Glassy Eyed

This afternoon, I decided to go to the Corning Museum of Glass. It's a very enjoyable, well-done museum-- a little art, a little science, and a little history. I'm always so drawn to glass art. I love the way that it can look so incredibly different in all of its different applications. The colors, the shapes, the shiny-ness (or lack thereof), the transparency or opacity-- it's just an incredible medium. Maybe I'd try working with that, but it seems a little bit harder to get into than fabric does.

But let's enjoy some incredible colors and patterns, shall we?

Here we have a variety of lovely snuff bottles. I loved how they all looked on the shelf! (By the way, what a gross habit-- people used to carry around these little bottles or boxes filled with dry tobacco powder and snort it. I'll bet that was attractive.) 

How's this for precision? Clearly, this guy had an eye for extremely minute detail. Besides the obvious amazingness of the inset mosaics, he upped the awesomeness by using over 200 types of ancient glass that he melted down, remade into flat pieces, and shaped.

Mosaic Glass Tabletop, Giovanni Rossignani, Italy, c. 1866

Look at those tiny, precise pieces!

Other things I just enjoyed because I got some good ideas for color combos (I like this coral and seafoam combo), or I appreciated their lines (boyfriend dubbed the black and aqua one "space vase"). Some I just thought looked like a lot of quilts I've seen floating around the internet, like the plates for sale in the gift shop (pictured last).

This piece is so impressive in person. Every time I see it I try to get a representative picture, and I always fail. "No touch" glass in front of it doesn't help.

And finally, I just had to include this one, as it's one of my favorite pieces in the museum. It's a chess set pitting Catholics vs. Jews. I didn't get a good picture of the Catholic side, but the pieces all have this much character!

I hope everyone had a great weekend--mine was excellent. And I'll have a new finish to show off tomorrow--yay!

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