Item of the Week Karen LaMonte: Absence Adorned

Amongst all of the Art of Glass 2 excitement is artist Karen LaMonte's various life-sized glass gown pieces that have been placed on display alongside the Museum's sculpture collection. Her artwork includes three glass dresses and two busts displaying detailed work in the folds and seams of the glass clothing. It appears as though a ghost is resting within the clothing since a physical body is absent from the glass art but the dress itself is left with the memory of the body as the impression comes through the drapery with the curvature of the female bodies. The Jean Outland Library and the gift shop currently have available a book titled Karen LaMonte: Absence Adorned that details this aspect of her work with glass dresses as well as plates, artist bibliography, and an exhibition list. Browing through the galleries to see LaMonte's works may pique your interest in the other classical and neoclassical sculpture pieces on display nearby, if so visit the Library - we can provide you with books related to those sculptures as well!

-Kristen Banks volunteer

Item of the Week: Glass Notes

Things are really heating up at the Chrysler Museum – at least they soon will be with installation of a mobile glass blowing studio in Mary’s Garden. Throughout the month of May, museum visitors will have the chance to watch live glassblowing demonstrations. Wondering exactly what goes into working with molten glass? After watching the artists work, come cool off in the Library and take a look at Glass Notes: a Reference for the Glass Artist by Henry Halem. A glass artist since 1968, Halem’s mastery of his art has been lent to the creation of an in-depth guide to working with glass - everything from colorants to the construction of glass furnaces. Detailed illustrations make even the most complex concepts seem approachable. Halem’s work in glass will also be included in Art of Glass: Generations at the Visual Arts Center, Tidewater Community College May 10th - June 25th, 2009. Stop by and take a look!

Item of the Week: Stephen Rolfe Powell Glassmaker

Spring is in the air and Hampton Roads is blooming. The vibrant flowers springing up everywhere have us thinking about a colorful new edition to the Library’s collection - Stephen Rolfe Powell: Glassmaker. This 2007 publication features the work of Kentucky glass artist Powell. Pulsing with every color imaginable these amazing glass pieces teem with pattern and texture. Gorgeously photographed, the catalogue contains both detailed images of Powell's works and the process by which they were created. Also included are short articles by writers and other glass artists. Dante Marioni, Lino Tagliapietra and Marvin Lipofsky (to name a few) reminisce about encountering Powell's work. This catalogue will have you excited about seeing Powell's Bubbling Pools of Color at the d’ART Center at Selden Arcade during Art of Glass 2 (April 24 - June 28, 2009) . This book is just one of many highlighting the glass artists whose work will be appearing around our area in the weeks to come - so stop by the Library reading room today and take a look!

Weird stuff in the stacks...

Earlier this week online bookseller Abebooks.com nominated Italian artist Luigi Serafini’s 1981 Codex Seraphinianus as “the world’s weirdest book.” Having taken a look at the Library’s copy we certainly agree that this is an interesting publication. It is also the item most requested from the Library via interlibrary loan. Interested in learning more? Come to the Library and take a look at the book itself - if it's not on the road again.

Items of the Week: Experimental Glass Blowing for Boys and The Drama of Glass

Art of Glass 2 is set to begin April 8! In honor of this amazing event we thought we'd feature two small books from our collection that offer two interesting approaches to glass from the turn of the last century:

Fun with Glass

Hey, kids! Glass can be educational and fun! Experimental Glass Blowing for Boys is a guide to glass science and “magic.” Published in 1909 by the A.C. Gilbert Company, the book outlines simple but useful scientific experiments such as bending glass into shapes and closing the end of glass tubing. The smaller projects build upon one another to create experiments in “magic” and practical jokes with glass. Frighten your friends by creating a glass spider web, or splash them with a home-made squirt bottle! Are you interested in engineering? Learn how to make an engineers level by using your newly honed glass-making skills. The steps are easy to follow, and the results seem just as magical today as they must have in 1909. For the modern reader Experimental Glass Blowing for Boys may lead to questions about the wisdom of letting children experiment with molten glass, or perhaps whether an Experimental Glass Blowing for Girls was ever published. Regardless of some dated attitudes, the steps are easy to follow, and the results would probably seem just as magical today as they must have in 1909 – just keep your home-made squirt bottles out of the library!

- by Sara Mason Library Assistant

The Drama of Glass

The Drama of Glass by Kate Field was published in 1890 and attempts to tell a sweeping story about the past, present and future of glass while at the same time advertising it's publisher the Libbey Glass Company The prologue begins with the speculations of the origins of glass by the Phoenicians and Venetians. It also depicts the beginnings of glass in America with a description telling “In 1608, within a mile of the English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, a glass house was built in the woods. Curiously enough it was the first factory built upon this continent.” The next section of the book talks of the evolution of glass from 1850-1893 focusing not surprisingly- on Libbey Glass. The third section of the book dramatically departs from the history laid out so far to relate the fairytale of Cinderella’s glass slippers metaphorically to actress Georgia Cayvan’s journey to create a dress spun out of glass, which was also later duplicated by a Spanish princess. The fourth section returns to the Libbey Glass Company and their involvement in the World Fair of 1893. This section details the temperature of the furnace and the types of tools used to create their pieces. Asking the reader“Do you recall the Crystal Art Room?” section encourages the reader to reflect back on what they saw and learned about glass at the World Fair.

- by Kristen Banks, Volunteer