About Yvette Sterbenk

Senior Communications Manager at The Corning Museum of Glass.

Exhibition on Louis C. Tiffany features Stained Glass Window from Corning Museum

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Yvette Sterbenk

Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion, an exhibit currently on view at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA), in New York City, showcases the array of church decorations and memorials that Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) produced beginning in the early 1880s. On view through January 20, 2013, the exhibit shows the breadth and depth of the firm’s oeuvre, and the place Tiffany Studios created for itself in American religious art.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a Corning Museum artwork, The Righteous Shall Receive a Crown of Glory (96.4.230). The window, which measures 12’ 10” x W. 8’1, was created for the United Methodist Church of Waterville, New York, around 1901.

Warren Bunn, CMOG’s manager of exhibitions and collections examines the window pre-conservation with Drew Anderson, conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and independent curator Diane Wright.

When the window was removed from the church, it went into the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Randall. The couple offered it to the Corning Museum in 1996. At that time, it was too large for the Museum to display in any of its gallery areas and needed restoration work. However, since one of the most important roles of a Museum is to collect and preserve important objects for the future, the donation was accepted and the window stabilized for storage.

Curators and conservators from The Corning Museum of Glass and the Metropolitan Museum of Art examine the window to assess conservation treatment.

When MOBIA began planning its Tiffany exhibition, it approached the Corning Museum about this window. Several institutions then came together to complete conservation work on this beautiful object. CMoG offered its existing conservation report to facilitate work on the window. The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass offered conservation studio space where the treatment could take place. MOBIA incorporated the cost of the restoration into its exhibition budget.

The window was secured in 12 custom-built crates at CMOG and taken to the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in July 2012. Over the summer, it was restored by Drew Anderson, a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who specializes in stained glass.

Preparing to install at MOBIA.

When the exhibit at MOBIA ends, the window will come back to Corning, and the curatorial staff are working on trying to find a space to display it. We’ll keep you posted.

In place at MOBIA. The window measures 12’ 10” x W. 8’1.

GlassLab on Governors Island: Soap bubbles, drunken vessels, glass buoys, ice cream cones and more

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Yvette Sterbenk

GlassLab, the Museum’s design program, began on Governors Island last weekend. It was hot, but that didn’t keep the crowds, or the good ideas, away.

Crowds watch GlassLab at Governors Island

The first weekend featured mostly graphic and exhibit designers who are represented in the Cooper-Hewitt’s exhibition, Graphic Design: Now in Production, which is showing on Governors Island all summer. It really is a rich experience to see the designers’ work in the show and then see how they are challenging (and being challenged by) the material of glass at GlassLab.

Peter Buchanan-Smith worked in a private design session on Friday for the media and some invited guests. His design concept was a buoy made of glass. You can read more about his design session on the NY Times T Magazine blog.

Glass Buoy designed by Peter Buchanan-Smith

Designer Eric Ku was inspired by the idea of glass bubbles, designing a whimsical piece which looks like a bubble blown on a child’s bubble wand. It looks as if it could float away on a beautiful summer’s day.

Eric Ku holds up his glass bubble

James Victore says he is “a student of chance” and admitted to being challenged by the idea that he could not make the work himself (like many designers he likes working with his hands to explore a material). However, he embraced the opportunity and played with the way glass can capture movement and flowing shapes. His “Drunken Vessels” barely stand up… the way someone who drinks wine from them may feel.

Glassmakers Chris Rochelle and Adam Holtzinger prepare to anneal James Victore's Drunken Vessel

Mike Perry designed a hollow lobed-vessel and explored both shape and color. The second piece was a vibrant, impactful taxi-cab yellow, with four symmetrical lobes, topped by an asymmetrical, slightly curved top.

Designer Mike Perry observes Eric Meek and Adam Holtzinger working on his design

Mike and James will be back this weekend, and we’re excited to see what they want to explore next.

The designers who worked on the Cooper-Hewitt’s Graphic Design show, Chris and Dominic Leong, and often design spaces for exhibits and other installations, played with the idea of project geometric figures in glass.

Chris and Dominic Leong explored geometric shapes in a glass vessel

Finally, the weekend ended on a fun note with illustrate and graphic designer Q Cassetti (designer of the GlassLab logo and many Corning Museum graphics), who played with the idea of ice cream cones and cupcakes in glass. On a hot day, on any island that is shaped like an ice cream cone, it seemed a fitting way to wrap up the weekend.

An ice cream cone made in hot glass seemed an appropriate way to end the weekend

Museum Expansion Work Begins

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Yvette Sterbenk

If you’ve driven past the Museum recently, you’ll see signs of our expansion becoming a reality. We couldn’t be more excited!

The work on our new 150-seat Hot Glass Show theatre, slated to open in July, is almost complete. We’ll be very happy to remove the plastic covering on the outside wall to showcase the full beauty of that space to the outside world. When the theatre is complete, visitors will be able to see hot glassmaking both inside the theatre and through the many open walls that will look into the theater.

Rendering of the new 150-seat Hot Glass Show Theater

The completion of this slightly larger new Hot Glass Show space will allow us to provide our popular Hot Glass Show glassblowing demonstrations without any interruption to our visitors during construction. We’ll then tear down the old Hot Glass Show stage and begin the renovation of the former Steuben factory building into an additional (and amazing) 500-seat Hot Glass Show and hotshop space.

On the north side of the building, the fences went up last week to restrict access to the construction area. On Wednesday morning, a crane came in to change out air handling units. All buildings, and especially Museums, need good air handling.

Part of the old building on the north side will be demolished to make room for the new North Wing contemporary glass gallery. On that building stands a unit which our operations staff lovingly refer to as Penthouse 4 and which contains two working air handlers that will no longer exist once the building is demolished. The crane was here to remove some old air handlers, and replace them with a new, larger air handler.

Loading in the new air handler

GlassLab Travels to Governors Island in New York City

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Yvette Sterbenk

GlassLab passes the Statue of Liberty

Blow glass on an island? No problem.

The Museum’s portable glassmaking units can go almost anywhere. Last week, our Hot Glass Roadshow unit took an early morning trip on a barge from Staten Island to Governors Island, a 172-acre island in the heart of New York Harbor.

Every weekend in July, the Museum’s portable stage will host GlassLab design sessions, featuring designers from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s exhibition Graphic Design: Now in Production.

So, just how do you transport a 28-foot-long, 35,000-lb. fully equipped glassmaking studio and stage to an island off the shores of Manhattan and Brooklyn?

Mobile glassblowing hot shop GlassLab container at Millers Launch on Staten Island

The GlassLab container ready to launch

Our Hot Glass Roadshow, which was built in 2001, can be easily pulled by an 18-wheeled tractor trailer (yes, that’s our very own tractor trailer with the CMoG logo on it pulling the hotshop behind it). Our local trucking company, Dimon and Bacorn, drove the Roadshow from Corning, NY, to Millers Launch on Staten Island, where it was carefully driven onto a barge and secured.

The mobile GlassLab glassblowing hot shop is pushed by the tugboat Susan Miller

Pushed by the tugboat Susan Miller, it made its way past the Staten Island ferries, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and downtown Manhattan, to the dock of beautiful Governors Island.

Corning Museum of Glass mobile hot shop GlassLab passes Manhattan in New York harbor

The GlassLab mobile hot shop making its way to Governors Island off Manhattan

From there, it was driven to the plaza of Pershing Hall on Governors Island, and our crew went to work to unpack, hook up gas and electric and finally to fire up the furnaces. The furnaces take 36-48 hours to come up to 2100° – hot enough to begin blowing glass!

This is the first time anyone has blown glass on Governors Island, and certainly our first experience loading the Roadshow and its truck on a barge and sailing through New York Harbor. This is the first of two islands we’ll be working on this summer. If you can’t make it to Governors Island, you can also find us on Nantucket Island in August.

It also is a reminder of how glassmaking came to Corning, NY. In 1868, Brooklyn Flint Glass loaded up a barge with glassmaking equipment, sailed up the Hudson River and through the canal system to relocate the company to Corning, NY, which was a developing young town. The company changed its name to Corning Flint Works, and thus began the legacy that makes the Crystal City what it is today.

It’s likely that the barge sailed past this very spot on its way to Corning (although it would not have passed the Statue of Liberty, which was not in place until 1886).

Nearly 150 years later, direct descendants of that Corning glassmaking tradition are bringing glassmaking back through New York Harbor.

The GlassLab mobile hot shop making its way to Governors Island off Manhattan

A view from the boat as GlassLab makes its way to Governors Island

Checkmate

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Yvette Sterbenk

It’s not often our curators and preparators get to “play” with our objects, but the team who recently moved Gianni Toso’s Chess Set, a whimsical work that is a favorite with our visitors, got to learn a little bit about chess.

The chess pieces are made in the form of Jewish and Roman Catholic religious figures. A Jewish rabbi and a Roman Catholic bishop (kings) join a group of holy men and women holding Judeo-Christian symbols of faith, including crosses, Torahs, menorahs, and single candles. Each chess piece has the appropriate costume, hairstyle, and accessory of its rank. Learn more about this object.

The artist does not dictate where the pieces should be placed on the chess board, so the team chose to set it up to show the Fool’s Mate, also known as the Two-Move Checkmate. This is the quickest possible checkmate in chess. See how it works .

No Snow? No Problem. We’ve Got Snowmen Anyway.

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Yvette Sterbenk

Have you ever tried to make a REALLY big snowman? The snow is heavy as you begin to roll it, and you have to work fast so you can get the snow in the right shape before your hands become numb with cold. When it’s done, you sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate…and hope that the snowman doesn’t melt too quickly.

Well, making a 6-foot tall snowman out of glass is kind of like that…only different.

Imagine trying to hoist 50 lbs of 2100°F molten glass on the end of a 4-foot blowpipe to make the giant snowman’s body parts. It takes at least four people to turn the pipe to keep the snowman’s shape. You constantly reheat to keep the glass from freezing up. It’s hot, sweaty work…and the reward after is moving away from the fire of the glass furnaces and drinking something cold while you wait to see if your glass snowman anneals properly (cools slowly overnight). The good news is, if you are careful, glass snowmen never melt.

George Kennard and a team of glassblowers from the Hot Glass Show made two snowmen (actually, a snowman and snow-woman) last spring that are 6-feet tall, and you can see them on view at the GlassMarket through the end of February. The rumor is that there may even be offspring soon. Check back often at the Museum to find out.

And, while you can’t make a 6-foot glass snowman yourself, you can Make Your Own Glass Snowman at The Studio through the end of February. Great for all ages!

Beth Lipman at The Studio

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Yvette Sterbenk

Beth Lipman was The Studio’s April Artist-in-Residence. In this video, she discusses her work and her experience.

Katherine Gray: Forest Glass and 2300

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Yvette Sterbenk

Katherine Gray is the artist of Forest Glass, one of the Museum’s new sculptures in the recently reinstalled Contemporary Glass Gallery. Forest Glass consists of three “trees” made of everyday drinking glasses stacked on Plexiglas shelves with steel supports. The glasses are arranged on the shelves by color to form the outline of a simplified tree with green leaves and a brown trunk.

As she demonstrates in this video (shot of her Hot Glass Show appearance at the March 2300), she is a skilled glassblower who could have made the components of Forest Glass herself. Instead she chose to use only found or “pre-existing” glasses that she bought at thrift stores (both locally and in LA, where she lives and works) and on eBay - to make us think about the destruction that is inherent in the process of creation.

George & the Big Blue Bottle

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Yvette Sterbenk

George Kennard

Museum glassmaker George Kennard, with the assistance of other Hot Glass Show staff, recently made a giant champagne bottle for our friends at Celebrity Cruises (we provide Hot Glass Shows on three Celebrity Cruise ships). The bottle is completely blown by hand, without a mold or any special equipment – not an easy feat!

Making an elegant champagne bottle that is well shaped and will hold the cork in the neck with just the right diameter, no leaks, will hold the stopper wire, and is strong enough stand up to the tremendous pressure of a champagne is a technical feat that George does not take lightly. He puts an extra deep kick in the bottom of the bottles along with lots of heavy glass to take advantage of the tremendous strength of glass when it is placed under compression.

The bottles are filled with sparkling wine from local Glenora Wine Cellars, and they’ll be used by Celebrity Cruises for the July inauguration of their new ship, Celebrity Silhouette.

Therman Statom at 2300 Degrees

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Yvette Sterbenk

Artist Therman Statom demonstrated at February 2300 Degrees, the Museum’s popular free evening event (which takes place on the third Thursday of each month from November through March). Here he talks about his demonstration, about his work in general, and about working with the Museum’s young, emerging glass artists.

An outstanding mixed media artists and one of the early artists working in American Studio Glass, Statom has work represented in the Museum’s collection. He generally creates large-scale sculptural installations; one of these installations graces the local Corning Incorporated headquarters.

Video by Jordan Miller.

Corning Museum of Glass

Behind the Glass

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