Glass book report

Was clearing (yet another) shelf for glassbooks, and wound up leafing through a few new (and old) friends:

First, the old friend. The library reorg was the result of a question Lani McGregor posed on warmglass.com, which caused me to pull out Boyce Lundstrom’s “Kiln Firing Glass: Glass Fusing Book One.” Published 25 years ago, I expected it to be outdated, and it was…but only in that it obviously doesn’t take into account new glass formulations, the commonplace use of kiln controllers, and suchlike.

What surprised the blazes out of me was, in fact, the leading edge nature of the book in other aspects, especially after all these years. The book is primarily about pushing the glass to do cool and artistic things…and details techniques and processes that are blithely being announced as “discoveries” and sometimes even potential patent opportunities today. Kinda humbling…and makes me want to get out the rest of my “old” library and see if the work for some of my glass experiments has already been done.

Oh well…seems as if there really isn’t anything new under the sun (or the kiln lid, for that matter.)

Speaking of old, my sister gave me a copy of a marvelous old book, A Short History of Glass, by Chloe Zerwick, for my birthday. Published by the Corning Museum of Glass. It’s simple, to the point, and utterly fascinating for glassists. (I believe it’s out of print but you can usually find it used.) Its cover has a picture of one of my favorite glassworks, the Corning Ewer, still one of the most beautiful examples of coldworking and form in existence.

Lark Publishing has a list that, from year to year, varies from nearly sublime to pure junk. As far as I’m concerned, though, their “500 objects” series is a winner, and I picked up their “500 Glass Objects” a couple of months ago. Impressive. I could wish that they’d (a) portrayed the work of 500 different artists instead of doubling or tripling up in places, (b) that they’d required some sort of artist’s statement for each piece and not just those airy, vapid little “my work signifies the thoughtful journey a woman takes to self-awareness,” blurbs and (c) that they’d spent a bit more money on production and not simply “perfect-bound” this as a paperback, because it’s worthy of more.

That said, they managed to find some great new artists for this book, and it was a treat to see their work. It was also fun to see friends (and artists I would love to be friends with) on these pages.

Interestingly, I stacked “500 Glass Objects” on top of “25 Years of New Glass Review,” when rearranging my library, and wound up comparing them side by side. The two have very different intent–500GO is obviously a coffee table book of mostly pretty things, and 25 Years is a serious retrospective of a highly respected yearly competition among artists who work in glass. It’s more expensively produced, has much better commentary on how the choices were made (as I would expect), and certainly the organization is better. Yet I was surprised at how well the “lightweight” volume compared to 25 Years…and in some cases the photography was light years better. (I might argue that some of the art was, too, but that’s just being catty.) Hmmm.

No Green Berries or Leaves: The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass, is Paul Stankard’s biography, and it’s a fun and inspiring read. The glasswork is kinda subordinate to his life and like most self-published books (or at least this appears to be, apologies if not), it probably goes on a little too long about personal philosophies. I did find myself wishing Mr. Stankard would talk more about his creative choices and techniques.

However, he is just such a neat man that in the end I didn’t care and just enjoyed his journaling. I am a great re-reader (there are books in my library that are probably on their 500th reading) and I don’t think I’d reread this volume much…but I’m glad to have read it the first time.

Best for last: Seth Randal: Myth and Majesty. Seth Randal is a casting giant, as far as I’m concerned; his work is technically and spiritually gorgeous and his colors make me drool. I had seen this book on lists a few times and never got around to buying it. Now I’m glad I did.

He talks technique, he talks inspiration, he talks about design choices, he talks about his evolution as an artist. His work isn’t to everyone’s tastes–many “experts” I’ve talked with dismiss Randal as too representational and a kind of Art Nouveau copyist–but for me at least, his art works on many, many levels, not the least of which is his technical risk-taking.

About the only complaint I had about this book was that it was a bit TOO much Randal. I’d never seen more than a couple of Randal works together, and I have to admit that by the time I reached the last page, I felt Milky-Way’d. (My term for too much of a good thing–Milky Way bars are so sweet they hurt my teeth; I can’t stomach more than a bite of one.) The colors, the shapes, the photography (lots of black backgrounds) started to run together in a blitz of snakes, Egyptian noses and jewel-like glows. Perhaps the best way to study Randal is slowly, one or two works at a time.

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