Our Visit to the Museum of Glass in Corning, NY

In January 2008, we took a trip to Corning, NY, to visit the illustrious Museum of Glass in Corning. We spent over four hours there, and that wasn’t nearly enough! Here are some of the highlights of our trip.

Upon first walking in, were were assaulted with a carnival-like atmosphere of gift shops, small display stands, and a wonderfully noisy Rube Goldberg machine. The museum is divided into several sections: gift shops; a museum of modern glass art from the school/factory on site; a huge museum of the history of glass and glass-making (this section was my favorite); a large science and discovery lab where you could experiment and handle the displays (popular with the kids); and a theatre area where you could watch shows of Corning artists blow glass and explain the process.

This was one of many modern glass pieces. The detail of the chess pieces is amazing. All of it is glass!

These are clunky 4th century Europe glass chalices.

Compare the clunky 4th century chalices with these refined Greek chalices, crafted 400 years previous to them: Read more

Photo Hunters: Reflection

Today’s theme is “reflection.” I suppose that could be interpreted in different ways, a reflection on the water, for example; or, a pensive thought. I think I’m going to stick with the physical reflection for today.

We visited the Corning Museum of Glass about this time last year. It was a blast. We could have spent many more hours there (I wish!). If you are in southern New York and have a chance to see the CMoG, do it! It’s a great place to explore, and a lot of the museum is hands on (and some isn’t– after all, it’s a GLASS museum).

Here are some neat reflections we made there. First, there’s my silly daughter.

This is my son on the other side of a huge glass globe. You can see the reflections of my other kids in the globe.

My sons found this neat wall of glass.

If you’d like to read more about our visit, you can read about it here. There was just so much to see and discover and.. reflect on!

How did your Photo Hunt go today?

Photo Hunters #63: Glass

Today’s Photo Hunters scavenger hunt is glass!

This is a good one for us. We visited the Corning Museum of Glass a few months ago. It was wonderful! There was so much to see that I had to split up our visit into three blog posts!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

The Corning Museum of Glass is in the southern part of New York State, in Corning, NY. The glass factory there makes unique materials for NASA as well as some of the dishware in your kitchen cabinets and the windshield on your cars. Our visit was so much fun that we want to go again!

Here’s a video of us discovering Corning’s new invention, the disappearing LCD glass. Boy, did we have fun with this!

Here’s a short video of two glass makers making blown glass for us!

My favorite part of the visit is in Part Two. That’s where I got to see the development of glass through the centuries. The kids’ favorite part is Part Two and Three, because we entered the “hands on” section of the museum, and learned many scientific things. Part One has a great video about how the Egyptians made glass, too. You won’t want to miss these posts– I tried to make it as if you were right there with us! This is the one of the best museums I have ever visited (and I have visited a lot!). Be sure to take a few minutes and read all three posts. You will learn things about glass that you never dreamed imaginable!