Glass pressing

Editor's Note When I was on a trip to Cyprus last month, I took advantage of my vacation to look for a meaningful wedding gift for my two friends whose wedding will be held in Greece this summer. As I wandered through the alleys of Larnaca city on my first day on that island, a pottery shop caught my attention; it was closed at the time, but I was able to glimpse some of its exhibits through the window, the most prominent of which was a sculpture with two heads merged into one body. I returned to the shop near the end of my short trip and began examining all the works carefully; but I chose to purchase that sculpture. "When two people decide to marry, they become like one body," the shop owner, who is himself the creator of these works, told me. The man was inspired by an artifact dating back to the 19th century BC from the Minoan civilization. He said, trying to satisfy my curiosity: "You can see that masterpiece at a museum four minutes from here." My acquisition of this gift was not purely coincidental. Wherever I travel, I find myself searching for ceramics made by local artists. I prefer ceramics over items made of wood or metal, the former growing from the earth, while the latter are extracted from its depths. Ceramics (and pottery specifically) are made from clay, a material traditionally shaped by the artisan's bare hands to freely and comfortably express their ideas and feelings. The cover topic of this issue also relates to a material that shares the same "earthy" origin with ceramics; however, it took a different turn in recent centuries. Here we are talking about glass and its products, which have continued to surface thanks to excavations, demonstrating the great importance of this material over thousands of years. Today, we are witnessing a real technological revolution in glass manufacturing, to the extent that some describe our current era as "the age of glass." I wish you a beneficial read. In this issue you will read about: The Age of Glass… Technology Knocks on the Door of This Ancient Material to Shape an Environmentally Friendly Future The Fashion Cemetery The Pioneering American Artists Tables of England