Hello Chicago!

This weekend I am heading for Chicago as next week I’ll be covering the NFRC’s summer meeting (more about that next week). For now I’m just looking forward to visiting Chicago as it really is one of my favorite cities. To me you can walk through downtown and still feel like you’re in a small town and not a big city. And aside from the fact that the architecture is incredible (with lots of glass, too, I might add), currently there’s another great glass display in the city at the Museum of Science and Industry, and yes, I am going to visit it.

The Glass Experience (http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/the-glass-experience/) as it’s titled, is an exhibition that’s showing until September 1. The website describes the exhibition as exploring “how glass has shattered the paradigms of our world’s civilization.” It includes a look at everything from the works of Chihuly, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright (as in decorative glass) to safety and security products to future technologies. On a side note can anyone find the oops on this page: http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/the-glass-experience/the-exhibit/industrious-and-inventive/? Looks like whoever wrote the text up here should have done just a bit more research, don’t you think?

I have no doubt that visiting the Glass Experience will be a tremendous … experience. As you know I also love an opportunity to learn more about glass and I love to see how others outside our little industry are embracing this technology. Talking specifically about the growth of the decorative glass market, someone said to me earlier this week, “Wow, people are finally taking serious notice of decorative glass!”

And they really are … even the people who don’t even know what decorative glass is … they see how it can differentiate and bring something special to that application. I am excited about where this is going and I am sure you are, too.