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World-renowned glass artist shares his expertise at Centre College</a><br>
<font size="-1"><font color="#666666">Kentucky.com -
Lexington,KY,USA</font><br>
DANVILLE — It's a long way from the Italian island of Murano — the
center of Venetian <b>glassblowing</b> for 1000 years — to the
converted railroad shed beside the tracks<b>...</b><a
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.kentucky.com/964/story/593958.html">http://www.kentucky.com/964/story/593958.html</a><br>
<br>
<h1 id="story_headline">World-renowned glass artist shares his
expertise at Centre College</h1>
<div id="story_bycredit"> <span class="byline">By Tom Eblen</span> - <span
class="creditline">Herald-Leader columnist</span> </div>
<!-- CLOSE: #story_header -->
<div id="story_text_top">
<p> </p>
<p>DANVILLE
— It's a long way from the Italian island of Murano — the center of
Venetian glassblowing for 1,000 years — to the converted railroad shed
beside the tracks at the edge of Centre College's campus.</p>
<p>But that shed has been producing some fine art glass for two decades
— and especially for the past week.</p>
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style="position: absolute; top: 0pt; left: 0pt; display: block; z-index: 4; opacity: 1;"
class="slide"><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/731-081111LinoTE037.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox"
title="Lino Tagliapietra, 74, is at Centre College for the fourth time since 2000. In 2004, Tagliapietra, who never went to college, received an honorary doctorate from Centre."
alt="Lino Tagliapietra, 74, is at Centre College for the fourth time since 2000. In 2004, Tagliapietra, who never went to college, received an honorary doctorate from Centre."
rel="story-images"> <img class="imageCycle"
src="cid:part1.07000001.02070804@glassblower.info"
alt="081111LinoTE037"></a><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/37-081111LinoTE237.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox"
title="Top: Samba do Brasil&#xFEFF;, a glass installation by Lino Tagliapietra.
Courtesy of Lino Tagliapietra Inc.
Right: Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece Tuesday at Centre College. Students watched as he turned glass rods into art. Tagilapietra has been a mentor and friend to Centre professor ?Stephen Rolfe Powell, also a top glass artist, for decades.
Tom Eblen | teblen@herald-leader.co"
alt="Top: Samba do Brasil&#xFEFF;, a glass installation by Lino Tagliapietra.
Courtesy of Lino Tagliapietra Inc.
Right: Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece Tuesday at Centre College. Students watched as he turned glass rods into art. Tagilapietra has been a mentor and friend to Centre professor ?Stephen Rolfe Powell, also a top glass artist, for decades.
Tom Eblen | teblen@herald-leader.co"
rel="story-images"> </a><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/541-Samba%20do%20Brasil-5.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox" title="" alt="" rel="story-images"> </a><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/368-081111LinoTE351b.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox"
title="Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece with help from assistant Dave Waters, right, and
Centre College professor and fellow glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell."
alt="Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece with help from assistant Dave Waters, right, and
Centre College professor and fellow glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell."
rel="story-images"> <img class="imageCycle"
src="cid:part2.00060806.00050805@glassblower.info"
alt="081111LinoTE351b">
</a><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/541-Samba%20do%20Brasil-5.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox" title="" alt="" rel="story-images"><img
class="imageCycle" src="cid:part3.09050402.03050604@glassblower.info"
alt="Samba do Brasil-5"></a><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/368-081111LinoTE351b.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox"
title="Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece with help from assistant Dave Waters, right, and
Centre College professor and fellow glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell."
alt="Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece with help from assistant Dave Waters, right, and
Centre College professor and fellow glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell."
rel="story-images"> </a><br>
<br>
Lino Tagliapietra, 74, is at Centre College for the
fourth time since 2000. In 2004, Tagliapietra, who never went to
college, received an honorary doctorate from Centre.</div>
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<div
style="position: absolute; top: 0pt; left: 0pt; display: none; z-index: 3; opacity: 0;"
class="slide"><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/37-081111LinoTE237.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox"
title="Top: Samba do Brasil&#xFEFF;, a glass installation by Lino Tagliapietra.
Courtesy of Lino Tagliapietra Inc.
Right: Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece Tuesday at Centre College. Students watched as he turned glass rods into art. Tagilapietra has been a mentor and friend to Centre professor ?Stephen Rolfe Powell, also a top glass artist, for decades.
Tom Eblen | teblen@herald-leader.co"
alt="Top: Samba do Brasil&#xFEFF;, a glass installation by Lino Tagliapietra.
Courtesy of Lino Tagliapietra Inc.
Right: Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece Tuesday at Centre College. Students watched as he turned glass rods into art. Tagilapietra has been a mentor and friend to Centre professor ?Stephen Rolfe Powell, also a top glass artist, for decades.
Tom Eblen | teblen@herald-leader.co"
rel="story-images"> <img class="imageCycle"
src="cid:part4.04020405.04050407@glassblower.info"
alt="081111LinoTE237">
</a>
<p class="caption"> Top: Samba do Brasil, a glass installation by Lino
Tagliapietra.
Courtesy of Lino Tagliapietra Inc. Right: Italian glass artist Lino
Tagliapietra worked on a piece Tuesday at Centre College. Students
watched as he turned glass rods into art. Tagilapietra has been a
mentor and friend to Centre professor ?Stephen Rolfe Powell, also a top
glass artist, for decades.
Tom Eblen | <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:teblen@herald-leader.co">teblen@herald-leader.co</a></p>
</div>
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style="position: absolute; top: 0pt; left: 0pt; display: none; z-index: 2; opacity: 0;"
class="slide"><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/541-Samba%20do%20Brasil-5.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox" title="" alt="" rel="story-images"> <img
class="imageCycle" src="cid:part3.09050402.03050604@glassblower.info"
alt="Samba do Brasil-5">
</a>
<p class="caption"> </p>
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style="position: absolute; top: 0pt; left: 0pt; display: none; z-index: 1; opacity: 0;"
class="slide"><a
href="http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2008/11/16/02/368-081111LinoTE351b.embedded.prod_affiliate.79.jpg"
class="thickbox"
title="Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece with help from assistant Dave Waters, right, and
Centre College professor and fellow glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell."
alt="Italian glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece with help from assistant Dave Waters, right, and
Centre College professor and fellow glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell."
rel="story-images"> <img class="imageCycle"
src="cid:part2.00060806.00050805@glassblower.info"
alt="081111LinoTE351b">
</a>
<p class="caption"> <span class="creditline">ALL</span> - Italian
glass artist Lino Tagliapietra worked on a piece with help from
assistant Dave Waters, right, and Centre College professor and fellow
glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell.</p>
</div>
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That's
because this month, Lino Tagliapietra, one of the world's greatest
glassblowers, is making his fourth trip to Danville to pass along six
decades of expertise to art students at Centre.
<p>If you want to watch, he will have public demonstrations Monday and
Tuesday.</p>
<p>It
was cold and rainy outside last Tuesday, but it was toasty in the glass
studio of Centre's Jones Visual Arts Center — better known as the Art
Barn. The glass furnaces were glowing 2,200-degree orange as students
watched Tagliapietra turn rods of colored glass into intricately
patterned vessels.</p>
<p>With a calm demeanor and a deft touch, the
74-year-old master made a blob of molten glass almost dance at the end
of his hollow steel rod. The glass was blown, rolled, pinched, twisted
and snipped as Tagliapietra padded around the studio in Venetian
slippers. All the while, he and his assistants kept the glass pliable
with quick dips into the furnace or a skillfully applied blowtorch.</p>
<p>"Glass
is an all-natural material ... fire, sand and water combined together,"
Tagliapietra said during an interview between classes. "I feel it is a
very big medium. I think it is probably one of the most beautiful
mediums in our life."</p>
<p>Tagliapietra was born on Murano, near
Venice, and apprenticed to a famous glass studio when he was 11. By 21,
he had achieved the rank of maestro. He worked as a master glassblower
and designer for some of Italy's best studios. But he wanted more.</p>
<p>In
the 1960s, he began adding his own concepts to the centuries-old
methods of Venetian glassmaking. By the 1970s, he was collaborating
with other artists, creating techniques, patterns and designs, and
passing his knowledge on to students around the world. </p>
<p>One of
them was Stephen Rolfe Powell, a 1974 Centre alum who discovered hot
glass as a graduate student in ceramics. Powell returned to Centre to
teach in 1983 and built the hot-glass studio two years later with help
from Corning Glass in Harrodsburg and Philips Lighting in Danville.
Powell has since become one of Kentucky's most-honored teachers — and
artists. His large, colorful glass vessels have earned him an
international reputation.</p>
<p>Tagliapietra and Powell became close
friends, and they have worked together all over the world. Powell
persuaded the master to visit Danville for the first time in 2000 by
promising to take him to the Kentucky Derby. "I pulled out every stop I
knew to get good seats," Powell said.</p>
<p>Tagliapietra returned to
Centre in 2004, when he received an honorary degree along with
then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "He started
working in a factory at 11 and never studied, never got his degrees,"
Powell said. "So him getting the doctoral degree was really cool. It
was a pretty touching moment."</p>
<p>The master returned to Danville in
2006, and he is spending nine days here this month. Powell planned
Saturday to take him to his first American football game: Kentucky vs.
Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>"I feel very grateful to Centre College,"
Tagliapietra said. "For me it is very important to come back here to
spend time with Stephen and the kids. I respect Stephen as a teacher
and a man. I feel he is a true gentleman."</p>
<p>Sitting on temporary
bleachers in the small studio, Centre students watched closely as
Tagliapietra and his assistants worked. A few advanced students helped
here and there.</p>
<p>"I don't think I could have imagined when I came
to Centre that the best glassblower in the world would be here," said
Michael Garton, a junior art major from Louisville, who took careful
notes.</p>
<p>Garton is primarily a painter, but he's attracted to hot
glass. "There's so much you can do with color and transparency that you
can't do with any other medium," he said. What is he learning by
watching the master? "Mostly that there's a long way to go," he said,
smiling.</p>
<p>Tagliapietra lives on Murano but works at a studio near
Seattle for three months each year. He has a dozen assistants there —
each an accomplished artist in his or her own right. </p>
<p>One of the
four assistants who accompanied him to Danville was 2002 Centre
graduate D.H. McNabb, 28. He met Tagliapietra during his first visit
here. Working for the master for the past five years has been
"absolutely amazing," McNabb said.</p>
<p>"Lino understands the history
of where he came from ... all of the tradition of glass," McNabb said.
"Then he came over here and was able to see the innovative approach of
the Americans ... and that opened him up to more exploration. That
stopped him from being restrained by his techniques and helped him to
invent new ones."</p>
<p>When Tagliapietra is working in Seattle, he
goes at it hard, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day. "It's hard work, but a lot
of love," McNabb said. "I'm just in awe of him."</p>
<p>After 63 years of glassblowing, Tagliapietra said he is still
learning, experimenting and growing as an artist.</p>
<p>"Every
time I do one piece, or one series, I try to test myself," he said. "It
doesn't matter what you did yesterday. It's important what you do today
and tomorrow."<br>
<br>
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