The Finger Lakes – Part 2

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June 19, 2022

Corning

Jim and I collected art glass for many years when we had an art budget. Now we have a boat budget… However, we still love glass and have always wanted to visit the Corning Glass Museum. We have heard it is quite good.

Jim and I have always loved the work of Lino Tagliapietra. So sensual and elegant.

New Glass

It is a rather amazing museum with much modern glass and folks doing quite unusual work that only holds a semblance to glass.

I did not capture the names of all the artists. Follows are a few of my favorites.
I would love to own this bench! Yes, it is a life sized bench.
This is a cool project. Glass beads woven into a rope by a group of 100’s (?) on women in Africa. This spool is perhaps 3 feet tall and 5 feet across is a mile long and has 4.5 million glass beads! The artist wanted to create jobs for women. Can’t remember how long it took them to do it.
This life size cast glass piece was so amazing!
I fell in love with this! It was made from a piece of industrial glass, cut in half, sawed on the edges and then painted the lovely colors. The museum embraces eclectic artistic glass artistry.

Glass Technology

Happily, they had a very nice exhibit about glass and technology; windshields, fiber optics, corelle ware, telescopes and lots of interesting developments in glass with borates, machines, etc.

I have never seen a Pyrex iron!
This display goes higher, maybe 14 levels showing the temperature needed to make glass all the way to ceramic.
Corning made the mirror for the Palomar Observatory. This is their 1st attempt that did not work. But, the apparently learned a lot from it and got it right on the 2nd attempt. They have done mirrors for other observatories, but larger but in smaller plates.

Old Glass

One of the exhibits I was not really excited to see with 35 Centuries of Glass. I was wrong. Quite fascinating. I had no idea glass was so old; and rather advanced at such an early point.

These small vases are from Egypt, dates 1400 – 1360 BC! Really???
This plate is dinner plate size and a very fine mosaic pattern. It dates from 323 BC – 30 BC from the Mediterranean area.
This pendant was found in Suffolk England and dates from 650 – 700 AD.

We managed to see the museum in one day, but it was a rather full day.

The Hell Rider

A fellow boater mentioned that the Glenn Curtiss Museum was in Hammondsport, NY, not far from Corning. Who is Glenn Curtiss you may ask? He started out as many folks in the late 1800’s did with limited education; only through 8th grade for Glenn. He began developing bicycles and then motorcycles. Designing and building them. In 1907 he set a speed record of 136.36 MPH in a V8 motorcycle. This was the fastest speed on land, sea or air until 1911 when the record was beat in a car. But, the motorcycle record held until 1930! Fairly amazing. He was given the nickname Hell Rider as he just HAD to go fast.

The world record setting moto.

This guy liked designing and speed. He started building engines to dirigibles to make them faster and then worked with a team including Alexander Graham Bell to develop an airplane that would fly faster longer than just a hop. This was in direct competition with the Wright Brothers who were quite secretive and did not make their flights public events.

Curtiss’ first plane where he set a record.

Needless to say, Glenn Curtiss flew longer and faster than the Wrights and designed planes that were quite successful in WWI.

As Curtiss lived in the Finger Lakes, he though flying boats were a great idea.

We watched a wonderful documentary on Curtiss. Here is the promo for the movie. Well worth trying to track down. I love these guys who with little formal education, develop their smarts and use intuition to create great things. We spent much longer at the museum than we had though as there was so much to see and learn.

Pioneer Photography

We were on a roll of seeing pioneers. Our next stop was the George Eastman House in Rochester. As a photographer, a pilgrimage to the Eastman House is a thrill. Yes, George was the founder of Eastman Kodak. Another man of humble beginnings, he became enamored with photography and wanted to create a process that was easier and more accessible to many people.

Once Eastman was established, he build quite the home. This is his garden room. The house is not totally over the top as many wealthy homes were. He loved gardens and always had lovely plants. The museum is at his home.

He began by making a camera with film inside. A person would take pictures then sent the whole camera back to Kodak for processing with prints returned and new film loaded. Then the progression buying film and loading it into your camera. Interestingly, back in oh maybe 1990, I was at a computing conference in Idaho and a VP from Kodak spoke about advanced in technology. I had a long conversation with him about cameras becoming digital and film going away. I was very uncomfortable with that idea. Lo and behold!

No old camera pictures. There was lots of really interesting photography. I’ve always liked woven images (I’ve tried to do this myself; it is HARD to do well). This image is of a Navajo man sent to an “Indian School”. Both pics are of him, in traditional dress and in clothing after sent to the school.

Waterfalls

Our last major stop was a pure luck. I love maps and thus in looking around Rochester on the map I happened to see “High Falls”. Ooo, we better check it out. Who knew there was such a big and beautiful waterfall right in downtown Rochester. The Genesee River has been a major source of power used for mills and factories for many years.

A few wines were sampled during our visit in the Finger Lakes. Most were well made but many had a tad too much sugar for our liking. We did buy a bottle of Cab Franc which we thought was quite nice.

On the way home a quick stop was made at the “It’s a Wonderful Life” bridge in Seneca Falls. This is the location where George Bailey (Henry Fonda) is ready to jump off the bridge but the angel stops him. For this good deed, the angel gets his wings. The bridge which crosses the Erie Canal looked like a hundred other we saw during our transit of the Erie.

Ready to be Home!

Our little excursion away from the boat was quite enjoyable but we were ready to get home. As were the cats. They really do hate traveling in the car. When we got back to the boat, they were both so happy! So were we. It’s time to move on.

The kittens always try to hide in the morning when they know they have to get in their carriers to get to the car. This is the only place Chicha could find to hide. Nikki was under the covers on the bed.
Just so you know….

Comments

The Finger Lakes – Part 2 — 5 Comments

  1. I love museums and history. So much interesting stuff. Thank you for sharing.

  3. I will need to put this area of NY on a bucket list – lots of cool stuff in a fairly compact area. So different from the west

  4. Yes, a very interesting area. One really feels like they are in a different place from New Mexico. Part of the joy of travel.