Local art museums collaborate for Glass Blowout

and Science Center and the Vestal Museum, with each hosting different themes and styles.

art, according to WiesnerRosales.

A new trio of exhibitions is showcasing various uses for glass.

The Glass Blowout Exhibitions of Binghamton can be found at the Binghamton University Art Museum, Roberson Museum

The director of the BU Art Museum, Diana Butler, coordinated with the executive director of the Roberson Museum, Michael Grasso, and the director of the Vestal Museum, Cherese Wiesner-Rosales, to showcase this exhibition. This allowed for a great moment of interaction between the city and the

“This was an opportunity to bring three local museums together and encourage people from both the local and University community to attend all three exhibitions,” WiesnerRosales said.

The exhibition in the Roberson Museum is called “Looking at Glass,” which according to Grasso, features a small sampling of the diverse uses of glass in art, industry, architecture, fashion, medicine and beyond. The exhibition is held from Feb. 11 to May 13, 2023, and allows viewers to get a glimpse into how glass is a part of various aspects of their lives — whether it be in history or now. Grasso mentioned specific objects, such as vessels, windows, containers and artwork from various historic epochs and cultures.

“There are Ancient Roman perfume vials, bottles from shipwrecks on the Spanish Main, 19th century patent medicines, stained glass from local lost architecture, early optical technology, telescopes, period eyewear, fanciful Steuben figurines [and] historic lighting devices,” Grasso said.

“Found in the Ground: Glass Artifacts of Broome County” is the exhibition at the Vestal Museum, from Feb. 11 to May 3, 2023. The exhibition showcases a whole variety of cool items, according to WiesnerRosales.

“Objects were found at excavation sites in Downtown Binghamton,” Wiesner-Rosales said. “Visitors will encounter medicine, cosmetics and perfume bottles, along with other artifacts from the 19th through the mid-20th centuries.”

These objects were given on loan to Vestal Museum by the Public Archaeology Facility (PAF) at BU. The project director of the facility, Claire Horn, selected the objects. According to WiesnerRosales, the current response by visitors is that they have enjoyed the subject matter, with many people coming to visit.

BU Art Museum is exhibiting the “Bonds: Glass Bonds,” from Feb. 2 to May 13, 2023. This exhibition shows an array of objects manifesting the atomic bonds that constitute glass and the social bonds that glass enables. Throughout the exhibition space, triplets of objects will touch on the art and science of glass, as well as exemplify one aspect of bonds, according to Wiesner-Rosales.

“Visitors will encounter the composition, structure and properties of natural and artificial glasses, view some glass production techniques and actively engage with the diverse ways in which glass objects can be used to create social bonds,” Wiesner-Rosales said.

The BU Art Museum showcases different themes and presents glass that relates to the theme presented. It showcases different glasses, the tools used to form glass, the shattering of different glass, how glass is used as a weapon or form of decoration, different forms of glass being used in history and artworks and tools made up of glass. This exhibition allows visitors to understand the different uses of glass, and to learn how it is incorporated into our lives now or in the past.

The Glass Blowout Exhibitions at the BU Art Museum, Roberson Museum and Science Center, and the Vestal Museum are all open and free to the public. With so much to see and learn, individuals that visit all three of the sites receive a small glass figurine as a bonus.

Two Fridays ago, Just Breathe opened its doors as the first legal cannabis dispensary in New York outside of NYC. Owner Damien Cornwell, a local production studio owner and partner with the Broome County Urban League, was one of only 36 people granted dispensary licenses by the state this past November.

Just Breathe’s opening represents a milestone for the state of New York, coming with a wealth of potential financial, safety and social benefits for Binghamton.

Cornwell has noted that dispensaries offer opportunities for economic growth in cities like Binghamton, which have been in economic decline.

When marijuana was legalized in Colorado in 2012, financially devastated cities like Pueblo saw their economies injected with tens of millions of dollars.

In 2021, the 21 states that allowed for legal personal consumption of marijuana saw tax revenue more than double from 2019, as well as increases in job growth.

Additionally, legalization offers community