A Break from Dyeing -- Visitors to Rochester!!

We had visitors from Florida up for a few days to fulfill some items on their bucket list -- the biggest of which was a visit to Niagara Falls.  We filled their days pretty well and we were all pretty exhausted by the end of the visit!!

This is an activity we did the first day which was a ride down the Erie Canal and experiencing one of the locks.  Even though it looks like the water in front is filling up the locks, it is really coming up from below and this is just a "leak".  Where that white line is on the wall is how high the water eventually gets!  We also took the up to visit a local Webster place -- where the Irondequoit Bay joins Lake Ontario.  There is a nice stone pier and lots of boat traffic.  

The next day we headed down to Corning NY to visit the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG).  Warren and I frequently would visit when we were up here in the winters.  This was the first time we have gone during the tourist season!  (A side note is that our daughter works for Corning down in NC.)  What a difference to be there in the tourist season!!!  Lots and lots of demonstrations and a whole new wing with contemporary glass art.  It was fantastic!  This is the ongoing glass show in the big auditorium.  Here a glass blower is adding a dragonfiy to the handle of a pitcher he has just completed.  I wouldn't mind having this pitcher!!  We also saw shows on glass fibers used for telecommunication and on breaking the different kinds of glass as well as the more traditional flame glass.  The contemporary art was a wonderful addition.  Of course the shops at CMOG are to die for!!  It is like an exhibit of contemporary glass as well!!

 This was entitled Leaves and was different from all the different angles of looking at it.

The black piece is actually a mile of black beads made into a large vessel like structure.

We took the long way home from Corning and stopped at one of my favorite places -- Montour Falls.  You can see how big this is from seeing the person at the fence level.  I get such a kick out of this falls as it seeming sits between two houses and the noise must be something when there is more water falling.  In fact it falls into a river that is behind these structures.

The next (very very hot and humid) day, we headed west to Niagara Falls USA and then Canada.  This is of course the view from the US side.  You can see the Canadian falls in the distance.  

Our first order of business was to take a ride on the Maid of the Mist -- an absolute must do for any visitor to Niagara Falls.  Here you can see it below  under the rainbow created by the falls.  It gets amazingly close to the falls and you get VERY wet!

This is a closeup of the boat.  We stood on the bottom deck at the front.  The pictures I took on the boat have too many water spots to show!!

Here are friends with hair slightly the worst for the trip on the Maid!!  They were great guests!!

 This is the view of the American Falls from the boat.

We next went over to the Canadian side.  As there was no parking available anywhere there (unlike many of our other visits), we let off our guests to see the view from this side and we headed to a side street to wait before picking them up and heading to our next destination which was the scenic overlook of the whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge.  It is the southern end of where the Jet Boat that my dh and my friend took later.  I was surprised by how blue/aqua the water was.  There is a gondola that rides over this but we didn't take that as it was from the American side.

This shows the gondola.

We then headed to Niagara-on-the-Lake where we ate lunch and then headed to the Jet Boat ride which Vicki and Warren were going to take. I had no desire to get soaking wet and it had somewhat scared me the only time I have taken it!!  This was the boat they went out on.  Confused the heck out of me when they came back on a lavender boat!!!  I was wildly checking my pictures to make sure they had been on an orange boat!!

They were posing here for the obligatory tourist pictures.

This was a great picture of my husband with my friend Vicki sitting next to him as they headed out on the boat!!

We were exhausted after the day and arrived home about 12 hours after we left.  The next day we just declared a day of rest before they headed to the second half of their trip!!

And now back to dyeing and getting ready for my upcoming trip to Hawaii!!
I have the fabric sitting in the soda ash solution.  I had tested some mystery fabric strips in a recent batch (pictures later) and found they were all pfd so have a BIG pile of ironed and folded fabric sitting in that solution!!  Now to start coming up with some design ideas!!  Hopefully I will get with Julie this week or the next to put some images on fabric -- something I have been meaning to do for some time -- more on that in subsequent blogs as well!!!!

Everything You Wanted to Know about Glass But Didn't Know Enough to Ask

When I asked my husband where he wanted to go for his birthday dinner the day before his birthday, little did I guess that he would say Corning, NY and a trip to the Glass Museum! Over the past few years, we have made this yearly pilgrimage to probably our favorite museum next to the Metropolitan in NYC! It is also the ONLY time my dear husband will stay in a hotel that doesn't border on hostel! It is really a lovely Radisson that has a nice pool and an outside hot tub -- now keep in mind that the outside temps were below 10 but we enjoyed the hot tub even though we took our life and limb in hand to get back inside (even our hair 3 inches above the water was frozen solid!!). You couldn't touch the railings as you would stick to them!! I HIGHLY recommend this hotel and it was listed in Frommer's 100 best budget (defined as less than $250/night) hotels in the US.

This is Warren standing in front of my very favorite thing in the whole gallery part of the Museum (http://www.cmog.org/). It is of course a Tiffany window which is such a strong influence for me. I was amazed at the quality of the pictures I got today changing the Sensitivity on my camera so that it imitated high speed film (ISO = 800). I wanted to get pictures of the hot glass show which is basically almost in the dark. I usually keep the sensitivity at 100 which is what mimics slide film and gives you very high quality pictures.

Anyway, our usual day consists of going to every one of the Hot Glass Shows (demonstrations) and visiting the rest of the Museum in between those shows. A lot of people don't know that the shows are different all day and have different glass artists doing different glass objects. We were lucky enough to be the only two in the gallery for the show where they gave away a piece that was made the day before!! So we have a nice cobalt blue vase hand blown from the show! The pieces yesterday were totally awesome and we became a bit of a joke to the gaffers and the narrator as we were ALWAYS there! The following are a couple of the pictures I took of George and Eric who are both the highest level of glass artisans.


This is the "glory hole" where the 500 lbs of molten glass is kept at a consistent temp of 2100 degree F. This is one of two ovens on the stage. The assistant gathers the molten glass from this oven and the gaffer uses the other oven (which has a camera somehow mounted on the inside so you can see what is happening) to keep the vessel heated while he is working on it. He can only work on it for 15-20 seconds at a time before it gets too cool and liable to break.

This is Eric putting a handle on a pitcher with the assistance of the narrator who is also a trained glassmaker but more junior.

This is the finished pitcher which they recycled as it had no color and they recycle the clear glass daily.

This was George working on evening out the bottom of an object that eventually became a bowl. It is amazing how symmetrical they make this molten glass as they are moving it all the time. When they start, you are never quite sure what they are going to create. Sometimes the assistant isn't totally sure until they are along aways.



This may look like a vase now, but it will become a bowl. Here George is attaching the bottom from some hot glass that the assistant is holding on an iron. She has just taken this out of the huge "glory hole" containing 500 lbs of molten clear glass. The stripes are made by overlaying the original clear glass with a thin strip of colored glass and then George works his magic, moving the glass around almost like marbling. The molten glass at 2100 degrees has the consistency of honey and can be worked easily as it is extremely flexible. They have to keep heating it to keep it at these high temps so they can work it. They make it looks so easy although it takes 6 to 8 years to learn and practice the craft well!

This is George working on opening up what looked like a vase until now into a bowl! You can't see the striping because the glass is so hot but the bowl will be black and gold when finally done.
This was the final bowl with zig zag design on it right before going into the annealing oven which cools it slowly from the over 1000 degrees it is now. If you cool glass too quickly, it causes stress (the outside cools faster than the inside) and this causes cracks and eventually breakage.

These are just some of the thousands of examples of glass art through the ages that you can find in their extensive glass galleries. You can spend several hours there as well as in the main part of the museum where they have all the technical and historical information on modern glass making. It is absolutely fascinating and I always learn something new. I tend to like the modern studio art the best, but these I believe dated back to the 1800's . I should have taken notes about what these were specifically but I just liked them!

These are my favorites next to the Tiffany glass (of any kind). They were blown glass made during the latter part of the 19th century and are precise depictions of botanical and zoological specimens. They were made by the Blashke family. Harvard University employed them to make 1000's of these scaled models for teaching purposes back in the 1800's. If you EVER get to Boston, a visit to the museum where these specimens are is a "have to". You can't believe they are not real, they are so lifelike -- incredible!! All out of glass!

This is a Tiffany mosaic. I can't get enough Tiffany and his glass is definitely an influence in my design and color pallette for dyeing.

These are two examples of snails from the Blashke father and son. Thought this was appropriate with my passion for shells!

A trip to the Museum is not complete without spending at least an hour wandering through the Museum shop which is easily the best shop in a museum ever!! It is a show in itself and features glass artists from all over the world. The prices range from affordable to $44,000! Incredible but then Warren and I both love glass art!!