fossilfly
11-06-2006, 11:37 PM
For the 10th Anniversary of the Corning Glass Museum with a visit by Murano Maestro Lino Tagliapietra this week!
Workshop by Lino Tagliapietra draws artists from all over the U.S.
By Salle E. Richards
Star-Gazette
November 6, 2006 CORNING -- The Studio at Corning Museum of Glass is observing its 10th anniversary this week with a new visit from a world-renowned glass artist, Lino Tagliapietra of Murano, Italy.
"He was one of our first teachers," said Amy Schwartz, studio director.
The Studio has developed into a premiere facility for glass artists, offering classes and workshops with internationally known teachers throughout the year.
Tagliapietra's return to Corning includes a private workshop for glass artists from around the country and the private dedication of his new installation at Corning Museum of Glass Wednesday night.
He praised the expansion of the facilities, delighting in the new opportunities it offers.
Schwartz said the facility has doubled its space since it opened. It can now offer up to five classes at the same time, compared with two when it opened, and has increased its regular staff from four to 10.
Schwartz described this week's workshop, which started Sunday morning, as a "watcher's workshop."
"This is an opportunity to see one of the great master's at work," she said.
Tagliapietra said his workshop is more play than work as he has no set agenda or specific pieces planned.
"I want to do interesting things," he said, noting the large amount of space available for himself and his team of six assistants.
The piece he started Sunday morning was one with the emphasis on shape, Tagliapietra said. He already had a name in mind: "Alchemic Egg."
Robin Lehman of Rochester, who described himself as a recent "glass nut," said he was fascinated with the way Tagliapietra started with a glass blob, roughly in the shape of a duck, that he twisted this way and that until it became an orb.
"But it has all these little twists in it," he said.
Tagliapietra said he couldn't really say what the piece will end up like. It had survived the first critical severing from the metal rod used to heat it in the glory hole.
"My best work is the work I do tomorrow," Tagliapietra said.
Now 72, he started as an apprentice glass blower when 11 with Muranese master, Archimede Seguso. Tagliapietra was ranked as a maestro by the age of 21 in the Venetian glass-blowing tradition. In the years that followed, he worked for others to translate their concepts into glass.
"Then I left the factory," he said. "I learned to see life with my own eyes."
Tagliapietra considers himself very lucky to have had a long period of developing his techniques and then finding eager collectors awaiting his output when he began to produce his own designs.
Wonderful technique without a vision is nothing, he said.
"But an idea without technique is also nothing," he said. "The hands must connect to the brain.
He touched his head and then his heart. "And so must the heart."
The students attending the workshop said just watching "the maestro" at work was reason enough to attend.
"I'm seeing very subtle details," said Michael Egan, 38, of Granville, Vt. "I'm learning how to learn.
Carrie Gugger Kelley, 32, of Pasadena, Calif., said attending a Tagliapietra workshop is at the pinnacle of a list of accomplishments she set for herself.
"I was willing to travel a lot further than Corning," she said of her desire to attend his workshop. "I'm grateful that Corning (Museum of Glass) is sponsoring this."
She said watching Tagliapietra work is an inspiration in itself.
"He is so graceful; so elegant, and so approachable," she said.
She said Tagliapietra has been a major influence on American glass studios.
"He's renewed my sense of spirit," she said.
Workshop by Lino Tagliapietra draws artists from all over the U.S.
By Salle E. Richards
Star-Gazette
November 6, 2006 CORNING -- The Studio at Corning Museum of Glass is observing its 10th anniversary this week with a new visit from a world-renowned glass artist, Lino Tagliapietra of Murano, Italy.
"He was one of our first teachers," said Amy Schwartz, studio director.
The Studio has developed into a premiere facility for glass artists, offering classes and workshops with internationally known teachers throughout the year.
Tagliapietra's return to Corning includes a private workshop for glass artists from around the country and the private dedication of his new installation at Corning Museum of Glass Wednesday night.
He praised the expansion of the facilities, delighting in the new opportunities it offers.
Schwartz said the facility has doubled its space since it opened. It can now offer up to five classes at the same time, compared with two when it opened, and has increased its regular staff from four to 10.
Schwartz described this week's workshop, which started Sunday morning, as a "watcher's workshop."
"This is an opportunity to see one of the great master's at work," she said.
Tagliapietra said his workshop is more play than work as he has no set agenda or specific pieces planned.
"I want to do interesting things," he said, noting the large amount of space available for himself and his team of six assistants.
The piece he started Sunday morning was one with the emphasis on shape, Tagliapietra said. He already had a name in mind: "Alchemic Egg."
Robin Lehman of Rochester, who described himself as a recent "glass nut," said he was fascinated with the way Tagliapietra started with a glass blob, roughly in the shape of a duck, that he twisted this way and that until it became an orb.
"But it has all these little twists in it," he said.
Tagliapietra said he couldn't really say what the piece will end up like. It had survived the first critical severing from the metal rod used to heat it in the glory hole.
"My best work is the work I do tomorrow," Tagliapietra said.
Now 72, he started as an apprentice glass blower when 11 with Muranese master, Archimede Seguso. Tagliapietra was ranked as a maestro by the age of 21 in the Venetian glass-blowing tradition. In the years that followed, he worked for others to translate their concepts into glass.
"Then I left the factory," he said. "I learned to see life with my own eyes."
Tagliapietra considers himself very lucky to have had a long period of developing his techniques and then finding eager collectors awaiting his output when he began to produce his own designs.
Wonderful technique without a vision is nothing, he said.
"But an idea without technique is also nothing," he said. "The hands must connect to the brain.
He touched his head and then his heart. "And so must the heart."
The students attending the workshop said just watching "the maestro" at work was reason enough to attend.
"I'm seeing very subtle details," said Michael Egan, 38, of Granville, Vt. "I'm learning how to learn.
Carrie Gugger Kelley, 32, of Pasadena, Calif., said attending a Tagliapietra workshop is at the pinnacle of a list of accomplishments she set for herself.
"I was willing to travel a lot further than Corning," she said of her desire to attend his workshop. "I'm grateful that Corning (Museum of Glass) is sponsoring this."
She said watching Tagliapietra work is an inspiration in itself.
"He is so graceful; so elegant, and so approachable," she said.
She said Tagliapietra has been a major influence on American glass studios.
"He's renewed my sense of spirit," she said.