Amazing, surprising, nice discovery

---

We were walking in downtown Prague, not far from the John Lennon Wall, when something caught Nancy's eye. Through an open doorway was a small cobblestone courtyard, like so many you see here, and though that another open door. On each side of the second door was a two to three foot tall bell shaped piece of glass. We entered the room and discovered a temporary exhibit of incredible pieces of glass ware. This was not the regular commercial stuff you see in the stores here in the Czech Republic. This was extremely high quality, beautifully designed glassware. The Czech Republic is known for its glass. The exhibit was housed in three rooms. As we passed through the second room a woman came in from outside and spoke to us.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I only speak English."

She immediately switched to English. She said, "If you have any questions, we are sitting in the courtyard." After talking a few minutes she went outside, joining friends in a grassy couryard.

We continued looking at the beautiful glass and a man walked in, placing flowers in a vase. He was the artist/owner of the glassworks and a very interesting man. "I am retiring" he said, "and this is my final showing. My grandfather had his final showing here also, up there on the second story."

We talked with him for fifteen minutes or so about the work. Some of the pieces on display were designed by people working with him. Others were made from designs executed long ago and never made. There were many different types of art work included in the display. Some were obviously very old and traditional. Most were either new or old but incredibly unique. I never saw nicer glass in production in modern days.

"Stores will not take glass of this quality," he said. "The prices are high, it is true and stores say they cannot make enough money with very excellent glass. Most shops are afraid to make things they don't know will sell so most things are rather 'cookie cutter'.

The work of really excellent craftsman is dying all over the world it seems. This is because people aim for profit and making a living over real artistic freedom. This gentleman has lived in Austria much of his life and only returned to the former family business in the Czech Republic after the Soviet Union broke up. He has brought the family glass business back to life. Obviously he has a good amount of money to use in investing in real art. He told us he supported some other small glass companies over the winters so they could stay in business and continue to produce lovely art glass. He impressed us very much with his dedication to the Czech Republic and high quality art work. I told him I thought places like the Corning Museum in New York would be interested in most of the pieces he had on display. He smiled and told us that Corning has already bought a number of his works and they are on display there.

To reinact his grandfather's life, he will walk from Prague to Vienna pushing a wheelbarrow of glass. What an interesting man and what lovely, lovely glass. I wish we had taken more pictures to share with you. since the ones we took are among the least interesting. Guess we got too busy talking to concentrate on photography I hope you get to see his work in a museum some day or if you are well off-I hope you can buy some of this glass yourself. We were afraid to ask prices!
Oh the one Bill says there is a message. It is a copy of a South American design. The object in South America was a cylinder that had a message 'written' on it in the language of the Native Americans. It would be held under an arm held with a hand and the person carrying the message could run with it to the next town/village.

---