during what will be his final performance in Corning.

To celebrate Lino’s enduring legacy, we asked those lucky enough to know and work with him, to describe the impact he has made on the glass world. To no surprise, the response was fervent and unanimous: Lino’s impact is, and will always be, extraordinary!