Your Tiffany lamp or your Waterford crystal vase is the centerpiece of your living room – your pride and joy. Your care and nurturing of it only eclipsed by the care you provided your children or your beloved pet. True, it is an object – but is indeed an object of ART. But when your lamp or your vase is cracked or broken, what do you do? You might try to fix it yourself, but no doubt you will be unhappy with the results especially if you purchase hardware adhesive which is inherently inferior. You need a glass repair professional, with years of experience in the glass restoration field and with the many forms that glass art takes. The kind of seamless repair and glass restoration you are looking for is best achieved through the talents of a true glass artisan. But just what sort of glass art do you have that needs restoration? An experienced glass restoration professional will tell you that these brands of glass art are often quite restorable. The manner of repair and the degree of invisibility of the repair will both vary based upon the skill level and experience of the professional you employ, as well as the type of piece being repaired and to what degree it was damaged.

Repairing “contemporary designer” glass is a skill that glass artisans have painstakingly taken years to master. Take a look at the pieces repaired by the professional and in many cases you will no doubt be hard pressed to identify the initial damage. chandelier lotroIn fact, before you hire any glass restoration professional, always review photos of past art they have previously restored in order to gauge the mastery of their work.chandelier majora's mask Typically, what sorts of damage can be addressed by a glass repair professional?chandelier gioielli capri Of course, this is just a small representative list of the many types of glass repair and restoration projects undertaken by glass artisans every day. When your glass art is damaged, you need to know that you can turn back the hands of time to before the piece was damaged.

With an experienced glass repair professional, you really can do just that. In most cases, through the artisan’s skill and craftsmanship, your original glass art can be restored to its original grandeur. Seeking professional glass repair, particularly for “designer” pieces such as Waterford, Lalique and Steuben, in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles? Bokrosh Studio has been creating original glass sculptures and completing the finest in glass art repairs since 1985. With over 40 years of experience in the industry, you can be sure your glass art is in the very best of hands. Contact our repair and restoration professionals by calling 206-860-9748.The requested URL /glass%20notes/markt-z.htm was not found on this server. Additionally, a 403 Forbiddenby Ruth E. Smith The Accurate Price Guide for… by Ruth E. Smith 19th Century Art Glass Chamber… Oil Lamps II: Glass Kerosene… Lamps of the 50s and 60sit’s tougher than it looks.” Until you’ve stood facing a rotating blade, a full appreciation of the meaning of the words “cut glass” never quite hits home.

Under the careful eye of one of Waterford Crystal’s master cutters, I’m dipping the sides of a heavy crystal tumbler into the cutting wheel, trying to make regular, leaf-shaped “wedge” incisions and keep them within a geometric grid that has been drawn on the surface. A tour group makes its way through the cutting room in Ireland’s famous crystal factory – where 40,000 pieces are blown and cut using traditional methods each year – wondering, no doubt, how my free-styling (if we’re being kind) made it past quality control. We’ve just learnt that the traditional test at the end of a five-year cutting traineeship means producing a perfect “apprentice bowl”, which contains every single possible variant of wedge cut. Passing that is impressive enough, but day-to-day, being a master cutter means knowing well over a hundred intricate “core” patterns – which they draw on before cutting, as a guide – completely by heart. This is about the head as much as the hands.

“The skill is making cuts of the same breadth and depth throughout the piece; press more than two thirds in and it can shatter, or too little and it won’t sparkle,” explains Matt Kehoe, the company’s chief designer, as we witness an ornate punchbowl, which I can barely lift, being manoeuvred around the cutting wheel with the dexterity of a concert pianist. “A single slip or lapse of concentration can’t be undone. It takes a certain temperament to cope with that,” he says, laughing. Watching them combine wedge cuts with “flat cuts”, like fingerprints on the surface, and “carat” cuts, which produce a weave of tiny diamonds, it’s clear to see why these artisans, who have made pieces for popes, presidents and princesses, are so revered. These days, they’re gaining a new audience. Not long ago, decorative cut crystal felt out of tune with modern decor – a relic of another time, another wedding list, usually consigned to a cabinet and taken out “for best”, if at all.

But now that the focus of luxury has returned to craft, with traditional “designer-maker” skills being celebrated in every aspect of our environment, crystal is getting another chance to shine. Contemporary product designers such as Lee Broom have invested the material with a new energy – his ornate “crystal bulb”, designed in 2011, has become a design lovers’ favourite. Then came the wave of period inspiration from Downton Abbey, with its cut-glass accents in every room, and Mad Men, where being caught without a decent whisky glass is unthinkable, and “the interest in barware exploded”. “People are now giving 30-year-old men decanters for their birthday – the association has changed; they’re a lifestyle accessory,” says Matt, who has been at Waterford for 20 years. “The people who are putting cut crystal on their wedding list today tell us they want to bring it out and use it for parties rather than just keeping it as an heirloom as their parents’ generation might have done.”

It’s fair to say that they saw it coming – after all, they do have the ultimate crystal ball at their disposal. (Waterford designs the 10,000-piece sparkling sphere that drops at midnight in Times Square, New York, on New Year’s Eve every year.) Some traditional patterns, including Lismore (introduced in 1952 and the best-selling crystal pattern in the world) have been “loosened up” while retaining the “DNA” of the original. But now you have the option to take your crystal straight up or with a modern twist. The resident team – along with guest designers such as John Rocha and Jasper Conran have introduced everything from contemporary black crystal stemware to shot glasses, neon-dipped decanters to decadent dressing-room mirrors, not to mention witty solutions to terribly modern problems: a set of champagne flutes with different patterns cut into each one, so you can identify your drink at a party. Jo Sampson, the London-based product, furniture and interior designer, has contributed gilded “couture” vases, decanters, boudoir accessories and a London collection – “inspired by the glowing lights and geometric shapes that inspire the city’s skyline at night” – which uses a gridlike pattern to create light and shadow on everything from coffee tables to opulent minibars.

Waterford was also approached to create official Mad Men collections – meet the Olson whisky glass, and the Draper highball – which are available in Britain for the first time this autumn. Bolder still, they’ll be joined in February (at Harrods) by a John Rocha red crystal, created by flooding the 2,550F (1,400C) furnaces with dye before the molten glass is collected for blowing. And then there are the interior objets designed for wow-factor alone. Taking in the crystal chess set made by the “master sculptors” (there’s one for £100,000 in Harrods, if you feel inclined), I can’t help but wonder what their predecessors, who exhibited at the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition of 1851, would have made of their daring. And daring features strongly here – it was a hallmark of Miroslav Havel, the Czech “maestro” who is credited with reviving the Waterford glass industry, which had been dormant for a century when, in 1947, he was enticed to Ireland by promises of a land of sunshine and tropical fruits.

“You can’t be a designer unless you’ve been a master cutter,” explains Martin Ryan, who’s responsible for the Times Square crystal ball and helps some of the fashion designers translate their ideas on to crystal. “Only then do you know what the crystal can take. No matter how modern a feel you’re going for, it involves the same traditional techniques, and you have to marry the shape and the cut.” The design team – drawing by hand then translating designs into 3D on-screen – get a kick out of “daring” the cutters with complex ideas to see what they’re really made of. “We wind them up sometimes when they’ve just done something really complicated,” Martin says. “We say, ‘Ah yeah, but that was an easy one; wait ’til you see what’s next!’ ” waterford.co.uk ‘Mad Men’ Circon decanter This piece, right, is neither subtle nor inconspicuous – rather like Don Draper himself. To honour the show that is acclaimed for the authenticity of its styling, Waterford paid close attention to period detail.