This campground is marginal, but the owners are very considerate, and after Labor Day, the park is very quiet. The lack of a sewer hookup, and the fact that we only have a 30 amp electrical connection is a bit concerning, but we're making do. The sewer thing probably won't be a problem for the few days we'll be here, but the electrical issue is limiting the air conditioner use, and that will eventually be a huge problem for the two females that are traveling in this motorhome!
Wednesday morning we drifted south to Corning, New York, the original home of The Corning Glass Works and Steuben Glass. The corporate offices of Corning Incorporated (formerly Corning Glass Works) are still in Corning, but the manufacturing facilities are elsewhere. The famous Corning Ware manufacturing facility has been sold, but is still in operation in Corning, and Steuben Glass acts as a broker for small artists. Nonetheless, the town of Corning continues to revolve around Glass. The city was established in 1796 and became known as the "Crystal City" as the glass industry developed in the 1800's. Easy access to transportation canals, coal and lumber sparked industry's move to the area, and after the Civil War, industrial growth in the area included Ingersoll Rand, which is a diversified industrial tool manufacturing company.
With about 12,000 residents, Corning is a thriving community. There is a lively historical district, known as the Gaffer District after the name applied to glass makers in the early days. With a number of restaurants and museums, the downtown area is a visitor's paradise.
Our destination today was the Corning Museum of Glass. Founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works, the museum is a private, non-profit entity, with over 45,000 pieces of glass from 2000 B.C. to the Modern Era. After a 100 year flood in 1972 that resulted in complete flooding of the museum, a 65 million dollar renovation plan was put in place, and now includes a Hot Shop demonstration area, the Innovation Center, which demonstrates in detail how glass impacts our lives, from light bulbs to telescope mirrors. An 18,000 square foot GlassMarket, one of the largest museum stores in the country, covers most of the first floor, and includes glassware from artistic pieces to glasses.
Ok, enough with the details already. We started our tour in the Contemporary Art + Design Gallery, one of the largest areas of the museum.
Several pieces caught our attention:
This is called "To Die Upon A Kiss", from Shakespeare's Othello. Artist Fred Wilson describes this chandelier as a rumination on death, with the gradations of color representing the slow ebb of life.
This sculpture by Lino Tagliapietra was inspired by a fleet of gondolas in Venice, and is meant to inspire meaning and beauty in form, pattern and repetition.
This piece, by Javier Perez, evokes opportunistic birds eating carrion in a pool of blood beside the highway and is a metaphor for the decline of the centuries old glass industry. Oh my!
But this whimsical piece by an artist whose name I did not get, is a refreshing counterpoint to the above photo!
Donna became rather fond of the worlds largest necklace!
In the Innovation Center, we learned how continuing advances in glass technology have affected our daily lives. This tower of Pyrex dishes contains 680 pieces, and demonstrates how a product first manufactured in 1915 continues to be of use.
This panel demonstrates the value of Low-e window glass. The window on the left is made with low-e glass, reflecting more heat, and keeping it outside the building. The window on the right is made with standard window glass, and is therefor cooler since more heat is simply passing through into the structure. That's D on the right and Grumpy on the left (I'm cool, man).
In the Amphitheater Hot Shop we were fortunate to watch the creation of a beautiful vase by an accomplished gaffer and her assistants.
Fiberoptics Cable is made drawn from a heated blank (the bright red shape at the top), through dies that reduce it to less than the diameter of a human hair. An amazing concept, Fiberoptics Cable has a multitude of uses from Christmas decorations to long distance communication.
This is the first attempt to cast a mirror for the Mt. Palomar 200 inch telescope in 1934. On March 25, 25 glassmakers ladled 20 tons of molten Pyrex into a mold. Even after the mold broke, resulting in cracks and imperfections, lessons were learned that resulted in a successful second attempt. The scarred surface bears witness to the difficulties that Corning's George McCauley and his crew faced as they worked to create the world's largest piece of cast glass.
OK, then we exited (slowly) through the museum shops.
I was astounded by the beauty of these paperweights, with small egg-shaped pieces forever captured inside.
And the prices were astounding as well…..
This vase is awesome! Hard to believe that such creativity exists.
How in the world do they do that?
My favorite:
That took care of roughly half of the museum. The tickets are good for two days, and now I know why! We'll see what happens tomorrow!
See that's what happens when you don't do your laundry...no one wants to be next to you in the park. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm old and don't get out much….do I still have to clean up every once in awhile?
Delete