Tiki 2300˚-Free event at the Corning Museum of Glass Jan 17th!

Here's a bit of Tiki news coming from the great frozen north.

Many of you know me, Marshall Hyde aka Bodhi Boy, as FireMonkey Glass (formerly BodhiGlass), maker of hand-sculpted glass Tiki beads that I sell at events like the Tiki Oasis, the Hukilau, and the London Luau (and on eBay.) When I'm not attending Tiki events I live and work in Corning, New York, a city famous for glassmaking, and home of the Corning Museum of Glass. I occasionally work with the museum in it's teaching facility, The Studio, where glassmakers come from around the world to teach and study; it is the year-round glass equivalent of the Tiki seminars at the Tiki Oasis or Hukilau.

Every month from October through May, the Corning Museum of Glass hosts a third-Thursday of the month party that they call 2300 degrees (that's the temperature inside a glassblower's furnace.) Typically over 2000 people show up at this free, open to the public event, where attendees get to eat and drink while watching local, national and international glass artists demonstrate various glassmaking techniques, check out the exhibits, and listen to a wide range of live music acts. It is always one hell of a good time.

About two years ago I was talking to Rob Cassetti, senior director of creative services at the museum, at one of theses 2300 events, and we got to talking about Tikis and Tiki culture. I suggested a Tiki-themed 2300 event, and he thought it sounded like a great idea. They would do it someday.

Well, this past autumn I got the word from Rob: a Tiki 2300 was a go for January. It would be called, "TIKI, FIRE & ICE."
I provided Steve Gibbs, the museum's events manager with a stack of Tiki-inspired CDs to guide them in choosing the music act for the event (I also consulted with Otto on this) and they choose Fisherman (you've seen 'em and you love 'em) from NYC as the band for the night. I told them that no Tiki event in the world would be complete without the brilliant King Kukulele as emcee, and the King agreed to be there as well. Q Cassetti designed the great poster for the event.
Rob and Steve were 100% committed to having a true Tiki experinece at the museum. My fantasy was becoming a reality: we were bringing TIKI to upstate New York!

I'll be the guy on the hot glass stage, working with the amazing gaffers (master glassblowers) from the museum's live hot glass show.
Nowadays I'm known for my glass beads, but before I began making beads I was a glassblower, so if you give me a furnace full of hot glass, I'm gonna use it! We'll be sand casting glass moais, blowing and hot-sculpting glass Tikis, and attempting to blow the biggest glass Tiki head into the biggest wooden Tiki blow mold ever made, one I created specially for the event.

Did I forget to mention that there will be giant carved ice Aku-Aku shooting fire from their heads?
And a live, feel-free-to-join-in drumming circle?
And over 20 world famous Finger Lakes wineries will be at the museum giving out free tastings of their newest 2008 wines?

Now THAT'S a party. Check out the museum's 2300 webpage here: http://www.cmog.org/index.asp?pageId=1641

If you live anywhere within a couple hundred miles of Corning, and can come out on a Thursday evening, be there this Thursday, January 17, 5:30 to 7:30 pm, and join the crowds for the only Tiki event in January in upstate New York this year (I'm confident that we can make that claim.)

And King, remember to bring your insulated grass skirt. I'll have an extra coat for you.

FireMonkey Glass: Real Cool Glass, Made Real Hot!

[ Edited by: BodhiBoy 2008-01-13 07:07 ]

Sounds like a great time!
Wish I could be there, have fun!

Wow! There's not much I love more than watching glass blowing! And to mix that with Tiki ... :o well, I only wish I'd heard about this soon enough to get a decent airfare. It sounds very exciting! Good luck with that giant glass tiki head!

Hey Heath & JenTiki-
I wish you could be here, too.
I should have made a posting earlier, but I never figured someone would travel from sunny California to sunny (but COLD) New York. Now that I know there's an enthusiastic audience, I'll definitely get the word out earlier.

I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes an annual 2300 theme.
If it does, maybe they'll try a different time of year, like May, when it's absolutely gorgeous in Corning.

Everything will be recorded, and when I get my hands on the tapes I'll post some videos on my new FireMonkey Glass website and on YouTube.

Watch this space!

yer pal,
Bodhi Boy

FireMonkey Glass: Real Cool Glass, Made Real Hot!

Looking forward to the footage.

Hey Marshall. This sounds like a great event. Especially if you're into glass. Give us a bit more notice next year. We both miss NY and it'd be a real treat to use this show as a cheap excuse for a visit. Don't even mind the weather. Have fun and post some pix.

Nice poster too!

M&M

Aaaaaggghhh, yer killin me! Your glass is HOT Bodhiboy...reeeeally dig yer goodies!! :D This would be a great show to attend and only 6 hours drive from DC for me...but alas its short notice and cannot attend. :(
Please share photos and such this time, but if you do this tiki-style sourie again...please, please get advanced word out and I'd be there! :D
I'd attend just to keep an eye on da cheeky half... ya know that Velvet Glass krewe likes to take big pieces of nice glass, bust it down into smaller pieces and then create a beautiful big piece again... go figure?? :lol:

Have a great show, your glass really blows...errr, that's not what I meant, shoootz...?

Hey, the delightful M&M, and the effervescent T-Jones-
I am still kicking myself in the ass for not mentioning the show earlier. It'd be great to see all of you!
Next year I'll put the word out as soon as I get it.
I don't know if there are any of the tiki tribe in upstate NY, but if there are I hope this event brings 'em out of the woodwork.

Meanwhile, I'm posting a couple of photos of the past day's warm up session with the museum's hot glass show gaffers: Eric Meek, George Kennard, and G. Brian Juk.

Here's Eric and George (the Big Kahuna) with the 5 furnace gathers needed to fill the wooden blow mold.

George drops the gather over the edge of the stage into the mold, while I get ready to close the mold.

I keep the mold held tightly shut while George inflates the gather; there's a lot of smoke and steam.

Here's George heading back to the bench with the world's Biggest Glass Tiki Head.

Here Eric picks up a blank I've enameled out of a warm-up kiln.

We've shaped the blank to look like a volcano, with lava running down from the top; Eric is giving it a final heat before knocking it off the punty.

This last photo isn't glass; it's a giant carved ICE Moai head.
Tomorrow night it will be lit with stage lights and will have flames shooting out the top of its head. Oh yeah....

FireMonkey Glass: Real Cool Glass, Made Real Hot!

Oh what a wonderful event! I wish it were on a weekend!! I am not sure how far Corning is from me. I think it's pretty far. have fun tonight! hugs~ tink

I was just doing my regular flickr tiki roundup and found a great set of photos from this event:
2300 degrees Tiki at CMOG
The glass shrunken head is AWESOME!

Hey Paipo-

That's fantastic! I don't know pawtrait, the person who posted those fantastic pics, but I'm grateful to them for doing it, and to you for bringing it to my attention.
I was on the outside glass stage all night, so I never got a chance to see King Kukulele & Fisherman do their things on the music stage inside the museum, but I heard it was terrific. Maybe someone will post pictures of that, too.
My wife and I had dinner with King & his sweetie & little girl afterwards, and that was a real treat.
As brilliantly funny, manic and musical he is on stage, he is just as funny, manic and imaginative off the stage.

And Paipo, I see you're from NZ; the guy who rigged up the fire for the big ice head is Lewis Olson, another local glass artist, very talented, who has his own hotshop (Noslo Glass), and just happens to be a Kiwi as well. He's been in Corning for maybe 20 years. He just went back to New Zealand this past fall to visit family.

FireMonkey Glass: Real Cool Glass, Made Real Hot!

It looks like it was a great event. I liked all of the flickr photos - and when I saw the following photo on slideshow mode, my first thought was that it was a giant Moai head figure on the left

Whttp://www.flickr.com/photos/pawtrait/2202091758/in/set-72157603741764860/

I saw the Corning Museum of Glass (from the outside) once in my life. I was in the north central part of Pennsylvania, looking for a room while on a roadtrip, but all the rooms were booked due to a nearby NASCAR race in the Poconos. I kept driving further north and north, with no luck, until finally I found some rooms outside Corning. I drove through downtown in the morning, saw the Museum, but sadly, it was too early in the morning, and I had to move on.

It was nice to see tiki associated with that town, which provided lodging for me late at night when I was tired. Next time I'm in the area, I will try to stop and visit longer.