Most of my fellow lampworkers are familiar with the ISGB annual Gathering. The 2013 event was held in Rochester. How lucky am I that it is in my home town? It was a fantastic five days of lectures, demonstrations, exhibits and galleries. Not to mention the Bead Bazaar and the vendor area.
I started my week on Wednesday with the bus ride and tour of the Corning museum of glass. I've been there before, but it had been around 5 years. I had a better appreciation of it now that I've been working glass longer. I had an awesome bus buddy who had traveled all the way from Australia to visit the Gathering.
I ended up taking 190 pictures while I was at Corning. Clearly I have a problem here. I think I wanted to take the entire museum back home with me. I'll just share a few pictures here.
These petals were larger than dinner plates
The glow on this pyramid was surreal. I wish I could capture it better.
Lots of simple pieces coming together to form one impressive piece. This was the size of an exercise ball.
We all love Tiffany stained glass.
Loving the carved glass.
This was a commemorative paperweight by Josh Simpson. Apparently his wife is an astronaut.
Gianni Toso chess set. I've seen this before and now having taken a figures class in soft glass, I have even more respect for the artist (not that I didn't before).
This one made me sad, but I still found it beautiful.
After the museum, we all toured the teaching facilities and the Rakow glass library. I've taken a class at Corning before and the lampwork room really is fantastic. State of the art tools and glass along with a museum of inspiration. What more could you want? Their line up of teachers is always impressive as well.
The Rakow glass library houses every text on glass you could ever want. It's free to visit too!
This book was written in the 1300's. That just blows my mind. You can see that they even had ventilation at that time for lampworkers.
I had an amazing time at Corning and I'm looking forward to visiting again. If you ever have the opportunity, GO!
