Tag Archives: Making Ideas

Making Ideas: Harry Allen

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This past summer, we invited designers featured in Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLab to come to the Museum for public design performances. Industrial designer Harry Allen’s work includes a line of products cast from real life, including a piggy bank and roller skate. He explored casting glass in antique waffle irons at the Museum last year, and came to his GlassLab sessions with fresh ideas to try.

Allen has worked with GlassLab previously at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Design Miami in 2008. At the Glass Art Society Conference in Toledo, Ohio, in June, Allen and a full team of glassblowers explored new ideas including three-part vases, stacking rocket ship containers, exploding bowls, a fern coil vase, and narrow standing circular vases. Allen also continued his design of blown glass bowls with the molded imprint of the designer’s hands.

Hot glass is blown onto a mold of the designer’s hands to create a bowl at GlassLab at the Glass Pavilion in Toledo, June 2012.

Hot glass is blown onto a mold of the designer’s hands to create a bowl at GlassLab at the Glass Pavilion in Toledo, June 2012.

In August, Allen returned to the Museum for his fifth GlassLab design session, a collaboration with Chris Hacker, chief design officer for Johnson & Johnson.

Chris Hacker and Harry Allen at GlassLab in Corning, NY, August 21-22, 2012.

Chris Hacker and Harry Allen at GlassLab in Corning, NY, August 21-22, 2012.

“I’m excited to be here,” said Hacker, “Harry and I have worked together for most of our careers, although we’ve never collaborated quite in this way.” The designers explored making color bands and texture bands that were joined together to form cylindrical vases.

Prototypes and design drawings by Harry Allen and Chris Hacker for their GlassLab design session.

Prototypes and design drawings by Harry Allen and Chris Hacker for their GlassLab design session.

Allen and Hacker also created a series of vessels using blocks molded with the texture of carpet squares. These objects were included in a charity auction to support the Design Industry Foundation Fighting Aids (DIFFA).

Currently, Allen is working with the Museum on the exhibition design for Life on a String: 35 Centuries of the Glass Bead, opening in May 2012. Before then, be sure to check out his design prototypes on view in Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLab at the Museum through January 6, 2013.

Harry Allen for GlassLabMore images from this summer’s design performances, as well as designer bios, process videos, design drawings, prototypes and more are available on the web-based GlassLab app at cmog.org/glasslab.

Making Ideas: Dan Ipp and Tom Zogas

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This past summer we invited designers to come to the Museum for public GlassLab design performances.  Dan Ipp and Tom Zogas are the winners of Metaproject 02, a Rochester Institute of Technology student design competition, in collaboration with The Corning Museum of Glass.  The two designers share their experience:

The start of our design process for GlassLab was a late night in the studio. We found tiny cardboard tubes, which are meant to be put on the end of the jack tool, and clustered them into a bundle, varying the heights of each tube to create a more dynamic form, and then placed the bundle in a bucket of sand to hold it in place. After forming a blown vessel, we dropped the hot form directly on top of the cardboard cluster. The result of the experiment was a uniquely organic indent in the bottom of the vessel.

Tom Zogas and Dan Ipp at GlassLab at The Corning Museum of Glass, summer 2012

Tom Zogas and Dan Ipp at their GlassLab design session.

From this first experiment, we decided to propose the theme of “kicks” in different vessels, and our GlassLab theme was born. The kick is the indent on the bottom of a cup or bottle. It is typically added to a vessel for structural purposes and additionally to make the bottom of the vessel more stable when set down. We decided to push the “kick” idea to an extreme and make it a focus of our designs.

Design drawings for GlassLab, Corning Museum of Glass Summer 2012

Tom Zogas and Dan Ipp's design drawings explore kicks in glass.

We arrived on our first morning, excited to get started with our design session. Some excellent pieces were created; most notably a big bulbous bottle, where the kick went up into the neck of the bottle. Another interesting piece was a small cup where the kick goes up and then back out the bottom. This makes the cup unusable and very impractical. We went into the GlassLab design sessions with certain expectations, but the outcome was different than we had expected. It was a great experience to have expert gaffers execute our designs. It’s truly a unique experience to see the object being made in-front of your eyes and being able to change the design as it is made. Glass is an excellent material for prototyping and its rapid production process shows that. The natural properties of glass make it such a great material to be used for everyday objects. Glass is a material of the past, but more importantly, a material for the future.

The final objects from RIT Metaproject students Dan Ipp and Tom Zogas' design session

The final objects from RIT Metaproject students Dan Ipp and Tom Zogas' design session

Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLabMore images from this summer’s design performances, as well as designer bios, process videos, design drawings, prototypes and more are available on the web-based GlassLab app at cmog.org/glasslab.

Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLab is on view at the Museum through January 6, 2013.

 

Making Ideas: Wendell Castle

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This past summer, we invited designers featured in Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLab to come to the Museum for public design performances. Designer Wendell Castle lives in New York State, but the first time he worked with GlassLab was actually in Germany. “My first session with Glasslab was at Vitra Design Museum in Germany, which I found quite enjoyable and I thought was successful from a design perspective,” said Castle. “This second time, my hope was to build upon what I had learned before. The studio sessions went even better than I had anticipated and I came out with a wealth of new knowledge about the process.”

Corning Museum Of Glass - CMoG GlassLab Designer, Wendell Castle

Designer Wendell Castle at GlassLab

Castle decided to continue focusing on his designs for martini glassware. “My designs for martini glasses were basically simple: Utilize a traditional glass shape at the top to hold the beverage and allow the base or stem to serve as the sculptural element.  However, this proved not so simple to implement in glass.  My GlassLab team, G Brian Juk and Chris Rochelle, were up to the task.”

Drawing and model for Wendell Castle's design at GlassLab in Corning NY, June 19-20, 2012

Drawing and model for Wendell Castle's design at GlassLab in Corning NY, June 19-20, 2012.

“The results were fantastic, amounting in 4 working prototypes.  Being part of the Museum’s design sessions has been a wonderful experience and I hope to have the opportunity again soon.”

Gaffer Chris Rochelle and designer Wendell Castle confer on the elipsoid martini glass at GlassLab

Gaffer Chris Rochelle and designer Wendell Castle discuss the ellipsoid martini glass design at GlassLab.

Screenshot of Wendell Castle's bio on cmog.org/glasslabMore images from this summer’s design performances, as well as designer bios, process videos, design drawings, prototypes and more are available on the web-based GlassLab app at cmog.org/glasslab.

Making Ideas: Experiments in Design at GlassLab is on view at the Museum through January 6, 2013.

Re-fusing a Bomb

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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

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.

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

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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 25th, and become a Museum Member for special access to events throughout the year.

Update: see the finished piece on our Facebook wall.