Don’t drop it!

In one of my previous careers, I served as a pulpit rabbi in Cape Town, South Africa as well as in Vancouver BC, Canada. This was the time that Corningware products had become very popular and the inevitable questions arose before Pesach, if it was possible to kasher Corningware, and if so, how? That was when I discovered that while it may look like and feel like ceramic or glazed stoneware, Corningware is, in fact, glass.

I often drive from New York City to Upstate New York. Sometimes I take the thruway, but usually I drive along Route 17. It’s a wonderful, picturesque drive as it winds its way through places like Goshen and Monticello until you get to Binghamton. From Binghamton to Rochester, route 17 becomes just another highway passing through more or less flat land, as you get to Finger Lakes country.

That’s the route I like to take when I drive to Corning, NY, the place where Corningware is manufactured. The Corning Museum of Glass, however, an accredited educational institution founded by the Corning Glass Works in 1950 has never been a showcase for the company’s products. It’s a non-profit organization created to educate and teach about glass. And it’s an amazing and fascinating lesson! The museum explores every aspect of glass. Here I discovered the history of glass, the role of glass in art, science and technology. There are more than 45,000 artifacts in the museum’s astounding glass collection from all over the world.

“In the future,” said Nicolas Negroponte, former head of the Technology Laboratory at MIT, “we will need to cater to a public of one.” That has always been my guiding principle in museology (another one of my past careers). So for me, museums are all about the individual experience. And the Corning Museum of Glass has a number of activities that enabled me to both give and receive individual expression within the museum environment. My favorite feature in this museum is called “You Design It – We’ll Make It!” I was invited, along with others attending, to draw something that I wanted the museum’s glass techs to create. My drawing was not the one chosen, but a little girl sitting near me showed exceptional talent in drawing a very colorful fish. The glass blowers then proceeded to create that fish out of glass before the audience, colors and all. What excitement!

There are also workshops at the museum where I was able to get down and dirty with the glass makers and take home a souvenir of my own – very imperfect - glass creation.

As I mentioned before, the museum is first and foremost an accredited educational institution, and its Studio is one of the best known teaching facilities of its kind in the world. While not part of the actual museum tour, I was able to watch one of the classes and see how this combination of amazing art, creative craft, scintillating science, theatrical technology, and brilliant beauty is handed down from master (in my case mistress) to one pupil. I was awe-struck!

So here’s a place to bring the family. If you ever drive from New York City to Niagara Falls, take Route 17. The Museum of Glass in Corning will be a place of excitement for you and your kids. It’s one of a series of family-geared museums that I will recommend as this current series of articles proceeds. And here’s a tip when you leave with your souvenir: don’t drop it!