By Ed Pollard, courtesy Chrysler Museum of Art
NORFOLK, Va. — The Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio, scheduled to open Nov. 2, will help showcase the museum’s extensive glass collection with hands-on and educational activities.
The studio, adjacent to the museum in a renovated former bank building, will be a 7,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility equipped to accommodate both aspiring and master artists working in a variety of glassmaking processes, including blown glass, casting, fusing, flameworking and cold working.
The studio will have a furnace, a full hot shop, a flameworking studio, nine annealing ovens and a cold-working area and will have free glass-blowing demonstrations; classes and workshops for individuals and small groups; and special demonstrations for group tours that will cover a variety of specific topics, including the science of glassmaking and historical processes and techniques.
“The glass studio will allow our visitors to experience glassmaking and be involved in every step of the process,” said Bill Hennessey, the museum’s director. “With more than a third of our 35,000-object collection devoted to glass, this is clearly a strong suit for the Chrysler. This glass studio will bring these works of art to life.”
The museum’s glass collection spans 3,000 years and includes a world-famous Tiffany collection, along with American, French, English, Italian and contemporary glass art.
The glass studio will be the only one of its kind in the mid-Atlantic region.
www.chrysler.org
757-333-6269
