Rick's Glass and Ceramics Blog

Friday, July 19, 2013

Day Six - Carnegie Museum

Day five opened in Pittsburgh with another warm , humid day. Today we are visiting the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

As we enter the main entrance to both museums, artworks of glass by the Czeck artist Petr Hora similar to the ones pictured below, were prominently displayed.

Glass artwork from the American artist Sidney Hutter, like the works pictured below, lined the entrance.

The Museum of Natural History featured exhibits on ancient Egypt, the history of Saudi Arabia, and on life in the Arctic. We viewed the various exhibits looking for examples of the use of glass. Ancient Egyptians were among the first cultures to use glass and a precursor to glass called faience. The Carnegie Museum exhibits included many figures like the ones pictured below.

The Egyptian exhibit also included faience used to make drinking vessels and elaborate jewelry like that pictured below.

The Phipps Conservatory was the next stop on our glass and ceramics trip. The Phipps Conservatory is dedicated to educating the public about sustainability in everything from agriculture, to public landscaping, to home gardening. Our focus on glass suggests that the most important use of glass is in the architecture of the conservatory itself. Most of the above ground structure is made of glass.

The conservatory is only possible because the properties of glass allow light in but also seals well enough to create the environmental conditions necessary for exotic plants to thrive. The ceiling shown below is typical of all the ceilings and roofs in the building, and shows how light easily penetrates glass.

Glass was also used in sculptures and artwork that were strategically placed in each biome to merge art and landscaping.

Questions

1. Why is it important for conservatories to include rare species of plants in their exhibits?

2. Why is the ability of glass to allow light to pass through it, both life enabling and life threatening for exotic plants in the conservatory?

3. How does climate change affect the operation of a conservatory? (Think of a greenhouse)

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Day Four - Mosser Glass

Thursday, July 18, 2013 began with a low ceiling of clouds, a high level of humidity, and a moderate level of wakefulness among the Cabell County cadre of teachers exploring the glass and ceramics industry in West Virginia. Today we actually explored a bit of the glass industry in the neighboring state of Ohio. We visited the Mosser Glass Company in Cambridge, Ohio

The Mosser Glass Company makes high quality glassware for retail sale and glassware for the pharmaceutical industry.This includes glass funnels and vacuum Bell jars.

Mosser Glass Company also produces specialty parts for for the antique auto industry, like the headlight lenses pictured below ready to be packed and shipped. Other specialty auto products include tail light and park light lenses for a company that sells to antique auto suppliers. Among the specialty products Mosser makes are glass insulators once used on utility and telephone poles.

Mosser Glass Company seems to have found a niche in the glass industry that has allowed them to prosper while other glass companies have faltered. By making specialty glass for the antique restoration industry, glass for their own retail sales, and glass to other customers' specifications, Mosser Glass Company keeps the tradition of fine,hand-blown glass alive in the Ohio Valley.

As the two pictures above suggest, our next stop was Pittsburgh, PA and and a few hours to explore Station Square. The opportunity to view a major part of the Ohio River watershed drew some of us to ride the Incline to the overlook.

We had dinner at a local restaurant where the food was excellent and the people very friendly. The establishment had been there for many years and the customers were long-time patrons. It was back to the hotel for an early evening and preparations for the last two days of our journey.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Homer Laughlin China Co.- A Different Corporation

The third day of our trip began with a foray to Newell, WV and to The Homer Laughlin China Company, the creators of Fiesta brand dinnerware. This company was begun in 1871 by Homer and Shakespeare Laughlin with $5,000 of seed money from the East Liverpool city council to produce white dinnerware in that city.

Shakespeare Laughlin left the enterprise in 1877 and it continued to prosper under Homer Laughlin producing dinnerware and ceramic toilets.

In 1897 the business was sold to a Laughlin Company manager named William E. Wells and a financier named Louis I. Aaron. The company continued to do well because of strong retail sales and because a cereal company put Laughton Co. bowls in boxes of oats. In 1902, in need of expansion, the company moved to Newell, WV across the Ohio River.

Newell, WV was a tiny, agricultural village prior to the arrival of the Homer Laughlin China Company. The company laid out the town, built the water treatment plant, and built the infrastructure that comprises a city. As Newell's largest citizen, the Laughlin Company acknowledged its position in the town, and that is reflected in its mission statement. The number one priority in its mission statement is to provide jobs in the Ohio Valley. Not surprising, this company is a family business with second and third generation people involved as workers, managers, and owners.

The second priority in the mission statement is to produce the finest quality product possible. Their success in fulfilling this priority is reflected by the sustained popularity of Fiesta Dinnerware. The Laughlin Company is also very successful in producing dinnerware for the restaurant industry and for the U.S. Armed Forces.

In the 1980's, the company moved to become more environmentally conscious when it produced lead-free glazes and a lead-free vitrified china. While other corporations state that profit is their number one priority, The Homer Laughlin China Company demonstrates that business success can best be achieved when social responsibility accompanies business acumen.

Questions to Research

Why do most people assume that being environmentally responsible means a reduced level of profit?
Why have so many glass and pottery companies located in the Ohio Valley?
Why have so many glass and pottery companies gone out of business in West Virginia?
How might glass companies resume production and make glass a thriving industry in West Virginia again?

Tiffany - A Glass Maestro

Louis Comfort Tiffany was born the son of a successful New York jeweler. An easy career path in the footsteps of his father did not appeal to him, so he studied art in New York and Paris. Upon his return from Paris, he continued painting but extended his artistic ability to include interior decorating. After decorating a suite of rooms in the White House, Tiffany’s designs were in great demand.

In 1875 he opened the Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated Artists. He had over one hundred skilled artists that produced the lamps, windows, and tiles to Tiffany's design specifications. The demand for his glass products increased as demand for his design talents increased.

Louis C. Tiffany was an artist and innovator in working with glass. He developed new types of glass as well as new techniques in producing lamps, windows, and tiles. It was said that Tiffany's windows were meant to be looked at and not looked through. Tiffany also used ancient methods of making glass and adapted those methods to create his masterpieces in glass.

References

http://www.studiosoft.it/antiquetiffany.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Comfort_Tiffany

https://www.google.com/search?q=louis+c.+tiffany

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Tuesday July 16

Eight o'clock came a bit earlier than many of us expected because of the interrupted sleep when the hotel fire alarm went off. But at 8:30 our intrepid gang set off for Paden City, West Virginia and Paul Wissmach Glass.

The Wissmach company began manufacturing glass in 1904 and quickly became known for the variety of colors of glass produced. They perfected the process of making colored, rolled glass. They established their business by producing wire glass, tubing for lighting, and stained glass.

Our next visit was to Marble King also in Paden City, WV. This company is the only marble manufacturer in the United States and produces over a million marbles a day. But marbles are used for more than just a playground game and have applications in the paint industry and in funerary crypts. Glass in its many forms and uses, like marbles, has put West Virginia on the map.

The last stop of the day was in the city of Moundsville and the Grave Creek Mound itself. The museum at the mound had a history of glass exhibit featuring the work of Ron Hinkle of Buckhannon, WV.

This day demonstrated that glass can be used in innovative ways and is one of our most versatile
materials. Today we saw glass used as a simple playground toy and as fine art in the stained glass of Paul Wissmach and the creations of Ron Hinkle. However, for glass to continue to play a major role in West Virginia's economy, new applications and production methods are necessary.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Glass in Space - Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble SpaceTelescope is a highly successful NASA program that has delivered everything promised by its creators and more. The first reflecting telescope in space has been responsible for many spectacular discoveries that advanced scientist's knowledge of astronomy.

The telescope, launched in 1990, uses two mirrors to collect light that is then directed to various sensors and instruments that collect the information. Not long after the HST was operating, it was discovered that the primary mirror had a flaw and the images sent back were fuzzy, not sharp as expected. That meant that the main mission of getting sharp images, undistorted by Earth’s atmosphere, could not be completed.

The diagram above shows that the edges were four microns too flat. It was decided that the vision problem with the HST could be corrected with lenses that would function much like eyeglasses do with humans. So a shuttle mission was launched to capture the telescope and have astronauts place the corrective lenses in the proper positions. The lenses were actually small carefully designed mirrors that corrected the focal point of the primary mirror. The optical qualities of glass allowed the HST to first, be conceived, and then to correct a mistake that enabled it to fulfill its primary mission of producing sharp, undistorted images of objects deep in space.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/