Monthly Archives: September 2011

Crusin’ to the Glassblower’s Bench

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I recently sat down with Beth Bell from Clearwater, FL, who was at The Studio taking the class “Next Steps in Glassblowing” with Harry Seaman.  Beth got hooked on glass when she saw the Museum’s Hot Glass Show aboard the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship, and her journey to taking a glassblowing class at Corning has included fourteen transatlantic crossings!

What made you decide to come to The Studio to take a glassblowing class?

Well, I was on the Solstice, the first ship I was on of the Celebrity Cruises that had glassblowing.  And I went up and I watched it, and I got hooked!  I watched four hours a day, every day we were at sea.  It was a transatlantic so we had a lot of days at sea.  And that was it!  From that point, when I got home, I figured I was too old to do it, and so I decided to try something else.  But then I came back and thought, well why not? And so I did!  And I took a few classes and decided to come here to take a class.

Tell me more about the cruise

I’ve taken a lot of cruises on Celebrity.  I’ve done fourteen transatlantic cruises and I’ve taken twenty cruises overall.

Wow!

We just really like them.  But since I’ve done the Solstice, with one exception, I’ve stayed on ships with glassblowing.  So I’ve been on Solstice, Eclipse, and Equinox pretty exclusively because that’s what I do when I’m at sea – watch the glassblowing.

And how many hours would you say that you’ve watched?

Oh, well, it’s roughly four hours a day for at least eight days, so that’d be 32 hours a trip.  So, a couple hundred hours!  And to be honest, I think it’s really helped me do this, because I’ve seen them do the same thing over and over again.  I know what they’re going to do next.  And the other thing is, I’ve gotten to know some of the glassblowers, and I stay in touch with them, we email, and I’ve seen them again on ships, so that’s nice.  And all of them I know are not here right now, a couple are out on the ships, but this is the class I wanted to take.

Do you have a favorite glassblower?

I honestly think the most entertaining to watch is Annette Sheppard.  She’s just fun to listen to, and fun to watch. I’ve been on at least two cruises with her.  And Eric Goldschmidt is the other one.  I really enjoy what he makes.

Did you ever win anything?

Yes! Finally!  It took me, I think, seven cruises before I finally won something.  I was up there some days where there were only six or eight of us, and it’s raining, we’re huddled under blankets and it’s cold.  And still, the person on each side of me wins.  But I finally won, and I’ve only won once. I have bought pieces from the auction they have. I bought a very beautiful pitcher, it’s about 20 inches tall and it’s got horizontal purple on the front, and horizontal red on the back so looking through it you have a third color.  Lewis Olsen did that one.  And I’ve got a dish he made, I’ve bought four or five pieces.

After watching on the ship, what made you want to try making glass?

I’ve actually worked with glass before; I made beads for a number of years.  And it’s just, I don’t know how to describe it, because it really is that fact that you’re taking something liquid and you’re making it into something solid and you’re having to balance it on the end of a pipe while you do it.  And you’re working on it in little increments, and it goes from a blob – to a thing!  And I find that kind of fun.

What class are you taking here at The Studio?

I’m taking Next Steps in Glassblowing. It’s a little above beginner, but basically beginner glassmaking.

What kind of things are you making?

Well, we’ve been working very hard to get thin glass and to get crisp shapes.  Not just whatever you end up with, but actually making what you intend to make.  I’m trying to do a tumbler, and now I’m trying to do a tumbler with a nice lip wrap.  If I accomplish that in this class, I’ll be happy.  Although, I’ve actually made two bottles!  And I didn’t ever think I could make a bottle.  I don’t know enough to do one, and yet I did it! And on top of that, you do these bottles without an assistant, so they’re fun.

But see, at home there really isn’t anywhere I can blow glass, so when I take a business trip I’ll find a studio nearby and try to get in a few hours in different cities.  Other than classes, I don’t get to do much glassblowing.  But, I’m getting ready to go on the Eclipse again in October, so I’ll watch the glassblowing.  And then I’m coming back to the States on the Eclipse and then I fly back out to Rome and come back on the Equinox – so I’ve got two more two-week cruises to see glassblowing!

Is there anything else that you want to share?

Go on a cruise!  You need to go on a cruise with glassblowing! It’s two hours of glassblowing, so you get a lot of in-depth information, you get a lot of funny stories, and it’s really entertaining.  It’s fun, you’re sitting on top of the ship, you’ve got a lawn behind you, out as far as you can see is ocean, and they’re blowing glass!  How much better does the world get?  So, you need to go on a cruise!

Beth Bell went from watching glassblowing in the audience onboard a Celebrity Solstice cruise ship, to doing glassblowing herself in a class at The Studio.

Rakow Welcomes Carder Club Volunteers

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Carder Steuben Club

Volunteer Kathy Bailey discovered favorite designs among the collection.

The Carder Steuben Club is an enthusiastic group that “encourages and promotes the collecting and enjoyment of the glass of Frederick Carder.” On Sept. 15, the Rakow Research Library staff welcomed members attending the club’s eleventh annual symposium who volunteered to help us organize a group of drawings by Frederick Carder.

Thirteen club members and CMoG docents sorted a group of Carder design drawings by type of paper and size.

Many of these drawings are fragile: some drawings are on delicate tissue paper; others are drawn with white pencil or chalk on crumbling black construction paper; others are blueprints.

Marshall Ketchum

Marshall Ketchum works on a box of blueprints.

Volunteers placed acid-free tissue paper between drawings and put no more than ten in sturdy folders for protection. Some folders will be placed in boxes on the shelves. The largest pieces were unfolded, when possible, to be placed in huge drawers in the library’s secured stacks.

As the volunteers sorted pieces, they also learned about the preservation of paper. For example, water-based blueprints shouldn’t intermingle with a dry medium like the chalk drawings.

Club members were excited to see designs they had never seen before. They wondered whether the pieces in the drawings had ever been made, or perhaps there are Carder glass treasures yet to be discovered!

Carder Steuben Club

Gay LeCleire Taylor looks through three daybooks of Harry Huffman set out for viewing which contain descriptions of glass molds used from the 1920s to early 1930s.

Volunteers also toured the library’s new compact shelving where the Carder archives are housed. During the tour, Marshall Ketchum envisioned future collaborative projects. For example, Carder identified his glass designs by shape number, but many of the drawings in our collection are not labeled. Ketchum hopes several Carder experts can help us identify and match vase shape with the originally assigned design number.

According to Rakow archivist, Nive Chatterjee, “the club members are very knowledgeable about Carder’s shape numbers.”

Carder Steuben Club volunteer projects began in recent years with a photo preservation project that was so successful, it won the Outstanding Collaboration Citation from The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) of the American Library Association.

Carder Steuben Club members Scott Hansen and Marshall Ketchum collaborated with The Rakow Library to examine 575 photographs of Carder Steuben glassware contained within the archives of Frederick Carder at the Rakow Library that had never been cataloged or published. Together, they examined and cataloged the photographs, then scanned and digitized these images. The photographs are now preserved and housed in archival-quality folders after bar-coding them for inventory control purposes. The resulting thumbnail images were embedded into the library’s catalog http://tinyurl.com/yzszfre where anyone may view them.

Scott Hansen

Scott Hansen looks at a Carder design

The Rakow Research Library benefits from collaborative partnerships like these. As librarian Lori Fuller explains, “It is great to collaborate with this group, they are eager to see and work with the unique materials in our collection – truly a win, win collaboration for all involved! The initiative is beneficial for all involved: the library has experts assisting with cataloging/identification and re-housing while the Club members are seeing original primary source materials that may relate to pieces in their private collections.”

We send a warm “thank you” to the Carder Steuben Club members and to docents who helped us process and preserve our unique archival collection.

Glass Corrosion: Weathering

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Group of archaeological bottles with varied weathering.

We tend to think of glass as a very stable material that doesn’t corrode, but that isn’t always true. Glass can and does corrode. The chemical that is most harmful to glass is something we consider fairly harmless, namely water. Water leaches out the alkali components (sodium and potassium) from the glass causing microscopic damage. This process generally takes time, so washing your glasses in water is safe. The composition of the glass is also a contributing factor. Some glasses have a much more stable composition than others.

Piece of archaeological window glass with severe weathering seen under a microscope. The red arrows point to areas where the glass surface has collapsed into itself.

The iridescence and discoloration seen on many archaeological glasses is a form of glass corrosion known as weathering.

During burial, moisture in the ground leaches out the alkali components from the glass, leaving behind distinct silica-rich layers alternating with layers of air. These layers are usually extremely thin, but numerous. They interfere with the direct transmission of light through the glass which causes the iridescence. The layers may be uniform and compact, or flaky, fragile, and discontinuous.

The discoloration of the glass is caused by the migration or alteration of coloring ions or other trace elements. The ions can be leached out of the glass or be taken up from the environment. For example, iron and manganese turn black, while contact with copper corrosion can cause green staining. Certain ions, most notably manganese and copper, may change color through oxidation.

Detail of weathered glass surface.

The burial conditions and the composition of the glass both contribute to the extent and appearance of the weathering which can vary extensively even within a single piece of glass. Glass buried in dry environments will have little to no corrosion, while glass in moist burial environment will generally weather extensively. The acidity of the burial also influences the extent of corrosion. Glass is fairly resistant to acids and even highly acid (low pH) environments will do little damage to the glass unless fluoride or phosphate ions are present. Alkali (high pH) environments are much more damaging to glass because the silica network is attacked and broken down.

55.1.84 This first- or second-century glass statuette of Venus has very thick weathering layers which have been lost in some areas.

The thickness of the weathering can vary greatly depending on the chemical stability of the glass and the aggressiveness of the burial conditions. In extreme cases corrosion products may have completely replaced the original glass. Underneath the weathering the so-called glass core retains the original composition and color of the glass.

One may be tempted to remove the weathering to reveal the original color, and that was certainly done in the past. However, unlike corrosion on metals, glass corrodes from the outside inward and the weathering preserves the original surface. Any details of the surface such as tool or usage marks or even fine decoration will be lost if the weathering is removed. The glass underneath the weathering is usually unevenly preserved and may be pitted or appear etched. The original smooth surface of the statuette of Venus in the image to the left is perserved in the intact weathering, but the core glass exposed where the weathering has been lost is severely pitted.

Weathering is a type of corrosion found on archaeological glass, but historical, modern, and contemporary glasses are affected by another type of deterioration known as atmospheric corrosion, crizzling, weeping, or glass disease. I’ll save my discussion on that for another time.