Cindy Ison

“All that Glitters Might be Glass”
Undergraduate Summer Research Institute
IU Kokomo Department of Humanities

A trip to Kokomo Opalescent Glass, the oldest continuous producer of art glass in the country, left Darrin Smith with the desire to create his own works of art with glass. Immediately taken with the colorful glass objects, he said, “Someday, I’m going to learn to do that.”

Smith’s desire to learn to work with glass has culminated in a summer-long project in conjunction with the Undergraduate Summer Research Institute (URSI) at IU Kokomo. Smith, an IU Kokomo junior, is working with Cindy Ison, an IU Kokomo music lecturer who incorporates music and visual arts lessons into the freshman learning communities courses she teaches. Their research project, “All that Glitters Might be Glass,” will culminate in a series of new glass sculptures that will appear in the IU Kokomo Art Gallery by the end of summer 2005.

URSI enriches undergraduate teaching and learning at IU Kokomo by promoting opportunities for students to experience the processes of scholarly exploration and discovery associated with academic life. It assists the professional efforts of the college's faculty, and, through the process of inquiry, facilitates the development of independence and confidence in students. The experiences will hopefully inspire students to the pursuit of advanced academic study.

The sculptures will be a physical representation of what the pair has learned during the summer research project, which explores the world of glass sculpture. To both Smith and Ison, glass is not only eye-catching, but its history also holds a curious appeal. In the past 500 years, the art of Bohemian glass has deteriorated because of wars and adverse political and economic conditions. Most glassware that emerges from Bohemia today scarcely resembles what it was centuries ago.

Their project will look back at the history of glass and see how it has evolved, while examining techniques in glassmaking. The research will demonstrate how an artist takes ordinary pieces of glass and arranges them to create a work of art, and how is it possible to fix glass so it captures light at precise angles to reveal its brilliance. Smith and Ison will learn skills from glass artists at Kokomo Opalescent Glass who know how to take existing glass and create a piece of art that catches the light.

“It is stretching me as well as Darrin,” Ison says. “We were both fascinated by what they could do with chunks of glass and how they could turn them into beautiful pieces of art.”

To answer their questions, Ison and Smith are taking advantage of local resources like Kokomo Opalescent Glass, where they will spend a great deal of time touring the facility and interviewing personnel. They will take trips to the Indianapolis Museum of Art to view glass sculptures, and journey to the St. Clair Glass Factory in Elwood.

This project will allow Smith to pursue the history and creative components of this area of the fine arts. Ison said this project may open a field of interest to other students on campus, and in the future it may lead to a new course offering.

Smith, who is a criminal justice major, says he has always been interested in art and working with colored glass.

“I always wondered how someone could make something like that, and I've always wanted to do it,” Smith said. “The contemporary style is appealing. It’s the way the colors come together. I don’t like traditional art. I like circles and triangles—a very colorful type of work—rather than a painting featuring trees and sky.”

He feels this research will enhance his education, and he is considering a minor in art. By the end of the project he wants to have a greater understanding of why people began working with glass and the fundamentals of how to create glass art.

In the classroom, Ison has taught art history, art appreciation, drawing with a conté crayon, pointillist painting with magic markers, and collage creation, to name a few. The URSI project will only enhance her teaching as a music lecturer. One of the points stressed in Ison’s interdisciplinary introduction to the creative arts course is the inter-relatedness of the arts, rather than each area in isolation.

“I think the research will be a great help in my teaching as far as expanding my personal horizons and the history, social context, and political conditions are of course the same and affect the visual artists in the same way they affect musicians,” Ison says. “The study reinforces my knowledge of the various eras throughout the history of the arts.”

For more information, see:

Undergraduate Summer Research Institute

IU Kokomo Art Gallery