英语VOA慢速听力：展览纽约美好生活Photo: ?AMNH/D. Finnin
The ”Creatures of Light” exhibit explores the mysterious world of life that glows
FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I”m Faith Lapidus.
JUNE SIMMS: And I”m June Simms. This week, we learn about three American artists and their work. And later, we leave the art world to tell about a new exhibit at the American Muum of Natural History in New York City.
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: Anthony Corradetti works with hot, molten glass at a studio in Baltimore, Maryland. He shapes glass in the same way glass blowers before him have done for centuries. But he is not making common houhold objects. Instead, he is creating works of art.
Glass blowing dates back more than two thousand years. Rearchers have found evidence of glass blowing by the first European ttlers to North America in the early sixteen hundreds.
Anthony Corradetti says glass blowing has grown in popularity in the United States over the past fifty years.
ANTHONY CORRADETTI: “It was kind of a field that got taken over by industry. And they need less glass blowers becau everything was made by machines. But in the late sixties or early venties, people started treating it more as an art form and teaching it in art schools. And now there are just some amazing things being made out of glass in small studios, such as mine, all over the country.“
JUNE SIMMS: The first step of glass blowing is to collect the molten glass on the end of a hollow piece of steel, called a blowpipe. Water is ud to cool down the glass.
VOA
Baltimore glass blower Anthony Corradetti shapes a decorative bowl he will later ll in his studio gift shop
The object is shaped as air pressure expands the ball of hot glass. Sometimes different colors are added and the object is reheated, with temperatures reaching more than one thousand two hundred degrees Celsius. Next, the completed piece is parated from the blowpipe.
Finally, it is placed in an oven for twenty-four to forty-eight hours to keep it from cooling too quickly and breaking.
FAITH LAPIDUS: The process may em simple. But Anthony Corradetti says it takes a lot of attention and hard work. He says glass blowing is always a crowd-plear.
ANTHONY CORRADETTI: “People are really interested in glassblowing. It”s a kind of thing that everybody has en it as a child somewhere, and it leaves a big impression. Becau when you watch glassblowing, it”s kind of magical. It”s the kind of thing that everybody wants to try once in their life.“
Mr. Corradetti offers glass blowing class. He also lls his own work in the studio”s gift shop. After more than thirty years as a glass artist, he says he still enjoys what he does. ANTHONY CORRADETTI: “I like being in the environment. I like everything about it, the heat and just everything that goes along with making glass. The tools and the sounds and the smells and everything about it ... I couldn”t do anything el.“
To e Anthony Corradetti in action, watch a video on our website,
(MUSIC)
JUNE SIMMS: Ginny Ruffner is one of the best-known glass artists in the United States. Her one-of-
a-kind pieces are colorful, detailed and often humorous. Over the years, she became famous for a method called lamp working, also known as flame working. It involves using a torch to melt and shape the glass instead of blowing on it.
Ginny Ruffner almost died in a three-car accident in nineteen ninety-one. No one thought the Seattle-bad artist would ever walk or talk again. An award-winning film documentary explores that period of her life.
GINNY RUFFNER: “It”s scary when you can”t talk, you can” all your life.“
FAITH LAPIDUS: Ms. Ruffner was in a coma for five weeks and a wheelchair for five years. But she overcame her injuries. And although she still has difficulty walking and talking, she has willed herlf back to work. Now, she has a team that helps bring her dream to life.
Her team recently finished an eight point five meter-high flowerpot made of steel and aluminum. It is now in downtown Seattle. Ms. Ruffner was recently honored in Washington, DC. The Renwick Gallery
prented a special showing of the film, “A Not So Still Life, the Ginny Ruffner Story.“
JUNE SIMMS: Ms. Ruffner says it has been a long battle, but the hardest part has not been the physical problems.
J. Taboh
Artist Ginny Ruffner with one of her colorful glass works GINNY RUFFNER: “I detest being taken for granted. Being ignored. The way I talk, people assume that I”m either really old, or kind of retarded, and that is so frustrating.“
But she is firm.
GINNY RUFFNER: “Fortunately I”ve done a lot of stuff in my life, so I know that the best thing is to be open to the mystery, who knows what great things will happen. I”m sure they”re many more to come.“
Ginny Ruffner”s art can be en in more than forty muums around the world. Her work and her life continue to motivate people of all ages.
To watch a video about the artist,
(MUSIC)
FAITH LAPIDUS: It is often said that one person”s trash is another
