Thursday, November 18, 2010

The following has been passed along to us with a request to share amongst our e-mail list.

This is a gentle call for action by glass artists, students, scholars and collectors around the world.

The newly formed British Glass Foundation is announcing its launch next Wednesday, November 24, and is asking for your support.
Please read on to see what simple things you can do to help.

The British Glass Foundation was formed in response to the threat of closure of the Broadfield House Museum, a gem of a glass collection in the Glass Quarter of Stourbridge, England, a historic center of British glassmaking.

In January 2009 the Dudley Metropolitan Council, the local government body which oversees the Broadfield House, announced that, as a cost-cutting measure, it would close the museum and warehouse the collections.

A local grassroots movement quickly organized to pressure the Council to keep the Broadfield House open, and after months of campaigning succeeded in doing so. The Dudley Council agreed to keep the museum open for the time being, while it considered options.

As the Council conducted it feasibility study, those who fought to preserve the museum set about establishing the British Glass Foundation as a non-profit Trust with the following stated mission:
“The British Glass Foundation will create the national lead to promote, educate and inspire visitors to the rich 400 year history of Stourbridge Glass. We aim to secure the future of the collections and archives, and work with Dudley and Staffordshire Council to find a suitable and worthy home for the legacy that is British Glass.”

Some of you may have had the opportunity, as I have, to visit the Broadfield House Museum and see it’s collection.

These collections aren’t just important to Stourbridge glass history, and British glass history, but to world glass history.
Over the past several years I have come to know many of the region’s talented contemorary glass artists and educators, the dedicated staff of Broadfield House, and some of the people who now serve as members of the board of British Glass Foundation, and I can vouch for their integrity and commitment, and the importance of their mission.

I am a very fortunate glassmaker, as I live in Corning, New York, two blocks from another remarkable institution, the Corning Museum of Glass.
Corning would not likely have become Corning without the influence of glassmakers from the Stourbridge region who emigrated here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, helping to make Corning an important glass center in America as Stourbridge was in England (Frederick Carder, anyone?) In a real way, Stourbridge’s 400 year glass history is a part of America’s glass history.

So what am I asking you to do?
1) As a show of support for the British Glass Foundation, and it’s goal to preserve and find a new home for the collections of the Broadfield House Museum, I ask you to send them an encouraging email to: info@britishglassfoundation.org.uk
Tell them you support their mission. They can use your email to show that glass makers, scholars and collectors around the world stand behind them; this will help them to convince the local government council, raise funding, and make the case for preserving these important collections.
2) Stay in touch with them. Follow the progress by visiting their website: www.britishglassfoundation.org.uk Educate yourself about the collections, the history, and the artists who made and continue to make the region important for British and world glass. We are all apart of a great history that crosses continents, millennia and is still being created.

Marshall Hyde

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