Making "Someday",,, Into Today

Too many times in our busy daily lives, we put our spirit of adventure or dreams on hold. We simply put off "the doing"... and sadly, many of these opportunities and life rewards are either buried under other daily chores, or are forgotten - never to be fulfilled.

Deb and I decided last week to commit to knocking one adventure we had talked about for too long... off our ol' bucket list. As I mentioned in my last post, we headed down to Corning NY last Friday and made a pilgrimage to see the famous collection of blown and stained glass at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning NY.

Deb is a stained glass artisan... and in my own humble view... her unique works are quite simply... "a cut above" the rest. Her creative process engages the use of positive and negative... or completely open space coupled with the gaiety of glass colour to create a recognizable style of her own. She spends days creating her own one-of -a-kind designs... even with her smallest modestly priced "sun catcher" pieces, Each and every piece is unique and assembled with the same attention to care a detail as her larger pieces.

For "Her.... visiting Corning represented a pilgrimage to Mecca. How thrilled and excited she was as she wandered the halls which house three thousand years of glass making ... from Egypt where glass-making was born... up through the Italian Renaissance through to contemporary glass artistry.

I had made the trek more in support of her interests... but came to find many things in the exhibits which piqued my own artistic spirit and I came away equally enriched and stimulated. We are both highly dependent visual "learners"... which is likely the reason that this smorgasbord of colour and form had such an impact upon us.

I would like to close out this post by sharing in jpegs some of the highlights for us... but they are but a few. It is well worth a visit to Corning. It would be a place I will carry a watercolour kit on the next visit... in April!!! Hope that you enjoy the mini tour!

Foyer masterpiece... Deb... with Dale Chihuly masterwork installation piece... mind boggling in concept and execution! What an entry!!!

Could be a "Vincent" piece... in glass

An exquisite Italian tessarae (tile) portrait masterpiece from the Twentieth Century

"O I have slipped the surly bonds of earth..."  High Flight"... for Deb!

Colourful fused glass fish scape. They never did move...

Tiffany Dragonfly masterpiece

How many hours are in this piece. Certainly a Victorian 5oo piece jigsaw masterwork!

Painted church glass... an increasingly lost art. We play with crayons folks!!!

Intricate handwork to produce this 3D bug

Any painter would salivate over the clean linework and minimal colour in this beauty

Italian historic chess set

Detail... artisanship unmatched anywhere except on the Venetian islands of  Murano and Burano

This explains the provenance and story behind this Italian chess set!..... Magnifico!

Corning cut crystal punch bowl masterpiece. Beyond imagining..... never mind executing!

Diorama workman-cutter... puts you in the picture!

"Snuff" bottle cuties... for every taste... and nose!

Is that flower cluster really.... glass??? Breath-takingly delicate and fragile!

Deb... dipped into the rich colour and elegance of the Art Nouveau

Blown glass demo ... at the 2100F.... 24 hours a day fired electric kiln. Forget your meagre winter hydro bill complaints folks!

"Bowling"... Corning-style!!!

History of lens making diorama figures

I see you!.... upside down... and backwards...

My crystal ball and Bucket List... all... in one image!

Glass birds of a feather... sold together... in the gift shop

My Mom owned such a dandy" candy dish... held her red n' green home made Christmas candies!

Something for all of you current "abstract" art enthusiasts... "in the round"!

A wee slice of the quaint, historic... and friendly Main Street retail area known as the Gaffer District

Looking up on the slopes of the valley... "housed" in rich colour and architectural beauty.

In closing out my post this morning... I send out just a small cross-section of Deb's glass artistry. I think you can easily share my respect for her artistry and unique talent. Wish that we had more widows to house some more of her works. I am blessed to share my life... home and studio with this beautiful spirit. 

"She" quite simply is.... my "Bucket List"!

She's a "recycler"... of past thoughts... happenings... and storm windows!

A whimsical accident... simply entitled... "Oops!"

"Tribute to Vincent". We both share a love for his genius and organic energy in his work

"Georgian Guardian", Brebeuf Light on Beausoleil Island

"Sunny... Sunny Day" brought me many days of light during one grey winter.... before it found a new home.

A pair of male gold finch perched on a "found" object!

A small flock of her free standing glass friends. She loves her cheery song birds.... and so do her customers!!

Here are two of her works that are in the "permaent collection"... of AWB. They offer me plwasure... a million times a day!

Two male finches keeping fire watch ... on our mantle! Two heats to  dive away the winter cold!

"Spidy"... with bobbing "babies" on braided copper adds to the river view in our kitchen cozy bay ... where we lunch every day at noon.

We are now settled safely in for winter... a bush cord of firewood...  cut and split in the now empty gallery space. The work is hung in our downstairs studio where music and new creations are already underway. I headed off for a wonderful afternoon of plein air painting at Ivy Lea Park with my long tome painting pal Frank. Stay tuned... for that adventiure in my next post... along with the "correct" answer to the plein air imposter from two posts back...

Happy Painting to ALL.... and Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American Friends!