Behind the Glass

Home

People making a difference: Dan and Welmoet van Kammen

Support for The Corning Museum of Glass originates from all corners of the globe. Originally from the Netherlands, Daniel and Welmoet van Kammen have been avid glass enthusiasts and admirers of the Museum for more than 20 years, becoming Ennion Society members in 2013. They now reside in Princeton, New Jersey.

Both Dan and Welmoet studied at the University of Utrecht, one of Holland’s oldest universities, before deciding to further their studies in the United States—Dan in psychiatry and Welmoet in art history. Even then, both were passionate collectors. What started as a fascination with historic maps, particularly of the Netherlands and other places they had visited, grew into a collection of prints of early 20th-century American wood engravings. Wood eventually led to glass when the van Kammens purchased an old Victorian house in Pittsburgh full of stained glass windows.

Daniel and Welmoet van Kammen

Their appreciation for glass developed when they became members of the Pittsburgh Historical Glass Club, meeting like-minded people, collectors, and glass historians. There the van Kammens became enamored with early American free- and mold-blown glass—a love affair that lingers to this day. Read more →

Zooming in on the Library Conservation Lab: Marginal illustrations and on-the-fly edits from the Whitefriars Collection

This post comes from Ilaria Camerini and Erin Fitterer, Rakow Library interns during the summer of 2018 working on the conservation of Library collections, including the Whitefriars stained glass cartoon collection. Read more about this project and the collection in previous posts.

Ilaria and Erin examine silver gelatin photographs.

This is the fourth year of the annual Whitefriars conservation project, a collaborative effort between West Lake Conservators and the Rakow Research Library. We — Ilaria Camerini and Erin Fitterer — are the lucky paper conservation interns for the summer, and we are excited to contribute to this project.

The Whitefriars stained glass cartoon collection consists of 1,800 rolls of cartoons, or preparatory drawings, for stained glass windows. Because of the way they were originally stored, each roll holds an unknown number of paper artworks. There are an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 cartoons, working drawings, and photographs overall. Read more →

Bon voyage! Celebrating a decade at sea

There are many unforgettable sights in the world.

Looking up at glaciers in Alaska and the icy fjords of the Inside Passage, while the bow of your cruise ship gently ripples the calm, crystal-blue water all around you, is certainly one of them. The seaward approach to the fortified old-town of Dubrovnik on the sun-scorched Dalmatian coastline of Croatia is another. But watching molten glass take on a strange new form while the silhouette of New Zealand’s Southern Alps mountain range grows on the horizon, might be, hands down, the best sight of all.

Many of the gaffers at The Corning Museum of Glass have had the opportunity to experience these places and marvel at the beauty and diversity this planet has to offer, as they venture out from port with the Museum’s Blow Glass at Sea program with Celebrity Cruises.

For the past 10 years, the Museum has successfully partnered with the Celebrity Solstice, Celebrity Equinox, and Celebrity Eclipse to bring hot glass demonstrations and the wonder of glass innovation to people and places the world over. Read more →

Kung Fu at The Corning Museum of Glass

Here at The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG), it is common for Chinese visitors, after watching a Hot Glass Demonstration narrated in Mandarin, to give the “thumbs-up,” meaning “true Kung Fu” or “excellent Kung Fu.” One may wonder what the martial arts have to do with the art of glassmaking. In the Chinese-English dictionary [1], Kung Fu is defined as supreme skill from hard work.

功夫-gōng fu- skill; art; kung fu; labor; effort

It refers to excellence achieved through long practice in any endeavor. A person who demonstrates extraordinary skill can be said to have Kung Fu. For instance: a poet, artist, athlete, translator, or even a glassmaker can possess Kung Fu.

With more Chinese thumb-ups than our eyes can count, one wonders what kind of Kung Fu these Chinese tourists perceive that moves them to spread the good word about the Museum. Based on conversations with Chinese visitors, there are three things about a visit to CMoG that embody the Chinese perception of Kung Fu. Read more →

GlassBarge launches today at ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina in Brooklyn Bridge Park

GlassBarge launch in Brooklyn.

The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) today launches GlassBarge through May 28 at One°15 Brooklyn Marina in Brooklyn Bridge Park, kicking off a four-month tour celebrating the 150th anniversary of the canal journey to bring glassmaking to Corning. GlassBarge is offering free public glassblowing demonstrations aboard a 30’ x 80’ canal barge specially equipped with the Museum’s patented all-electric glassmaking equipment. Following its debut in New York City, GlassBarge will then travel north on the Hudson River, and westward along the Erie Canal, stopping in Yonkers, Kingston, the Albany, Syracuse, and Rochester areas, and Buffalo, among other cities.

The Studio Announces 2018 Residency Recipients

2018 Artists-In-Residence at The Studio

Anne Vibeke Mou
March 22-April 20; Public lecture April 12

Anne Vibeke Mou, Diamond Window

Originally from Denmark, artist and engraver Anne Vibeke Mou has been studying and working in the United Kingdom for almost 20 years. Her interests lie predominantly in the connections between glass and environment, object and place, and the medieval history of both regions has helped to shape her work in rich and revealing ways.

Mou practices a meticulous stippling process (engraving a surface with numerous small dots) using a handheld solitaire diamond tool. She is excited to access the Rakow Research Library’s resources to further her research into waldglas (forest glass) and historical sites of relevance. During her residency in March and April 2018, Mou will produce a series of delicate objects “containing traces of organic material from carefully chosen locations,” she says.

GlassBarge. Rendering by McLaren Engineering Group.

The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) today announced the receipt of $469,625 in grants through Empire State Development’s I LOVE NEW YORK program, the New York State Canal Corporation, and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative. This generous funding will support the launch of GlassBarge in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the canal journey to bring glassmaking to Corning, New York, and will further CMoG’s participation in the statewide celebration of the Erie Canal Bicentennial.

In 1868, the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company relocated to Corning, via the New York Waterways, and evolved into the company that is today known as Corning Incorporated. In celebration of this pivotal journey, CMoG will launch GlassBarge—a canal barge equipped with CMoG’s patented all-electric glassmaking equipment—in Brooklyn in May 2018.