The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
THE ART OF GLASS MAKING
CorningMuseumof Glass: GlassBarge holding demonstrations today
SYLVANBEACH, N.Y. » Onthe waters of Oneida Lake, the Corning Museum of Glass gave a firsthand demonstration on glass making for all to see on its GlassBarge.
After its debut in New York City, the GlassBarge has been on a four-month tour travelling north on the Hudson River, westward along the Erie Canal and making a stop in Sylvan Beach to demonstrate skills that take years to learn.
“I’m a gaffer, a glass blower. We work with 2,100 degree furnaces, gathering molten glass on a blowpipe. We use our breath to inflate that glass and our years of experience to shape it,” G Bryan said. “It’s a life-long learning experience being a gaffer. I’ve been making glass for about 20 years. We like to say it takes four to six years to become a pretty good beginner.”
Bryan said the demonstrations done on theGlassBarge are just the tip of the iceberg and that the goal of the GlassBarge is to get people excited about glass, ultimately getting them to come out to the Corning Museum to learn more.
GafferHeather Spiewak, with 11 years of experi-
“It’s a life-long learning experience being a gaffer. I’ve been making glass for about 20 years. We like to say it takes four to six years to become a pretty good beginner.”
— G Bryan
ence under her belt, took the lead during the demonstration and went right to work gathering up the molten glass, coloring it and molding it to what she had in mind.
But there’s a lot more to glass than just being decorative. Lukas Milanak, another gaffer with Corning, touched on other uses of glass to the audience as Spiewak and Bryan worked.
“Since glass was brought to Corning by the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company, Corning has been a center for glass innovation of the 21st century,” Milanak said. “If you like watching shows on Netflix, that’s brought to you by Corning and fiber optic technologies.”
Fiber optic cables are cables made of special silica glass and are used to transmit light between two computers, allowing them to communicate.
Spiewak, with the help of Bryan, worked the glass into the kind of vase they wanted and even showed just how fiber optic cables are made while making the lip wrap of the vase.
“Hot glass stretches out very thin and we can stretch it out as far as we want depending on how fast we pull away,” Milanak said. “The tip becomes very thin, maybe the thickness of your hair. If we were making fiber optics, we would be using different glass, but the principle would be the same. Molten glass would be drawn out very quickly and used to create tiny threads for fiber optic cables.”
Spiewak and Bryan continued to shape the glass into a decorative vase with a long neck, strongly resembling the jack-in-the-pulpit flower, complete with hood.
It only took around 20 minutes or so, something Bryan said is great for this kind of show.
“We can make these pieces in 20 minutes, but they have a lot of wow-factor,” Bryan said. “They’re flashy and exciting to watch.”
The crowd agreed and gave the two a round of applause when the entire piece was finished. It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to learn the glass blowing trade.
“I love workingwith glass because it involves every aspect of your conscience,” said Spiewak, who has a bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University in glass and museum studies. “You have to be 100 percent focused on the material and can’t let anything else in. I enjoy putting every ounce of my soul into my works.”
Glass blowing is one of the few professions that cannot be automated. As Milanak explained to the audience during the demonstration, a machine can press glass into a mold and inflate it, but it can’t perform the minute actions needed to make it a work of art. It’s a difficult trade, but to Spiewak, it’s all practice and repetition while putting herself into her work.
“The most difficult piece is the one I have not made before. It’s all about practice and repetition. I find myself gravitating to functioning glass like bowls and vases, but I really like playing with color and pattern,” Spiewak said. “There’s no other material where you can play with color and light like you can with glass.”
Abby Grzesik, 8, of Palermo, was with her family at Sylvan Beach and got to see the demonstration.
“It was cool. I liked how they made it. I didn’t know how glass was made, but I thought it wasmoreputting stufftogether. I didn’t know they used fire,” Abby said.
“I’ve been to CorningMu- seum of Glass many years ago and I thought it would be a great thing to see again and have our kids have the experience,” Colleen Grzesik, Abby’s mother said. “I didn’t knowwhat to expect really, but I’m glad that we came out.”
TheGlassBargewill be in Sylvan Beach through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. before departing for Baldwinsville and docking on July 13.