The Glass Museum, Corning, NY

When we drove through Corning to get to our friend Lisa's house, the first thought that crossed my mind was: Wow! Corning! Like CorningWare, like the pots our moms used to cook in. When Lisa mentionned the Glass Museum and how we should really not miss it, we knew it was the perfect opportunity to answer Mara's recent questions about how glass was made. 

The Corning Glass Museum is a combo of an art gallery with a beautiful store, interesting hands-on activities and great shows and demos going on all day. We went to see the Flameworking Demo where the artist turned simple glass rods into a delicate pinguin figurine with a 5,000 degree Fahrenheit gas- and oxygen-powered torch.  

We also went to the Hot Glass Show (glassblowing), where a beautiful vase became alive in front of our eyes. The gaffer (another name for glassblowers) took glowing gobs of molten glass on the end of a pipe and turned and blew and put it back in the oven and kept working at it in front of us. The last time he took it out of the oven, Mathilde let out a loud: Wow! and everybody laughed! She was truly amazed at the process!

:: The famous CoringWare pots ::

Then we finally returned to the Glassbreaking Demo (where we had started) where they show how different types of glass shatter, because Charlie wanted to try to get picked to be the assistant (and he did! And they give the assistant a beautiful glass figurine: he got a polar bear standing on his head!), but the funny thing is that the last item is a handdipped egg-shaped piece and it is not supposed to break the way the facilitator intends it to break... but Charlie had seen the demo before and had his idea in mind... and he broke it! Look at that grin on his face! He was pretty proud of himself! And we all had a good laugh!