CORNING, N.Y. — The Corning Museum of Glass is an international draw with visitors from around the world.   

There is currently an exhibit there that tells those visitors some of the history of our region.

“I picked it up because I needed an art elective and college,” said Erik Meek, a gaffer at the museum.

Now, 30 years later, Meek runs the hot glass programs at the museum.

“For a lot of people who come here this is the first time they've ever seen glassmaking,” Meek said. “And I think it's really surprising to see, you know how hard it is. First and foremost, glass is 2,000 degrees when it comes out of the furnace, but also how quickly you can form it into beautiful things.”

The Corning Museum of Glass is a place where they still do things by hand — things that are now largely machine-made.   

It's a hands-on experience where folks can also make their own glass.

“So the cool thing about glassmaking is it's been happening in this form for almost 2000 years," Meek said. "So here at the museum, you can see objects that are 2,000 years old that were made just exactly like we're making glass here today.“

Part of the museum’s “Fire and Vine” exhibit tells the story of two things with deep roots in the Finger Lakes — glass and wine.

“One of the things that I learned when I was working on this exhibition is just how deep the history of both glass and wine are here in this region," said Katherine Larson, the museum's curator of ancient glass. "Both extend back for more than 150 years.”

“I’m hoping for it to introduce those local stories that perhaps are more familiar to many of us, to a global audience,” Larson added. “As well as maybe introduce them to some of the locals who are more familiar and drive connections back and forth between the wineries and the glass museum here.”

“What I love about it is that it's a material that you can be endlessly creative with," Meek said. "Any idea you can have you can make it in glass, and you can see that here in the museum's collection. Just the span of history and all the ideas that have come to form and glass. It's amazing.”

The story of glass is one that’s still being written here.

“Glass is something that you don't think that you shaped with your hands right," Meek said. "You know you encounter glass every day in so many ways but you never really consider it until you have a chance to see it being made and to shape it yourself. And so it's really an eye opening experience people come here they say, 'I had never knew. I had no idea.' And that's really what we love to see." 

The "Fire and Vine" exhibit runs through Summer 2022.