I have often been described as one of those itinerant sales people - 'have bag will travel'! I have found over the decades that if you have an idea that has evolved out of what you were doing over say, the last couple of years, then it's worth pursuing, particularly if it relates in part to travel which as we all know is the best educator of all.
In the early 80's I had sold my glass engraving business but had retained the 'invention' of sand blasting images onto glass with the benefit of a 'novel invention', that of blasting the sand particles through a tissue that had been stuck to the glass with a soluble glue but where the 'resist' was a PVC plastisol.
I took this method of engraving to the States and managed to sell the process to Lenox Glass in New Jersey, Hallmark Cards in Kansas, Missouri and Lenny Florence of Sygma, Boston. However there were many blind alleys along the way but involved intriguing travel and delightful anecdotal stories.
I took a flight out of Chicago, O'Hare Airport to Toledo where there was a centre for certain types of pressed glass manufacture and met with Owens of Illinois, Libbey and L.E Smith. This trip was illuminating, depressing and on the business front fruitless. However, being 'in the glass industry' I had read of the beacon of all things glass that of Corning's Glass Museum in Elmira, Ohio.
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Based on the educational angle regarding travel and the ever present maxim of 'you never know' I took a Greyhound Bus from Toledo to Elmira and then on to Ithaca, Syracuse and then back to New York.
When I got to the Greyhound Bus Station in Toledo there were two couples waiting for the coach I was about to catch and they looked pretty destitute and it was apparent that whatever they had in their black plastic trash can bags/luggage was their worldly wealth. I was immediately reminded of that wonderful film "Midnight Cowboy and the final phase of the film where John Voight (Joe Buck) and Dustin Hoffman (Ratso) picked up a coach at the Port Authority in New York to go down to the sun in Florida and lo and behold Ratso had the black trash bag with his worldly belongings. In a very poignant moment when they stopped off for a break on the journey Joe Buck went out and bought some new clothes for Ratso he being in a desperate dishevelled state and in fact close to his last hours. The scene of Joe Buck putting his arm around Ratso's shoulders with his brightly coloured garb and shirt for the Miami sun was very moving.
So my Greyhound Bus journey to Elmira was filled with all these wonderful thoughts and as an added bonus when I got to the Glass Museum I was delighted to find almost as soon as I walked in to the Museum some spectacular glass studio pieces by Livio Seguso very similar to two pieces I had bought in Livio's Studio in Murano in the very early 70's.
The journey up through the Finger Lakes, Ithica and Syracuse was poignant my head being filled with subliminal thoughts of "Midnight Cowboy" as I said farewell to one of the 'bag' couples in Ithica and the other in Syracuse.
The day after getting back into New York I had an appointment with the Vice President of Stueben Glass in Fifth Avenue and whilst been given a tour of their fine showrooms and their exquisite artistry of cutting,polishing and engraving spectacular studio pieces designed by recognised 'masters' my mind floated back "to the other end of the equation and the 'black bags/worldly wealth' in contrast to these almost priceless pieces. All this exemplifying the point that there will always be 'slots' in life for all of us.
Of interest Steuben Glass is owned by the Corning Group.
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