Hail, Hail the Gang’s all here

Symposium has a record attendance of 68. That’s about 1/3 of total CSC members. An astounding percentage. 13 attendees are first timers.

CARDER STEUBEN CLUB VOTES TO EXPAND MISSION AND ELECTS SCOTT HANSEN AS PRESIDENT

I am pleased to report that at the Annual Meeting of the Carder Steuben Club the members voted to expand the Club’s mission to include Steuben Glass produced after 1933, as well as Carder Steuben produced during the period from 1903 to 1933.

I am also pleased to report that Scott Hansen was unanimously elected President of the Club, and that Mike Moline was elected unanimously as a Director, replacing Alan Shovers. Alan is going to continue serving as Editor of the Gazelle Gazette.

It has been been my pleasure to serve as President of the Club for the last four years. Thank you for having me.

David Goldstein

Past President

Frederick Carder 150th Birthday Toast

The following Toast was delivered by Greg Merkel of Corning, NY at the Carder Birthday dinner on September 18, 2013.

It is my pleasure tonight to lead you in a toast to honor Frederick Carder on this 150th anniversary of his birthday.

Frederick Carder was born on this day in 1863, in the chapelry of Brockmoor in the West Midlands of England, a region of iron and coal, pottery and glass. Mr. Carder began his career in glassmaking at the Stevens & Williams glass factory at the age of 17, and later founded the Steuben Glass Works in Corning, New York, at the age of 39. In his 80-year career, he would continually reinvent himself, overcoming personal tragedies and responding to professional challenges, to grace our dressing tables and dining room tables, our lighting and our buildings, with among the most elegant glass creations of his time.

Frederick Carder drew upon history, from the ancient to the modern, for his stylistic elements, his glass compositions, and his glass manufacturing practices. During his long career in the design and production of decorative art glass, Mr. Carder relied not only upon substances long-known to glassmakers – copper and cobalt for blue, manganese for purple, iron or chromium for green, uranium for yellow, and gold for ruby – he also explored new colorants as they were discovered – yellow from cadmium and sulfur, which became red with the further addition of selenium; amber from cerium and titanium; violet from nickel; lavender from neodymium – creating over 140 hues of colored glass.

Frederick Carder forged these glasses first in the coal-fired furnaces of Stourbridge, England, then later in Corning, New York, using furnaces fueled by oil and eventually natural gas. This required the redesign and construction of new glass furnaces, as well as modifications in the compositions of his glasses to accommodate the new conditions for glass melting. Mr. Carder was repeatedly up to the task.

His creations drew inspiration from masterpieces of the past as well as new developments in contemporary style. Mr. Carder’s long career spanned a succession of Art Movements, including the highly-embellished forms of the Victorian Era, the sinuous and sensuous curves of Art Nouveau, and the clean, simple, and stylized lines of Art Deco. At Steuben alone, Frederick Carder accounted for most of the over 6000 shapes produced in the company’s first 30 years. Later, as an independent glass artist in his 90’s, Mr. Carder was arguably one of the unsung pioneers of the Studio Glass Movement, casting glass objects in his laboratory with the texture and translucency of chiseled ice, in forms that are reminiscent of ancient Roman diatreta glass, and among the most sought-after of his achievements today.

The fact that we come together each year to celebrate Frederick Carder’s birthday is a tribute to the impact that his 80 prolific years as a designer, artist, and glass technologist, have had on the field of American decorative glass, and the enrichment that he has brought to our personal lives.

So let us raise our glasses in celebration of Frederick Carder’s 150th Birthday!

2014 Carder Steuben Club annual Symposium will be held at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY September 19 and 20, 2014. The festivities will begin with Frederick Carder’s 151st birthday celebration on the evening of Thursday, September 18, 2014.

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