Topic: Question

[Anne Tique]

I got myself this whopper, vase Trinidad by Samuel Herman for VSL from 1972.

I had to look twice because it showed something i've seen on these vases before and also spotted in adds and I nearly made the same mistake, but I wasn't wearing my specs initially  . On the body, attached/connected to the applied spots, there are these horizontal lines. I've read before that people think that they are cracks, which they're not, but I can see why people think it is. They look like threads or folds pulled away from the applied spots in the process and you can feel and see them. Because of the clear layer in between the pink  and the applications, you can see the shadow of these lines on the pink glass.

Perhaps a silly question but is there a term for such a thing and is it normal to see this on SH productions?

Thank you for any comments.

[cagney]

From your description I would guess that the term maybe.....striae or striations. The following definition comes from the Harold Newmans book A ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF GLASS      striae. undulating or cord-like markings on glassware, caused by variation of temperature in the furnace or by the unequal density of the materials used.

Pictured is the foot of an early 19th c. blown glass wine. In this case cord-like is a very apt description. Slightly raised line of glass meandering towards the edge of the foot, as the glass was worked outward to form a disk.

[Anne Tique]

Thank you for that, that makes sense to me. In french it would be translated to 'strié'. In the french glass dictionary i have they call them 'striures' I just read.

[cagney]

You are most welcome Anne.
This may also occur in pressed glass. In the pressed cordial pictured it incircles the entire lower rim. Not to be confused with a so called " straw mark " found in many 19th c. pressed glass pieces, which I believe is a premature cooling of the glass area that has been sheared [ snipped ] from the parison and dropped into the mold.

[Anne Tique]

Thanks again. Yes, I'm familiar with the pressed glass marks, in french we call them 'hairs' but because I mainly deal with VSL, mould-blown, cut and polished, and the vase in question's just blown, it's something I don't come across very often.

I've seen them before on Herman pieces for VSL, and I don't know about other manufacturers, but in your opinion would you say it is something that's frowned upon in general?

[glassobsessed]

The horizontal lines you are asking about look like very fine trails of purple glass.

John

[cagney]

As stria are not structural defects it seems to be a matter of personal and/or market preference. In the case of the wine glass pictured previously it would probably not matter much, if at all. With the cordial it may be a distraction to some and a confirmation of early manufacture to others. These are production pieces.
 
In the case of Sam Herman and VSL, this is a whole different category. In one sense it has met both their quality control goals as they put their name on it.


Assuming there was a contractual agreement between S.H. and VSL. Is the vase purely an art piece? Is it a production piece? I would venture it falls somewhere in between, but definitely much closer to an art piece. A studio line contracted by a manufacturer.


With purely an art piece I would not question that artist's rendering. I either like it or I don't. With a production piece I may question the manufacturer's quality control. In short it visually is a judgement call, either personal or market driven.

Personally, the question I would ask (which is probably unanswerable) is how did Sam Herman feel about it ? Was it a positive happenstance that added to his work or was it a minor defect he strove to eliminate?

A note on personal/market preferences in glass. On eBay there is quite a lively market in early 19th C. American bottles and flasks. They seem to revel in cruder aspects of early mass production. As a result it often is a net positive.

[chopin-liszt]

With minor manufacturing flaws such as this, I would be considering how old the piece is in relation to the experience of the artist making it.
Lots of early Studio Glass is very crude; nobody was any sort of expert or experienced maker, but many did improve dramatically.
An early piece by a well-known artist, with lots of flaws, might not be considered to have "flaws" at all - the artist was still a learner.

You also have to consider the difficulty of the piece itself - how possible would it be to make without any flaws? If it's a massive thing, the artist would have to be wielding a lot of heavy molten metal, it's more likely a flaw might appear in something really difficult to handle, physically.

Sam started his learning in '63. One of the very first Studio Glass Artists.

[glassobsessed]

Surely the trails are deliberate and part of the design, there is no other reason for them to be there.

[cagney]

All very valid comments. A lot of his work seems to involve texture as well as visual appeal and a considerable originality in form.