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Spring ’23 Studio Residents Discuss Importance of Residencies

This Spring, The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass has a full and exciting lineup of Artists-in-Residence ready to go. Cedric Mitchell began his month-long residency last week and he will be joined shortly by Tobias Møhl. Hot on their heels, Eriko Kobayashi and Lisa Zerkowitz will be visiting later in April.

Cedric Mitchell.
Photo courtesy of the artist.

We asked all four very different artists why residencies at The Studio are so important to an artist’s work and the response was unanimous. So, let’s see what they had to say.

Cedric Mitchell (California, United States) March 20 – April 21

“Residencies at The Studio offer unparalleled opportunities for artists to create freely and explore their creativity. The Studio is fully equipped with a range of facilities, tools, and resources that allow artists to experiment and push their artistic boundaries. The supportive environment, coupled with world-class resources, gives artists the freedom to create without the constraints of time or financial pressure.

Blown Away Contestants John Sharvin and Minhi England Collaborate in Corning

Join us at The Museum over Spring Break as we host stars from the hit Netflix show Blown Away, John Sharvin and Minhi England! John, from Pittsburgh, PA, came third behind season runner-up Minhi of Seattle, WA, in the popular third outing of the show streamed around the world in 2022.

Minhi England on the set of *Blown Away*.
Photo courtesy of David Leyes/Netflix © 2022

Both artists will be at the Museum for meet-and-greet opportunities in The Shops on Friday, April 7 from 1-2pm, and will be demonstrating live from the Amphitheater Hot Shop that Saturday and Sunday culminating with a brand-new collaboration between the two on Monday.

Ahead of their visit, we caught up with the pair to see what they have in store for us.

Whole Lotta Love! Guests Pick their Favorite Artwork for Valentine’s Day

This year marks the third time we have asked our visitors to vote for their favorite artwork at the Museum. From February 11 through 14, visitors left 689 hearts on 179 different artworks. That’s a whole lotta love!

So, why do we keep doing this activity around Valentine’s Day each year? For one thing, it’s fun! Visitors really enjoy it, and it’s an easy way for them to interact with the art and tell us what they care about. We’ve seen time and time again that our visitors want to share their opinions with us, whether on social media, on comment cards, or in written correspondence.

Many of our artworks received a lot of love this year!

Since the last time we offered this activity, there have been numerous changes to the artworks on view in the galleries. Some objects that were on view last year have been replaced with different ones. For example, last year’s most popular artwork was Dustin Yellin’s Cephaloproteus Riverhead (Four Hearts, Ten Brains, Blue Blood Drained through an Alembic). But it was changed out for some other works of art, so what did guests vote for instead?

The Studio’s 2023 Artists-in-Residence Get Started

In 2023, 16 outstanding artists and scholars from around the world have been awarded highly competitive residency opportunities at The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass. Among them are Alicia Lomné and Harriet Schwarzrock who began their month-long residencies in February.

Harriet Schwarzrock (left) and Alicia Lomné outside The Studio.

Alicia Lomné from Washington State is an internationally accomplished artist working in the kiln casting technique of pâte de verre. Using the expansive facilities of The Studio, she is experimenting with larger and more complex forms. Specifically, inner core mold materials and application, with the hope of expanding the possibilities of scale. The work of Harriet Schwarzrock, on the other hand, couldn’t be more different. Schwarzrock, from Queanbeyan in Australia, explores motifs of circulation and respiration by using glass, plasma, and neon. During her residency, she plans to create vein-like membranes from borosilicate tubes which will become responsive plasma-illuminated forms. She anticipates that the flickering pulse of the contained plasma illumination will act as a responsive device, making visible the viewer’s presence.

We reached out to both artists at the beginning of their residencies to learn more about the impact a residency here in Corning has on their work.

CMoG Named One of the “7 Glass Wonders of the World”

Capping a truly momentous year for glass, The Corning Museum of Glass has achieved a new distinction: being named one of the “7 Glass Wonders of the World.”

The announcement was made during the closing festivities of the United Nations International Year of Glass (IYOG) 2022. The year officially concluded with a Conference and Ceremony at the University of Tokyo, Japan, on December 8-9, which was attended by our very own President and Executive Director Karol Wight. This event was followed by an official debriefing held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on December 14.

Blown Away is Back! Season 3 Contestants Share Their Experiences

It has been over three years since the phenomenal launch of Blown Away on Netflix and now we’re back for Season 3! Joining host Nick Uhas and resident evaluator Katherine Gray, are 10 new contestants all competing to be crowned Best in Glass and awarded the coveted Blown Away Residency at The Corning Museum of Glass.

Join us as we check in with this season’s glassblowers to find out what makes the show so special.

The ten contestants from *Blown Away* Season 3 are joined by judges Katherine Gray and Nick Uhas at the start of episode 1. Photo courtesy of Netflix © 2022

What expectations did you have going into season 3?

“In all honesty, I didn’t expect to go as far as I did, especially with the all-star lineup they had this Season.” Trenton Quiocho – Tacoma, Washington (IG: amocat_lowlife)

Lino Tagliapietra in the Museum’s Amphitheater Hot Shop, May 13, 2022.

Lino Tagliapietra may be retiring, but not before one final visit to The Corning Museum of Glass. Last weekend was a monumental one for Lino, the glassblowers and staff at the Museum, and all the guests who filled the Amphitheater Hot Shop to see the Maestro at work during what will be his final performance in Corning.

To celebrate Lino’s enduring legacy, we asked those lucky enough to know and work with him, to describe the impact he has made on the glass world. To no surprise, the response was fervent and unanimous: Lino’s impact is, and will always be, extraordinary!

Aaron Colton is ready to ride his motorcycle through The Corning Museum of Glass. *

As the world’s foremost glass museum, we often entertain some interesting ideas—but perhaps the wildest one yet was a call we received two years ago from Red Bull. “We’d like to have a stunt motorcyclist drive around The Corning Museum of Glass—kind of like a ‘bull in a china shop.’” Sure, it would have been easy to see the impossibilities in that simple concept. We’re a glass museum! Motorcycles and glass absolutely do not mix. But… could they? Often, it’s the out-of-the-box ideas that yield the biggest rewards. And so, we embarked on an exciting collaboration that culminated in a video released today on Red Bull’s channels.

Red Bull athlete and stunt motorcyclist Aaron Colton was engaged to create a custom-built, all-electric bike for this unique exploration of our galleries and hot shop. Colton’s Bike Builds series is a staple of Red Bull’s offerings, and this episode would follow his journey of not only building a type of bike he hadn’t built before—during a global pandemic, no less!—but would show the effort it takes to turn “no”s into “yes”s. Too many times, an exciting idea comes about, and it stops in its tracks because a location can’t accommodate a traditional, combustion motorcycle complete with fuel and noise. Colton and Red Bull would literally be creating a way to turn ideas into realities.