During and since COVID-19 many of our members have not been able to travel as freely as they would like, making it difficult to attend the Symposiums.  We were happy to learn that CMoG has the capability to record and process our Symposium presentations so that they can be viewed online at a later time.  Last year we had a great Symposium program and we can now make these presentations available to you.

To access the presentations, go to the Carder Steuben Glass Association website and click on the “Menu” button at the upper right of your screen.  Then select “Symposium Presentations” under the “Symposiums” heading.  The first time you access presentations you will need to set up an account, but you will only need to do this step once.  There is a rental fee of $10 for each presentation, which you can watch as often as you’d like for one week.  The rental charge helps us to cover the costs of CMoG recording and video processing, and for the platform we are using to share the videos.

We are fortunate to have many excellent speakers and presentations that support our mission of Steuben Glass education.  There are many of our past presentations I wish I could see again, and thankfully going forward we can. I hope you will view and enjoy them.  We will have the 2023 Symposium presentations available as soon they are ready.  Don’t miss them!

— Karen Beeman

Allie Shanafelter of the Rakow Research Library gave an enlightening presentation on Steuben designer Bolislav Manikowski. Bolislav (nicknamed Boris) was a valued artist and member of the Corning community, and he even designed his own home on Pulteney Street. Allie illustrated the trajectory of Manikowski’s time at Steuben using the Rakow Library collection of drawings, blueprints, and sketches dating from 1930-1936, and materials from the Frederick Carder papers in her presentation. Allie proposed that Boris may have sketched his own design ideas in the drawings, or possibly was of the few people who modified and adapted Carder’s designs. Why were his initials “BM” on all of those drawings? The jury is still out!

But that wasn’t all — the Rakow Library also hosted a Wine and Cheese Reception for our group. It was fabulous to see an up-close display of so many important Carder-era Steuben pieces while enjoying each other’s company and a glass of wine. Upstairs in the library we were treated to a display of original drawings, a part of the library’s special collections. Several drawings were of elaborate Cameo designs by Carder during his Stevens & Williams tenure. Pictures are worth a thousand words!  Thank you to the Rakow for sharing their expertise and collections with us.

Prepare your checkbooks!  There are some exceptional pieces coming up.