Last Wednesday I attended Drew Harvell’s talk and film presentation about the Blaschka glass collection. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the Blaschka glass is simply…Wow! The craftsmanship put into those pieces of glass art is stunning. In several of the photos that Drew showed of the glass marine models compared to photos of the living organism, I actually couldn’t identify which photo was the real organism and which was the model. I suppose that my ineptitude pertaining to marine life probably didn’t help me with the identification, but I’m still inclined to attribute my inability to distinguish between the actual organism and the model to the stunning quality of the glasswork. Not only do the models match the actual organism in shape and form, they also match in color too.
Despite the unmatched quality of the glass marine works, I can’t help but feel a tinge of melancholy upon reflecting on them. The pieces were created in order to help teach people about marine life, and to a certain extent, they still do. However, now they also carry with them the message of things lost from a time that cannot be retrieved. Due to climate change, pollution, and other human activities, it is entirely likely that many of the species represented by the glass works are now extinct. When I see a model of something, I’m the sort of person that wants to see the real thing. While models are great for educational purposes, they never do the actual thing that is being modeled justice. Unfortunately, in the case of some of the species modeled in the Blaschka collection, it is no longer possible to see the actual living organism. The situation is made further regrettable by the fact that humans are the cause of many of these extinctions.
Rather than simply educating people about marine life, the Blaschka glass models now serve as a powerful tool to demonstrate just how destructive past (and perhaps current) human practices have been, and why there is a drastic need to change them. It is my hope that future generations will live in a world in which the oceans are still occupied by most of the species represented by the Blaschka models.
It also was not clear to me which organisms were glass and which were the real animals! It was fascinating. I just hope we’re not looking at this in a “glass half full” way, where we are distracted by the beauty of the models. I hope viewers do not become distracted by the glass models and forget the shattering thought that the creatures those models represent are dying.