Adventure of the day
Oct. 5th, 2019 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettEverything is pretty much all the thesis all the time around here at the moment, as is probably obvious from the content you're mostly getting, but a side-effect of this is that I wanted to spend about half an hour in lab today (yes, I know it's Saturday), which meant that I was travelling into central London on a day Adam didn't have to be in work, and the V&A is just over the road, so I spent a bit of time this morning working out a shortlist of galleries to look at, and then we spent a couple of hours this afternoon looking around the glass collection. (The materials galleries at the V&A -- the "here's a substance, here's all the things people have done with it" ones -- are consistently my favourites.)
The cases are organised primarily by time period and secondarily by location; the earlier cases talk a fair bit about function but relatively little about decorative techniques, which seems to reverse as you get closer to the present through history. We were a little sad about the lack of Functional And Process information, and A was pretty surprised that the Coca-Cola bottle didn't feature at all.
I have two new faves: one a stunning enamel-and-gilt drinking glass designed to resemble a crocus (which alas I did not take a good photograph of because I expected it to be in the online catalogue, but if it is I'm not turning it up), and Dafna Kaffeman's Tactual Stimulation.
Techniques I have now had explained to me: ice glass (plunge glass you're in the process of working into cold water, such that the surface freezes and cracks; heat back up and expand it by doing more glass-blowing, to create clear sections in between the crackled ones); filigree glass (see e.g. the V&A's A-Z); a bit more of a sense of How Cut Glass Is Made, though I want to follow that up; ruby glass is coloured with gold impurities.
I ended up with much more of a sense for the history & context for Chihuly's work (they do, of course, have another several Chihuly pieces), especially the Persians, and now am rather tempted to revisit Kew again before the exhibition ends with that background.
V pleasing would stay til chucking-out time again.
The cases are organised primarily by time period and secondarily by location; the earlier cases talk a fair bit about function but relatively little about decorative techniques, which seems to reverse as you get closer to the present through history. We were a little sad about the lack of Functional And Process information, and A was pretty surprised that the Coca-Cola bottle didn't feature at all.
I have two new faves: one a stunning enamel-and-gilt drinking glass designed to resemble a crocus (which alas I did not take a good photograph of because I expected it to be in the online catalogue, but if it is I'm not turning it up), and Dafna Kaffeman's Tactual Stimulation.
Techniques I have now had explained to me: ice glass (plunge glass you're in the process of working into cold water, such that the surface freezes and cracks; heat back up and expand it by doing more glass-blowing, to create clear sections in between the crackled ones); filigree glass (see e.g. the V&A's A-Z); a bit more of a sense of How Cut Glass Is Made, though I want to follow that up; ruby glass is coloured with gold impurities.
I ended up with much more of a sense for the history & context for Chihuly's work (they do, of course, have another several Chihuly pieces), especially the Persians, and now am rather tempted to revisit Kew again before the exhibition ends with that background.
V pleasing would stay til chucking-out time again.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-05 09:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-06 12:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-06 11:35 am (UTC)Thank you for underlining the recommendation and, like, drawing sparkly hearts around it. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-06 12:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-06 04:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-06 11:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-06 05:08 pm (UTC)