The Corning Museum of Glass is a must-see stop if you’re touring New York’s Southern Tier or the Finger Lakes, but Corning is a bit of a schlep from the Hudson Valley for a day trip. Now, in honor of the 2018 bicentennial of the Erie Canal, and the 150th anniversary of the relocation of the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company to Corning, this center of the US glassmaking industry is bringing its fascinating art right to us, via a one-of-a-kind floating venue called GlassBarge. This 30-by 90-foot steel canal barge has a glassblowing demonstration studio built-in, and it’ll be on tour in the Hudson Valley in June.
GlassBarge will be open for free public deck tours each day, and provide free glassblowing demonstrations from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. All demos are approximately 30 minutes long, and seating is limited, so guests are strongly encouraged to register online for specific demonstration locations and times.
Launched in Brooklyn Bridge Park on May 17, GlassBarge has been making its way up the Hudson. It will stop at Poughkeepsie’s Waryas Park June 8 through 10, the Hudson River Maritime Museum on Kingston’s Strand June 15 to 17 (joined by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum’s replica canal schooner Lois McClure) and Historic Catskill Point on June 19. It will then travel north on the Hudson, then westward along the Erie Canal before making its way to the Finger Lakes.
To sign up for one of these shipboard hot-glass demonstrations, visit https://bit.ly/2IoXBde.
