From Rande Bly of Birmingham, Alabama

Let me explain how it was made. The vase is a three layer piece of glass remaining very thin in it’s final form. It is around 1/16th of an inch thick in most of it’s area. The Amethyst Cintra stripes were very finely powdered(in this case almost to dust) and laid out on the marver in a neat pattern and were picked up by the vertically ribbed pattern gather of Topaz. It was then returned to the pot for one last coating of Topaz. This trapped the Amethyst Cintra stripes between the two layers of Topaz and was then blown into it’s final form. The gas producing chemical commonly used in Cintra to make the bubbles appears to have been used in this process because when checked carefully the trapped Amethyst stripes are full of very small bubbles. The piece bears what appears to be the post production signature of Carder but we do not know when the piece was signed by him. The signature appears to be good but shows signs of the earlier type with the influence of Mr. Carder’s steadier hand. We have hints that this type of glass dated from around 1917-1921. Beth collaborates the piece is of a Cintra method where a form of control was used.

I thought all of you might enjoy seeing this and ponder what other new forms of Steuben may surface in the future. I have found I do not like to use the terms never and always with reference to Mr. Carder’s work.

Rande Bly