An Adventure in Glass Archaeology: The Beth She’arim Slab

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Megan McGovern

Dr. Robert Brill excavating beneath the Beth She'arim slab, Israel, c. 1966. Photograph by Paul Perrot. (Rakow item 128612)

In 1956, an enormous slab of a concrete-like substance was discovered by an excavation crew preparing to build a museum in Beth She’arim, Israel. Seven years later, in 1963, The Corning Museum of Glass and the University of Missouri sent a team of experts to Israel to study ancient glass and discovered the 6.5 x 11 x 1.5-foot slab at Beth She’arim was actually made of glass. At the time, the slab was the third-largest piece of man-made glass known to exist in the world. (See The Mystery Slab of Beth She’arim for more information and a video about the slab.)

Almost 50 years after the Museum and the University of Missouri sent their joint team to Israel, the Museum’s Research Scientist Emeritus, Dr. Robert Brill, had some of the slides from his personal archive digitized for the Rakow Research Library’s collection. These slides of Dr. Brill’s work at Beth She’arim offer a glimpse of the hard work that goes on behind any discovery.

The glass of the Beth She’arim slab weighs almost 9 tons. When discovered, it lay atop limestone blocks that formed the floor of the tank in which this glass was melted. As part of the process of researching the slab and its environment, Dr. Brill had to crawl into a space underneath the tank floor – with over 9 tons of material overhead –to obtain a sample of the limestone blocks. When talking about the picture, Rakow item 128612 (above), Dr. Brill explained that this crawlspace was in an area of the site called “millipede alley,” so named because of all the insects swarming around. Luckily, he remembered, the millipedes did not bite.

Polished core section of Beth She'arim slab, 7th-9th century, Israel. Section is approximately 11cm in height. Photograph by Robert Brill, c. 1966. (Rakow Item 127879)

While the scientists working with the Beth She’arim slab may have had to contend with millipedes to collect their samples, these samples were critical in providing much of what we know today about the slab.

The slab was found to be glass with a beautiful raspberry color. Dr. Brill recounted, “The intention had probably been to make glass that could be broken up and shipped elsewhere to be formed into artifacts.” In other words, the makers of this raspberry glass were not going to be making vessels, jewelry, or other objects themselves. They were making the raw materials that would be sent to other glassworkers to turn into objects.

Unfortunately, said Dr. Brill, chemical analyses of the raspberry glass showed that it contained too much calcium. This caused crystals to form during the annealing process, turning the glass opaque. This is probably why the slab was abandoned, said Dr. Brill.

The crystals that formed due to too much calcium ruined the glass for the ancient workers creating the batch, but another slide from Dr. Brill’s collection, Rakow item 127941, shows that even mistakes can be beautiful: below is an image of the raspberry glass crystals under a microscope.

Photomicrograph of the crystals in the Beth She'arim slab.

Photomicrograph of crystals formed by devitrification of the glass of the Beth She'arim slab. Photograph by Robert Brill. (Rakow item 127941)

The team of researchers at Beth She’arim performed the hard work of archaeology and running chemical analyses in order to discover the truth about the Beth She’arim slab and why it was abandoned. To read the fruits of their labor and their final reports, the Rakow Research Library holds copies of two articles, “A Huge Slab of Glass in the Ancient Necropolis of Beth She’arim” and “A Great Glass Slab from Ancient Galilee,” along with many other resources.

Re-fusing a Bomb

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Astrid van Giffen

The installation of exhibitions always requires a lot of glass to be moved in a short amount of time. Although our preparators are excellent at moving glass without damage, sometimes gravity happens. During the installation of our Making Ideas exhibition that opened May 19, the fuse was broken off of one of the glass bomb prototypes designed by Steven and William Ladd. Luckily it was just one break and the piece was treated in time for the opening.

Glass bomb with the broken fuse before treatment.

Glass bomb prototype with the broken fuse before treatment.

Glass bomb prototype during treatment. The bomb had to be positioned in such a way that the fuse would stay where it needed to be because the adhesive we use takes a long time to set.

If you visit the Museum, look for the bomb in the Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLab exhibition, now on view through January 6, 2013.

Introduction to the Collection Series: Prints & Drawings

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Tracy Savard

Of the many resources found in The Rakow Research Library, prints and drawings are among our most fascinating. As the Library’s Cataloging Specialist for works in this category, I have the opportunity to surround myself with these items on a daily basis. Currently, we hold several thousand of these prints and drawings and our collection is constantly expanding. Each piece contributes to the wealth of information that the Library offers on the history, art, business, and science of glass and glassmaking.

Our prints and drawings are stored flat in a secure, climate-controlled environment in either print boxes or flat file storage units. And, depending on their fragility and media, they are also matted, housed in mylar (archival quality polyester film), or in acid-free folders, as their continued preservation is of the utmost importance.

Anne Gant, Drawing #3, 2010. Burn marks and pencil on paper ; 27 x 19 cm.

Two of my personal favorites are fairly recent acquisitions. The first is a pyrography by Anne Gant. Pyrography is a term used to refer to burn marks left on a material by the controlled application of a heated object. In this case, the artist has used the application of hot glass onto wet sheets of rag paper to create stunning imprints. Drawing #3 is a pyrography she completed in 2010 of a vessel with two handles on a double layer of Rives BFK cotton rag paper.

Fallbrook vitreograph by Harvey K. Littleton

Harvey K. Littleton, Fallbrook, 1993. Ink and pencil on paper ; 56 x 65 cm.

My second favorite, Fallbrook, is a vitreograph by Harvey K. Littleton, one of the founders of the American Studio Glass movement. Vitreography is a printmaking technique that uses the altered surface (for example, through cutting) of a glass plate to hold ink for its transfer to paper in an etching press. This limited edition, four color print was hand printed on Rives BFK acid-free paper in 1993 and was acquired by the Library in 2011. It captures a piece of Corning’s glassmaking history – the glass plant formerly located on Tioga Avenue, just across the bridge from The Corning Museum of Glass.

Each piece beautifully embodies the artist’s remarkable and unconventional use of glass.

Also inside this collection are prints and drawings that use other forms of media such as chalk, charcoal, watercolor, pencil, and ink. They are all available to see – just stop by The Rakow Research Library and ask a reference librarian for help.

This is the second installment of the Rakow Research Library’s Introduction to the Collection Series.
<< Glass Research at The Rakow Research Library | Trade Catalogs >>

The Rakow Research Library is open from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Monday – Friday
Telephone: 607.438.5300 | Email (general inquiries): rakow@cmog.org

One lucky member’s design selected for Making Ideas preview GlassLab session

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Mandy Kritzeck

A summer of Making Ideas kicks off tonight with the Member’s preview of Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLab. GlassLab, the signature design program of the Museum, offers a unique opportunity for designers to work with hot glass. Historically, access to glass has been limited for artists and designers. Through GlassLab, nearly fifty international designers from various disciplines, including product, industrial, graphic and fashion design, have worked with the Museum’s artist-glassblowers to create prototypes of their design concepts and work with glass in ways never possible before. In lieu of a glassblowing production factory, designers work on a mobile glassblowing stage at museums and design events across Europe and the United States including Design Miami, Art Basel, Vitra Design Museum, and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Designer Nacho Carbonell at GlassLab design session

Designer Nacho Carbonell assists GlassLab gaffers during his design session at Vitra Design Museum

Members of the Museum have exclusive access to one of the world’s best collections of glass design. The GlassLab program has increased access to the material of glass for designers and artists. In the spirit of this summer’s exhibition, we invited our members to become designers themselves in a live GlassLab session.

Museum Members at the Friend level and above were asked to submit a design concept to be made in glass during a special Hot Glass Show at the Member’s-only reception for Making Ideas. Designs could be functional vessels, lighting, or sculptural explorations. After receiving many sketches and unique concepts, a winner was selected.

GlassLab Member's preview design concept

Dr. Wayne C. Templer's design concept

Dr. Wayne C. Templer, a member of the Museum for nine years, submitted this design for an Atlantic salmon fly. Museum glassmaker Eric Meek said, “This design will be fun to see come together onstage because of its shape. It’s not a typical vessel – it was the most unusual design that was submitted.” He noted that a fly fishing lure is something that is universally identifiable, but not necessarily when made in glass.

This summer, visitors to the Museum will have the opportunity to see GlassLab in action at design sessions at the Hot Glass Show every Tuesday and Wednesday from May 29 through August 29 (see the full schedule). Designers will work with glassmakers to explore and prototype their design concepts live. If you missed your opportunity to submit a design for the Member’s reception, You Design It; We Make It begins on May 25^th, and become a Museum Member for special access to events throughout the year.

Update: see the finished piece on our Facebook wall.

May Flowers at the Rakow Library: Design Drawings by the Tiffany Girls

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Nive Chatterjee

The Rakow Research Library holds eight original Tiffany drawings: Branches Bearing Yellow Berries, Chestnut Leaves, Dandelion Plant, Marsh Marigold, Peonies, Thistle, Violets and Yellow Berries. All of them except for Branches Bearing Yellow Berries have the titles handwritten on them. Five of the drawings are signed by Alice C. Gouvy and two by Lillian A. Palmié (Peonies is the unsigned drawing and was most probably also completed by Gouvy or Palmié). All of the drawings are watercolors that have the Tiffany Furnaces stamp, five of the drawings have the Enamel Dept. S. G .Co. (Stourbridge Glass Company) stamp, and three of the drawings are dated 1902. Violets at 24 cm by 29 cm, is the smallest drawing and Chestnut Leaves measuring 48 cm by 66 cm, and Thistle at 64 cm by 45 cm, are the two largest.

Chestnut Leaves design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy

These drawings were water damaged, most likely in the flood of 1972 when Hurricane Agnes struck the Corning area. When I first saw them, I can remember seeing embedded grime, discoloration, tidemarks, and tears. In 2007, the eight drawings were taken to The Westlake Conservators in Skaneateles, New York, where paper objects and photographic materials conservator, Michele Philips treated and matted these drawings.

: Dandelion Plant

: Peonies

: Yellow Berries

The artists, Gouvy and Palmié, are documented in New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls by Martin Eidelberg, Nina Gray and Margaret K. Hofer, 2007. Lillian Palmié was born in Brooklyn, NY around 1871-74 and was at Tiffany Studios by 1897. Her twin sister, Marion Palmié also worked for the firm. Alice Carmen Gouvy was born in Cleveland, OH, around 1870-75. She graduated from Cleveland School of Art in 1894, moved to New York and probably started working for Tiffany then. Clara Driscoll’s work is unraveled in this book from her letters to her family. She was employed by Louis Comfort Tiffany as a creative artist from the late 1880s until around 1909 and led a staff of women known as the “Tiffany Girls” that included Gouvy and Palmié. They worked behind the scenes and made a valuable contribution to Tiffany’s creations. Gouvy and Palmié and other ladies of a small female staff were part of the enamel and pottery department under Driscoll’s direction. Their drawings are the first step in the process of creating designs and decorative objects produced by the enamel department. Importantly, Driscoll reveals that Tiffany generally approved of her ideas, and rarely did he make changes to her designs.

Branches Bearing Yellow Berries design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy and Lillian A. Palmié

Branches Bearing Yellow Berries design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Lillian A. Palmié

Two of the drawings, Thistle and Marsh Marigold were on loan to the New York Historical Society through May, for inclusion in their traveling exhibition titled A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls at The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida.

Marsh Marigold design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy

Thistle design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy

Local Student Creativity Takes Center Stage at the Annual Corning/Painted Post Student Art Show

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Amanda Kiesl

Each spring, the Museum is proud to showcase the creativity and talent of local students through the Annual Student Art Show. This year alone, the artwork of over 2200 students in elementary, middle and high schools in the Corning/Painted Post area is on display in the Museum’s Auditorium. While the process to plan the show begins in January, area students excitedly anticipate the art show as soon as the school year begins each fall. I sat down with Louise Maio, Public Programs Planner for the Museum and organizer of the student art show for almost forty years, to learn a little bit more about this annual event.

Louise (right) and Tammy (left) organized the 2012 Student Art Show.

Throughout the school year, teachers from the thirteen participating area schools are asked to select works from their students to be included in the show. The week of the opening, these teachers are invited to help hang the show and place all the artwork from their schools on specially designed boards.

Local art teachers are invited to help hang the student artwork.

The Auditorium is a flurry of activity the week before the opening, as everyone prepares for the event and works to display each piece. The day of the opening, students and their families, along with area teachers and administrators, are invited to an opening ceremony, where each participating student receives a signed certificate, congratulating them on having their work included. Several special works are also chosen to grace the cover of the program, poster and invitations for the show. These are framed and presented at the ceremony.

This year, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners were presented with blue glass stars.

Over the years, as the number of participating schools and students has grown, Louise has worked to add other awards to the program. Middle and high school works are currently judged in twenty different media categories by invited judges from the community. For the first time this year, the medals awarded are made of glass. This year judges awarded 208 blue glass stars for first, second and third place.

Another special part of the ceremony is the awarding of scholarships to local seniors who are looking to pursue art in college. Having organized the student art show for many years, Louise enjoys seeing a familiar name win the scholarship, as she as seen the student’s work change and grow over the years as they participated in the show.

When asked about her favorite part of the Student Art Show, Louise describes seeing the pride and excitement on each child’s face as they take their parents to see their work. “The students love the opening,” Louise explains, as she emphasizes the goal of the show; to give recognition and encouragement to each young artist.

A view of the finished show.

The Annual Student Art Show is on display in the Museum’s Auditorium through May 9^th. Check out more photos of the show installation on our Flickr stream.

A Conversation with Jim Friant, Paul Stankard and Lucio Bubacco at the Rakow Library

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Beth Hylen

This year we celebrate 50 years of studio glassmaking – 50 years of stories of chance, experimentation, and courage.

This past January, we interviewed on camera long-time friends Jim Friant and Paul Stankard together with Lucio Bubacco as part of our oral history interviews at the Rakow Research Library. The three share connections to 1960s glass making and their story illustrates how a chance meeting sparked discoveries that eventually helped influence glass history.

Jim Friant, Paul Stankard, Lucio Bubacco and Brad Turner oral history interview at the Rakow Library

Jim Friant, Paul Stankard, Lucio Bubacco and Brad Turner (interviewer)

Jim Friant is a glassmaker and researcher who now lives in Corning. Paul Stankard and Lucio Bubacco are internationally known glass artists. Stankard lives in New Jersey; Bubacco in Murano.

Friant and Stankard describe a “sweet memory” from about 1967 or 1968 when the two took a bus from southern New Jersey to Philadelphia. There, in the center court of the department store Wanamaker’s, they saw Lucio Bubacco’s father, Severino Bubacco, creating and selling glass during the holidays. He was an Italian glassmaker working in the United States. He eventually had a glassblowing shop on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City where he demonstrated glassmaking and sold glass figurines, flowers and animals.

Paul Stankard oral history interview at the Rakow Library

Paul Stankard being interviewed at the Rakow Library

With a kiln, a crucible and an 18-inch spoon, Bubacco sprinkled chunks of Baccarat crystal and powdered colored glass into the crucible and waited a few minutes while it softened. Then, he scooped the glass out. In seconds, pinching and pulling the glass, he deftly transformed the gob of molten glass into a dragon! He knocked it off onto the table (without annealing) and put it on a shelf to sell.

Jim and Paul were fascinated – each dragon Bubacco made was a different color.

Seeing Severino Bubacco’s work strengthened Paul Stankard’s desire to “be creative.” Stankard, then a scientific glassblower, trained at vocational school and worked for ten years making lab ware for industry. But he longed to make colorful lampworked vases like John Burton created on his TV program and was inspired by popular New Jersey “Millville Rose” paperweights.

Here was a man blowing glass and selling his work to the public independent of industry. The experience helped inspire Stankard to make the leap to paperweight making full time, developing his signature botanical style over the next 40 years.

Paul Stankard and Lucio Bubacco discuss glassmaking at the Rakow Library

Paul Stankard and Lucio Bubacco at the Rakow Library

Friant brought samples of Bubacco’s father’s work to the interview, as well as photographs of subsequent trips to Italy where he visited the Bubacco family.

Paul Stankard and Lucio Bubacco were in Corning teaching an advanced workshop, “Fiori e Angeli (Flowers and Angels),” sharing their flameworking techniques with students at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass – inspiring a new generation of glass artists. A video of their Studio Demonstration is available on the Museum’s YouTube channel:

The full oral history interview will be available to view at the Rakow Research Library.

Artist Christopher Lydon inspired by B.B. King’s Lucille at 2300°: Blues

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Mandy Kritzeck

Philadelphia-based artist Christopher Lydon makes organically inspired sculptural and vessel forms as well as works with intense color contrasts that reference street art and anime. At the March 2300°: Blues, Lydon was inspired by the theme of that night’s event – the blues, and special guest Tony Coleman, drummer for the legendary American blues guitarist B.B. King.

For his Hot Glass Show demonstration, Lydon challenged himself to sculpt something fun and recognizable to the audience, all within the two hour time limit of the event. Working closely with his team of glassblowers, he created a glass guitar modeled on B.B. King’s signature Lucille. See the demonstration and hear from Lydon on how he’s progressed as an artist and the importance of working with a good team.

See more photos of Christopher and the band Howling Waters at 2300°: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzroaZ6

Corning Museum of Glass

Behind the Glass

Monthly Archives: May 2012