An Altaglass piece from our collection showing advanced glass disease. To see more of these local artefacts, visit the Esplanade or check out http://archives.esplanade.ca/. -- ESPLANADE ARCHIVE PHOTO
Many of you who read this article will have a piece of Medicine Hat-made Altaglass artistic glassware in your home.
It might be a vase, a lamp, an ashtray or figurine, or a variety of other shapes, and it may still have the factory sticker. Even if it does not, these objects can sometimes be identified just by how they feel. But more on that in a moment; we need a bit of history first.
Following the Second World War, Medicine Hat saw a period of creativity and economic prosperity. Many companies, large and small, came to this area. Natural gas was cheap which made Medicine Hat an ideal location for any business needing a lot of heat. One such small company became a Medicine Hat icon: Altaglass. They specialized in hand formed and blown art glass pieces that were eventually sold across the country.
Altaglass was founded by J.H. Yuill in 1950 when he purchased equipment from the Glass Guild of Canada to convert Alberta Potteries Ltd. in Redcliff to glass production. Along with the equipment came Czechoslovakian immigrant John Furch and his family. Furch had long experience with glass, having worked in the field in England through much of the war. In 1952, ownership of Altaglass shifted to Furch and he changed the strategy of the company from high-volume production of commercial goods to low-volume production of high-quality artistic pieces.
Furch and later family members and employees made the glass they used instead of buying it. There are different types of glass, but what they used was made from sand (silica), lime (calcium) and soda ash (sodium and potassium). To make this glass easier to work with, they used a formula that included more than the usual amount of soda ash. This “soft” glass allowed artists to make some wonderful shapes, but it also presents a long-term problem. Altaglass is subject to “glass disease.”
Here at the Esplanade, we have more than four hundred pieces of Altaglass,and many of them show this glass disease.
When too much soda ash is used, the surface of the glass can begin to react with the humidity in the environment and partly leech out of the glass. It may take years for this to begin, but it eventually will. The surface of the glass will feel greasy and may appear dull. Eventually it will start to show fine cracks called crizzling or crazing. This is a chemical reaction, and it is not reversible. Washing the pieces will improve their appearance for a time and slow the process, but nothing will stop it entirely. Given enough time – decades or centuries – the item will completely degrade.
We do our best to watch over the all the archival records, artefacts and artworks we hold and monitor them for changes. Most of the time we encounter problems with organic materials such as leather, wood, paper and fabric, but sometimes even materials we take for granted will become an issue.
It has been a few years since we washed the Altaglass collection, so now we must plan for it again soon.
Tom Hulit is Curatorial Assistant at the Esplanade.
