Journey to Murano Island: Turning Kevin Maggiore’s photograph into new art

A Murano glass master carefully grips a hollow steel pipe at one end and maneuvers the other ends with a globe of molten glass inside a stone furnace. The 2,000 degree heat is intense. At 1,500 degrees it can melt glass. Master glassblower Damiano Carrer keeps rotating the pipe for no more than a few minutes inside the furnace before pulling it out. He follows in the footsteps of generations of glass artists going back to the 10th century on Murano Island, Italy, near Venice.

The inspiration for the creation is a photograph taken by Kevin Maggiore (ABJ ’79), a producer, director and professional photographer living nearly 5,000 miles away in Greensboro, Georgia. Maggiore’s photograph of the Northern Lights outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, was transformed into glass art by the glass master working at the Original Murano Glass  Factory in Italy.

“I was blown away,” Maggiore said. “I thought he was going to create a green vase that would look almost identical to the photograph. He actually took the elements of the Northern Lights and created a piece of art.”

The walls of Maggiore’s home are lined with photographs of nature’s wonders from Africa to Alaska, reflecting his worldwide travels as a professional photographer. Last September, Maggiore spent five nights photographing the Northern Lights. He took hundreds pictures as the light show of colors moved in waves across the night sky. When he returned to his hotel room to review his work, one photo stood out. At the bottom is a tree line in a forest, and out shoots what looks like a whirlwind of bright green light with a deep blue sky as a backdrop. The green light resembles a twister spinning out of the treetops. Maggiore thought it also looked like the shape of a vase.

Scroll to view photos: Damiano Carrer, an glass master at the Original Murano Glass Factory, uses a steel pipe to heat the glass in a furnace and shape it into a vase.

As an admirer of Murano Glass, Maggiore reached out to them with an idea: use the picture of the Northern Lights to make a vase. The Original Murano Glass Factory agreed, and Maggiore booked a flight for a trip to Italy in April to photograph the glass master in action.

On April 28, he arrived in Venice and took a short boat ride to Murano. That’s where he met Carrer, who would make the vase from Maggiore’s photograph. So far in his illustrious career, it is estimated he has created more than 18,000 pieces of art. He has worked from a photograph less than 50 times.

As Maggiore took photographs, Carrer went through the process of turning a blob of molten glass into a vase. Maggiore says Carrer had several assistants, and for the next hour the men rarely talked, but communicated with their eyes and gestures. Carrer constantly heated and shaped the molten glass, starting with the bottom of the vase. He rolled the heated glass in colors glass granules. He created layers of colors, using a technique the Italians call “submerged”. This gives the optical illusion that the colors are immersed and floating. After an hour of heating and shaping, the new vase cooled, and Maggiore saw the finished vase for the first time.  

A deep blue colored mass of glass sits at the bottom of the 31-pound vase. Part of the middle of the vase is clear, and a green colored mass of glass looks like it has been dropped into the open top of the vase.

After completing the vase, Carrer agreed to make this a very limited edition, with 10 made and sold by the Original Murano Glass Factory. Maggiore bought the original vase and had it shipped to his home in Greensboro, to display among many professional awards that he has won over the years including several national Telly and Aegis Awards. He says that the entire experience from Alaska to Italy puts a bow on an outstanding career of photography.

“It’s amazing that this has happened this late in my career,” Maggiore concluded. “To put it in simple terms, this thing is the Academy Award, the Oscar, the Emmy…any award in television. I will put this vase right up there with any of them. That’s how much this vase means to me.”

Author: Sam Dick (ABJ ’79)

Editor: Sarah Freeman, freemans@uga.edu