Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Frank Creech of Brevard, North Carolina passes along his perspective on color

Dear Alan,

COLOR, like love, is a many-splendored thing. And no one loved color more than our hero, Frederick Carder! During his long very illustrious career, Mr. Carder developed a myriad of pure colors that astonish and delight us, even today.

BUT, we need to be mindful that to become tedious to the point of obsessing about the various shadings of Carder Steuben colors, is destructive of the value of color itself: giving the spectrum of beauty and light to Steuben glass. The endless pursuit of trying to precisely describe color in glass is folly, much like the fox that kept jumping for grapes he could never reach. This is due to VARIABLES:

· Using the same formula (or recipe), the glassworkers would shovel the ingredients into the pots—this was not precise, and resulted in VARIATIONS in color from batch to batch

· The supply of the ingredients included VARIATIONS affecting color also: Remember the lesson Mr. Carder taught the salesman of red lead oxide?

· The gaffer, in blowing a series of glass in a particular shape, used globs of glass as brought to him by the servitor—which included VARIATIONS of the actual mass of glass. When the paraisons were blown and shaped, one piece, containing slightly more glass, would be a little thicker than the next, which resulted in a different shade of color. Thus two pieces, blown from the same batch, when placed side by side, display different shading.

· The source of light used to view the glass might be sunlight, incandescent light, fluorescent light, or VARIOUS other sources and kinds of light, ALL of which will cause the color of the glass to appear to be different.

· In viewing photographs of glass, the above VARIATIONS of light source must be taken into account, along with VARIATIONS in equipment and processing, e.g., different kinds of film; different settings for “white” (and therefore for color); different lengths of exposure; and many variations in processing and printing of the images, all affecting color.

· We’re all DIFFERENT!—That’s right, we all see the same thing, BUT, we see things differently! We are a whole world of individuals.

I’m sorry to have belabored the point, but strongly feel that we need to get real with the subject of color.

In plain terms, color gives life, pleasure and beauty to glass. Let’s delight in, enjoy and appreciate it for what it is.

Frank Creech, in the beautiful mountains of Brevard, North Carolina

www.cardersteubenclub.org

Any opinions expressed by participants to the Gazette e-mail newsletters are the opinions of the authors and are not endorsed by or the opinions of the Carder Steuben Club.

2013 Carder Steuben Club annual Symposium will be held at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY from September 19-21, 2013. The festivities will begin with Frederick Carder’s 150th birthday celebration on the evening of September 18, 2013.