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Choose Your Own Adventure: Digging into the Past for a Virtual Archeology Experience

Have you ever dreamed of adventure, of charting your own course, of unearthing artifacts?

If you grew up in the 80s, you might remember Choose Your Own Adventure books. The series was wildly successful: dozens of books were published from 1979 into the 90s, selling millions of copies and ultimately becoming a seminal relic for the Millennial Generation. Now, not quite gone and certainly not forgotten, the ideas behind Choose Your Own Adventure have played an important role in shaping an identity for this year’s major exhibition, Dig Deeper: Discovering an Ancient Glass Workshop.

Home screen from the *Dig Deeper* exhibit game.

Choose Your Own Adventure book circa 1979. Image by Kaeru is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse.

Published by Bantam Books and intended for kids, Choose Your Own Adventure was a “novel” idea (pun intended)—readers take on the role of a protagonist appropriate to the story and, every few pages, choose where the story goes next by turning to a specific page. In the first book in the series, you explore a cave with branching, time travel tunnels that can lead you back to the time of dinosaurs, far forward to a time of spaceships, and everywhere in between.

The series created a new genre of printed fiction, now typically called ‘gamebooks’, and helped usher in new forms of digital interactive fiction.

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.

So Long and Thanks for all the Glass

One of the most rewarding parts about working in the Education and Interpretation Department here at The Corning Museum of Glass is interacting with all of the children and teens who come through our doors on field trips. We served over 6000 students in the 2022-23 school year and this year we expect to see even more!

A young guest’s sketch of the Museum’s glassblowers during a hot glass demonstration.

Museum Guides facilitate engaging activities with students throughout the Museum during their field trip. The best part is hearing about what resonated with them. We get all kinds of thank you notes, from elementary all the way up through high school students. Here are some examples of notes they sent us last year.

Some visitors drew their favorite artworks.

Black Mirror: Anna Riley and Justin Ginsberg Collaborate on a Unique Journey into the Past

No, this isn’t an episode of the dystopian British TV show Black Mirror, although an investigation into the original 17th-century method for taking a selfie certainly sounds surreal enough. Rather, this is glass innovation at it’s best, something Corning is renowned for.

This past fall, glassblowers Anna Riley and Justin Ginsberg descended on Corning for a unique collaborative residency to research the Claude mirror—a dark, pocket-sized, reflective object used by artists more than 400 years ago. The Studio‘s Instructor Collaborative Residency is an invitational opportunity for artists who have taught an intensive course in Corning in the past five years to develop new work together. Working from the belief that attention is a creative medium, Riley and Ginsberg used their two week residency to create a series of handmade glass devices inspired by the Claude mirror. The devices are inherently beautiful objects, but also serve as modes for focusing attention for viewing and interpreting the world around us.

Following the completion of their work, Riley and Ginsberg gave us the lowdown on everything they learned after looking into the mirror.

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.

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!

Choose Your Own Adventure: Digging into the Past for a Virtual Archeology Experience

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

So Long and Thanks for all the Glass

Black Mirror: Anna Riley and Justin Ginsberg Collaborate on a Unique Journey into the Past

Featured News

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

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

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

The Maestro’s Farewell Tour: Corning Celebrates Lino Tagliapietra’s Impact on Glass