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New Orleans School of Glass
Works
One of New Orleans' best kept secrets
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Following Cindee's direction, we hop the St. Charles Streetcar
(post Katrina, you will take a city
bus from Canal Street, across from
the Mariott Hotel)
and head for the Warehouse District on Magazine Street.
It is
exactly the kind of place you expect to find the unique and extraordinary.
If you have a car - which we don't - you
can drive for six miles and discover all sorts of fun things to look at,
buy and eat. If you don't have a car, bus #11 will deliver you to
any point, but our take on that, after a futile wait of 45 minutes,
is - don't!
At least don't think you'll be getting on and off
to explore the street. Get the guide,
Shopper's
Dream, and plan ahead and get a cab, or take the bus directly to the
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You can call United
Cab and for $30, get a 'faux limo' - a taxicab at your service for 2
hours!
The School of Glass Works is in a restored historical 1800's brick
building in the middle of the block. it is the largest facility of
its kind in the South.
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The sparkling baubles in the window catch
our attention first. Green, red and crystal clear ornaments of all shapes,
hanging from almost-invisible strings, are making little prisms from the
winter sun. |
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The Glass Aquarium
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We open the door into a glass
fairyland. Each piece, displayed prominently in it's own space, is
an original.
My immediate instinct is to put my hands in my pockets and be
'thin'. One wrong move and something could go crashing to the floor,
empty our wallets and banish us from the kingdom.
But the atmosphere invites us to step into the creativity and the glass
is to beautiful to resist.
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The School of Glass Works is not a gazing gallery -
although you can do that too. It's a place where you are invited to
not only ask questions about the creation of the pieces you see, but to
actually participate in the process! You can do it on
several levels, and if you here you must! So we do.
A door in the back of the gallery opens into a world
where white hot furnaces are chewing up long metal sticks of molten
glass. Visitors are invited to sit along the edge and witness the
glass sculptors and blowers at work.
Master artists from all over the world are attracted to
the school and work side by side with prominent Southern craftsmen.
Today, we are lucky enough to see three of those artists at
work.
Continued
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