We are exceptionally fortunate this week to host renowned Czech engraver and teacher, Jirí Harcuba, (pronounced Year-gee Har-zu-ba). Jiri’s friends and Czech colleagues Petr Novotny and Martin Janecky will join him on the Hot Shop floor.

Petr and Martin will blow cylinders. Once annealed and cut, Jiri will engrave on them. Once engraved, the cylinders will be heated and opened up to add another dimension to the portraits.

A new catalogue of Jiri’s work, produced in the Czech Republic, and titled Jirí Harcuba is available in the MG store.

From that catalogue a quote by David Whitehouse, Director of Corning Museum of Glass:

“Jiri Harcuba treasures a profound respect for the tradition of engraving but, in order to explore its possibilities, he taught himself to abandon traditional techniques and attack his material with a vigor and sense of spontaneity that produce unforgettable, sometimes startling images of artistic, intellectual, and political giants, living and dead. He teaches others to immerse themselves in what he calls the Zen of drawing on glass: forget your inhibitions, draw spontaneously. Be like a child, he urges his students, better, be like pre-school children, before the classroom has conditioned them to conform.”

Jiri first visited the US in 1983, invited by The Corning Museum of Glass. That same year, Dale Chihuly invited him to Pilchuck where, at that time, cold working scarcely existed. In order to demonstrate the possibility of engraving, Jirí had to improvise. He mounted the bit from a drill in a vise, made a copper wheel by attaching a penny to a nail, and began engraving on glass.

Jirí is a distinguished designer of coins and medals and in 1988 he received the J. Sanford Saltus Award for Achievement in Medallic Art. In 1995 Corning Museum of Glass awarded him the Rakow Commission. In 2007 he received the GAS Lifetime Achievement Award.

I know I say this a lot, but…………not to be missed! Be a frequent visitor to the Hot Shop this week.

Liz Stockhausen Cepanec
Visiting Artist Program Manager