Tag: glass

A 500 pound Blue Crab made from Stained Glass

 

Located at Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) is Callinectes Douglassi, a 500-pound blue crab made from stained glass by artist Jackie Leatherbury Douglass and her husband John in 1984.

The 10 ft x 7 ft x 5 ft (3 x 2 x 1.5 meter) sculpture took over 5,500 man hours over a 14-month period to build. The stained glass blue crab weighs roughly 500 pounds.

The sculpture was commissioned by Anne Arudnel County. As one of Maryland’s state symbols, the blue crab was an obvious choice. According to the Baltimore Sun:

“With 550 miles of heavily crabbed waterfront, and a capital city known as Crabtowne, a newspaper nicknamed the Crab-wrapper… the crab is our most ubiquitous seafood… No creature is more deeply embedded in the bay region’s economy, culture and ecology.”

 

[Sources: The Baltimore Sun, Elvert Barnes on ipernity]

 

Callinectes Douglassi
by Jackie Leatherbury Douglass

 

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Photograph by SCOTTO BEAR

 

 

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Photograph by MICHAEL SPRY

 

 

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Picture of the Day: The Stained Glass Mapparium

 

THE STAINED GLASS MAPPARIUM

 

mapparium stained glass globe mary baker eddy library boston

 

The Mapparium is a three-story, stained glass globe of the world located at the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1935, the mapparium has attracted more than 10 million visitors since. The original map was based on a Rand McNally political map of 1934 and has never been updated, serving as a snapshot of both geographic and global history.

Inspired by the famous spinning globe in the lobby of the New York Daily News building, architect Chester Lindsay Churchill was commissioned to design the Mapparium. Made of 608 stained glass panels, the Mapparium was designed to allow the countries of the world to be viewed in accurate geographical relationship to each other.

A traditional globe is viewed from the outside with different parts of the globe at different distances from the eye, distorting perspective. By viewing the Earth from within, the eye is at the same distance from every point on the map. This produces an unique perspective of the globe.

 

 

 

 

Shattered Glass Animal Sculptures by Marta Klonowska

 

Marta Klonowska is a Polish artist from Warsaw. Her passion is sculpture and she creates installations of her amazing shattered glass animal sculptures, typically placing them in front of historical paintings from masters like Rubens and d’Agar. While the source paintings had the animals in secondary roles, Klonowska makes them the focal point. As she explains to European Glass Context:

“Animals are difficult to understand and it is difficult to communicate with them. My glass animals open therefore a new reality, which is different from ours. The sitters in the painting, the animals and the audience of my art perform in a kind of theatrical stage, where the different levels become indistinct. This clash of realities should make us think about the uncertainties of life.”

 

You can find more of her stunning work at the lorch+seidel contemporary gallery.

[via Colossal]

 

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Artwork by Marta Klonowska

 

 

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Artwork by Marta Klonowska

 

 

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Artwork by Marta Klonowska | Painting by Francisco de Goya (La Marquesa de Pontejos)

 

 

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shattered glass animal sculpture marta klonowska Portrait-of-a-Young-Girl-after-Charles-d'Agar-1

 

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Artwork by Marta Klonowska | Painting by Charles d’Agar (Portrait of a young girl)

 

 

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Artwork by Marta Klonowska

 

 

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Artwork by Marta Klonowska | Painting by Peter Paul Rubens (Venus and Adonis)

 

 

 

 

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The Glass Beach in California

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Photograph by Jef Poskanzer

 

In MacKerricher State Park, near the city of Fort Bragg in northern California, you will find a beach littered with glass. Over decades of crashing waves the glass has been smoothed and rounded, transforming the shoreline into a colourful palette of pebble-like glass and sand.

 

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From 1906-1967 (the start date is up for debate), seaside towns were known to use the coastline as dumps, Fort Bragg was no different. After the devastation of the San Francisco earthquake the streets were filled with rubble and trash was dumped on the coast for the ocean to wash away. This of course, included plenty of glass.

 

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It wasn’t until 1967 when city leaders and the North Coast Water Quality Board realized what a mistake it was and sought to relocate the dump away from the ocean and clean up the shoreline. After the clean-up and more decades of crashing ocean waves; only smoothed and rounded glass mostly remained.

 

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Photograph by Jef Poskanzer

 

Glass Beach was purchased by California State Parks in October 2002. The Coastal Conservancy, with the City of Fort Bragg and the Mendocino Land Trust worked for over four years to assemble funding for the purchase of the 38-acre property. The Land Trust managed waste removal and clean-up, and completed botanical, archaeological and erosion control work that was required prior to purchase by State Parks. Since the Pudding Creek Trestle was completed in 2007, visitors may now walk from MacKerricher State Park to the headlands at Glass Beach connecting this highly visited “city” park to several miles of beach trails.

 

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Photograph by mamojo on Flickr

 

As word of this unique beach spread, more and more visitors descended onto Glass Beach. Drawn to the beautifully smoothed and rounded glass, visitors began pocketing the glass with each visit. This has greatly diminished the amount of glass on the beach. And since it is now State Park property it is a misdemeanor to remove any artifacts. While there is still glass to be found the area has been greatly depleted.

 

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In addition to searching for glass, the beach has an interesting array of tide pools to explore. Crabs, mollusks, and many aquatic plants make their homes in these ever-changing environments.

 

Glass Ground by Surf at Fort Bragg's Glass Beach

Photograph by Lee Rentz on Flickr

 

Sources

– FortBragg.com: Glass Beach – From Trash To Treasure
– Visit Mendocino: Glass Beach
– The Mendocino Land Trust: Glass Beach
– CNN: From trash to treasure
– Wikipedia: Glass Beach (Fort Bragg, California)

 

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