Open until January 5, 2020, at The Corning Museum of Glass, the exhibition New Glass Now aims to teach visitors about the exciting field of contemporary glass. Through 100 works of art and design in glass, the exhibition is a snapshot of the wide-ranging themes, ideas, and techniques glass artists are engaging with today. A handful of these 100 artists carry this idea of capturing a moment in time one step further by evoking a specific time or place in their work. Whether the location is personally meaningful to the artist, or completely imaginary, many of the artworks in New Glass Now grapple with how to explore or capture a sense of place.

In 2016, Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Caanan, Connecticut, commissioned internationally-renowned contemporary artist Miya Ando to develop an editioned sculpture to sell at their Design Shop. Ando, known for her watercolor-like paintings on sheets of aluminum, turned to the image of a fleeting cloud to capture the calm and contemplative environment of this icon of modern architecture. In her body of work, Ando often explores the Buddhist concepts of compassion, wisdom, and impermanence. The piece she created for the Glass House, titled Kumo (Cloud) for Glass House (Shizen), Nature Series, is a glass cube containing a laser-etched cloud. She photographed this cloud above the house during a visit. The piece contains a meditative environment, inviting the viewer to gaze inside.[1] Not only is Ando capturing the calm feeling of the Glass House in a portable object, but also the singular moment when the cloud floated overhead. Impermanence, another important concept to Buddhists, is a common thread that runs through Ando’s work. She uses transparency to embody this concept, most often using the medium of glass.[2]