Paperweight

Paperweights are heavy and often decorative objects, designed to hold sheets of paper on a surface to prevent wind from blowing the paper away. Before the advent of air conditioning, offices had to keep their windows open in the summertime and use fans to cool off buildings. Thus, paperweights were necessary to keep papers on desks. Nowadays, paperweights are mostly used as decorations.

Paperweights are commonly made from glass, although may also be made from clear acrylic or other materials. They are often collected as examples of fine workmanship, and appreciated for their aesthetic as opposed to their utilitarian aspect. They generally have a flat base and a domed top, which may be faceted or etched.

The weight may be coated with one or more thin layers of colored glass, and have windows cut through it to reveal the interior motif. The ground on which the inner parts rest may be clear or colored, have a granular ground made of unfused sand, or resemble lace (latticinio).

Antique paperweights were made primarily in three French factories, between 1845 and 1860, in Baccarat, St. Louis, and Clichy. Weights (mainly of lesser quality) were also made in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere, though Bacchus (UK) and New England Glass Company (USA) produced some that equaled the best of the French. St. Louis is producing limited quantities (100 to 300) again today.when Modern weights have been made from about 1950 to the present.

There are approximately 20,000 paperweight collectors worldwide.Fact|date=August 2008 Several collectors associations hold national or regional conventions, and sponsor activities such as tours, lectures, and auctions.

Types of paperweights

Collectors may specialize in one of several types of paperweights:

Millefiori paperweights contain thin cross-sections of cylindrical composite canes made from colored rods and usually resemble little flowers, although they can be designed after anything. These are usually made in a factory setting. The exist in many variations such as scattered, patterned, close concentric or carpet ground.

Lampwork paperweights have objects such as flowers, fruit, butterflies or animals constructed by shaping and working bits of colored glass with a gas burner or torch and assembling them into attractive compositions, which are then incorporated into the dome. This is a form particularly favored by studio artists.

Sulfide paperweights have an encased three-dimensional medallion or portrait plaque made from a ceramic. They often are produced to commemorate some person or event.

Swirl paperweights have opaque rods of two or three colors radiating like a pinwheel from a central millefiori floret.

California-style paperweights are made by "painting" the surface of the dome with colored molten glass, and manipulated with picks or other tools. They may also be sprayed while hot with various metallic salts to achieve an iridescent look.

Victorian portrait and advertising paperweights were dome glass paperweights first made in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania using a process patented in 1882 by William H. Maxwell. The portrait paperweights contained pictures of ordinary people reproduced on a milk-glass disk and encased within clear glass. This same process was also used to produce paperweights with the owner's name encased or an advertisement of a business or product. Pittsburgher Albert A. Graeser, patented a different process for making advertising paperweights in 1892. The Graeser process involved sealing an image to the underside of a rectangular glass blank using a milkglass or enamellike glaze. Many paperweights of the late 1800s are marked either J. N. Abrams or Barnes and Abrams and may list either the 1882 Maxwell or 1892 Graeser patent date. It has been theorized that Barnes and Abrams did not actually manufacture advertising paperweights for their customers, but instead subcontracted the actual manufacturing task out to Pittsburgh area glasshouses. For examples, refer to PCA's Annual Bulletins published for 2000, 2001 and 2002.

Silkglass paperweights specialise in embroidered and woven images. All the embroidered designs are made using hand operated sewing machines in small shops in Nepal. Woven images are created in the UK. Designs are encapsulated in glass tablets.

Workmanship, design, rarity, and condition determine the value of a paperweight. They range in price from a few dollars, to a record $258,500 once paid for an antique French weight. Antique weights, of which perhaps 10,000 or so survive (mostly in museums), generally appreciate steadily in value.

Visible flaws, such as bubbles, striations and scratches affect the value. Glass should not have a yellow or greenish cast, and there should be no unintentional asymmetries, or unevenly spaced or broken elements. In a modern piece, an identifying mark and date are imperative.

Glass studios

Paperweights are made by sole artisans, and in factories where many artists and technicians collaborate. Both may produce inexpensive as well as "collector" weights.

A number of small studios appeared in the late 20th century, particularly in the US. These may have several to some dozens of workers with various levels of skill cooperating to produce their own distinctive "line". Notable examples are Lundberg Studios, Orient and Flume, Correia Art Glass, Lotton, and Parabelle Glass.

In the U.S., Charles Kaziun started in 1940 to produce buttons, paperweights, inkwells and other bottles, using lamp-work of elegant simplicity. In Scotland, the pioneering work of Paul Ysart from the 1930s onward preceded a new generation of artists such as William Manson, Peter McDougall, Peter Holmes and John Deacons.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, artists such as Paul Stankard, his former assistant, Jim D'Onofrio, Chris Buzzini, Delmo and daughter Debbie Tarsitano, Victor Trabucco and sons, Gordon Smith, Rick Ayotte and his daughter Melissa, and the father and son team of Bob and Ray Banford, began breaking new ground. The work of Paul Stankard was particularly noted for its incredibly realistic portrayal of flowers, including their roots. He has more recently moved away from the classical domed paperweight to rectangular forms, which are among the finest glass objects produced in the twentieth century.

Paul Joseph Stankard, father of the modern paperweight genre

Paul Joseph Stankard, considered the father of modern glass paperweights, was born April 6th 1943 as the second of nine children in an Irish Catholic family. He lived in North Attleboro, Massachusetts in his early years. He graduated from Salem Vocational Technical Institute (now Salem Community College) in Salem, New Jersey with a degree in Scientific Glassblowing. For the first ten years of his work career, he worked as a glassblower making scientific instruments for various chemical laboratories.

Stankard, whose driving desire was to "be on the creative side", started producing glass paperweights in his garage while working in industry to support his growing family. It was when Stankard displayed his early paperweights at a craft exhibit on the boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey that Reese Palley, an internationally respected art dealer, saw his work and sponsored Stankard financially to move full time into making glass art.

In the early 1960s, paperweights made by other American paperweight makers showcased brightly colored "crafty" type flowers that were not botanically accurate. Stankard labored to make his glass floral designs look more natural and botanically life-like. His glass flowers were so real looking that many people mistakenly thought that he had found a way to encase actual flowers in glass. Soon thereafter, paperweight makers (mostly American) were following Stankard's lead.

Stankard, who is now an internationally acclaimed artist, is largely credited with changing the status of glass paperweights from that of "craft" to that of "fine art". Among many other museums, Stankard's work is exhibited at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York; the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France; the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, England; and The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York.

In September 2007, Stankard published his autobiography entitled "No Green Berries or Leaves" - The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass". In his book, Stankard chronicles his early struggles with dyslexia and the stigma of being labeled a slow learner by an educational system that at the time was not aware of dyslexia. When doing research for the book, Stankard got a copy of his high school transcripts which showed him graduating at the very bottom of his class with a low IQ. In his book, Stankard describes the pressure and difficulties arising from scoring poorly on tests because he couldn't read the test questions. The book outlines the steps Stankard took to overcome his early stigmas, low self esteem, and learning disabilities to become one of the foremost artists of his generation.

ee also

* Glass art
*

Further reading

* Reilly, Pat, (1994) "Paperweights: The Collector's Guide to Identifying, Selecting, and Enjoying New and Vintage Paperweights" ISBN 1-56138-433-X
* Selman, Lawrence H. (1992) "All About Paperweights" ISBN 0-933756-17-8
* Jargstorf, Sibylle (1997) "Paperweights" ISBN 0-88740-375-1.
* Stankard, Paul J. (2007) "No Green Berries or Leaves -- The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass" ISBN 0-939923-55-6 softcover and ISBN 0-939923-69-6 hardcover

External links

* [http://www.canadianclayandglass.ca/ The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery]
* [http://www.buzzinipaperweights.com/ Chris L. Buzzini Paperweights]
* [http://www.paperweight.org/ The Paperweight Collectors Association, Inc.]
* [http://www.paperweightcollectorscircle.org.uk/ Paperweight Collectors Circle]
* [http://selman.com/ips.html International Paperweight Society]
* [http://www.PCATX.org Paperweight Collectors Association Of Texas]
* [http://www.locallygrownart.com/ Pictures of Paperweights]