In this presentation led by Mel Buchanan, uncover the 4,000-year history of glass around the world and how it intersects with scientific discoveries, foodways, and artistic innovations. The exhibition, Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art details objects from Ancient Egypt to contemporary glass sculptures, also including the perspective of a working glass artist, a laboratory scientist, a member of New Orleans’ tradition of Black Masking Indians, a foodways historian, and a sculpture conservator.

Mel Buchanan is the RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts & Design at the New Orleans Museum of Art, a position she has held for ten years. In 2018 she completed a reinstallation of NOMA’s decorative arts galleries and in 2024 will complete Sand, Ash, Heat, an exhibition and catalogue drawing from the museum’s renowned collection of glass. Buchanan is a 2023 presidential appointee to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, and serves on the national boards of The Decorative Arts Trust and of the American Ceramic Circle.

Photo at right: Maurice Marinot (French, 1882–1960), Bottle, c. 1926. Blown glass; 6 3/4 in. NOMA, Museum purchase, William McDonald Boles and Eva Carol Boles Fund, 2004.40 © Merat Troye

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