Where will you be at 4:30 pm this Friday (February 24, 2023)?
Join us for the Spencer Solstice*!
Visit the Museum and see Spencer Finch’s incredible glass window, The Secret Life of Glass, as it relives the very moment that inspired the artist six years ago. And, like travelers returning to Stonehenge for each summer or winter solstice, perhaps you’ll come back every year to mark the occasion.
Guests enjoy Spencer Finch’s The Secret Life of Glass up close.
The Corning Museum of Glass is delighted to announce that its Board of Trustees voted unanimously in October 2022 to appoint Corey Pemberton as its newest member.
Pemberton is a glassblower and mixed-media artist living on the west coast who already has close ties to the Museum. At the end of last year, we asked him to share more about his background and to reflect on what he hopes to bring to the table as the Museum’s newest Trustee.
Corey Pemberton lives and works in Los Angeles, California, but he grew up in Virginia, a place that has manifestly shaped who he is. With two loving parents, Corey is the middle child between a younger sister and an older brother. Amazingly, everyone in Corey’s family went to Virginia Commonwealth University just as he did—Corey graduated from VCU in 2012 with a BFA in Craft and Material Studies.
After several years in production and numerous COVID-related delays,साँस {Saans} eyes of the skinسانس ({Saans}), the 2020 Rakow Commission by Boston-based Indian artist Anjali Srinivasan, is now on display in the Museum’s Contemporary Art + Design Galleries.
In this detailed image of {Saans}, countless reflections of the viewer can be seen.
“This piece is a six-feet-tall, four-feet-wide wall of mirrored glass that looks like it’s been smashed into tiny pieces,” says Susie J. Silbert, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Glass at The Corning Museum of Glass. “But, as you look at it, it subtly starts to breathe as if it has noticed your presence. And because it’s made from blown glass that’s been mirrorized and made into a ‘skin,’ it reflects you in thousands of convex mirrors that atomize your reflection, breaking you into a bunch of tiny parts. When you’re standing there, perfectly still, you could feel like you almost disappear, but when you make any small movement, these convex mirrors amplify your movement across the piece’s entire surface.”
“So, for the artist,” Silbert continues, “it’s the idea of what does it take to make change? How big do you have to be to make change? The answer that this piece is trying to give you is that you don’t have to be big at all, that the change itself doesn’t have to be big— it can be whatever you can do—and that your change will become amplified when you work together, when you are part of something bigger. And that’s a really important message.”
To celebrate the conclusion of this long journey, we caught up with Anjali Srinivasan to find out how it feels to have {Saans} (2022.4.1) installed and on view.
The Curatorial department of The Corning Museum of Glass experienced lots of change over the last twelve months. With the Museum’s former Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs, Carole Ann Fabian, taking on the role of interim Director of the Rakow Research Library and several curators pursuing new opportunities, the department is welcoming new staff, each adding new areas of expertise and perspectives.
In their respective roles, this group of new curators will serve the Museum’s mission to inspire people to see glass in a new light and advance an exemplary exhibition program that reveals the impact of glass on society and art history.
From left to right, Kathy Fredrickson, Rïse Peacock, Amy Hughes, and Julie Bellemare.
As we start 2023, we’d like to take a moment to introduce you and in doing so, ask each new member of the team a question to get to know them a little better and find out where their interests lie.
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.
It has been over three years since the phenomenal launch of Blown Away on Netflix and now we’re back for Season 3! Joining host Nick Uhas and resident evaluator Katherine Gray, are 10 new contestants all competing to be crowned Best in Glass and awarded the coveted Blown Away Residency at The Corning Museum of Glass.
Join us as we check in with this season’s glassblowers to find out what makes the show so special.
What expectations did you have going into season 3?
“In all honesty, I didn’t expect to go as far as I did, especially with the all-star lineup they had this Season.” Trenton Quiocho – Tacoma, Washington (IG: amocat_lowlife)
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!
Aaron Colton is ready to ride his motorcycle through The Corning Museum of Glass. *
As the world’s foremost glass museum, we often entertain some interesting ideas—but perhaps the wildest one yet was a call we received two years ago from Red Bull. “We’d like to have a stunt motorcyclist drive around The Corning Museum of Glass—kind of like a ‘bull in a china shop.’” Sure, it would have been easy to see the impossibilities in that simple concept. We’re a glass museum! Motorcycles and glass absolutely do not mix. But… could they? Often, it’s the out-of-the-box ideas that yield the biggest rewards. And so, we embarked on an exciting collaboration that culminated in a video released today on Red Bull’s channels.
Red Bull athlete and stunt motorcyclist Aaron Colton was engaged to create a custom-built, all-electric bike for this unique exploration of our galleries and hot shop. Colton’s Bike Builds series is a staple of Red Bull’s offerings, and this episode would follow his journey of not only building a type of bike he hadn’t built before—during a global pandemic, no less!—but would show the effort it takes to turn “no”s into “yes”s. Too many times, an exciting idea comes about, and it stops in its tracks because a location can’t accommodate a traditional, combustion motorcycle complete with fuel and noise. Colton and Red Bull would literally be creating a way to turn ideas into realities.