Chasing Rainbows!

by Bob Patterson

When I was a boy in grade school the things I did helped to shape my future.  This is perfectly normal of course but not everything we did as kids would be considered normal to everyone.  But I’m sure that some of you can relate to this.  I’d like to share one of the memories that seems to wander into my mind from time to time.

The time was somewhere around 1950, and it was early spring back in Iowa.  The roads were thawing out from the long cold winter that kept us kids house bound more than we wanted to be.  It didn’t take much to occupy the time of a ten year old back then.  I have a vivid memory of the gravel roads that ran through our neighborhood.  They were full of potholes and in some of the water filled holes was a wondrous array of petroleum products.  Motor oil, transmission fluid, grease, brake fluid and who know what else worked its way into those pits.  I loved the beautiful colors that the oil on water produced.  I would stir it with a stick to bring up more of the oil and release more color.  Cool spring breezes would condense the rainbow of color to one side or the other of the puddle.   When the wind stopped the oil would spread its color over the entire area again.  Every iridescent shade was represented in that cauldron of color.  I loved throwing rocks into the puddles and watching the changing iridescent colors.

Well, here I am half a century later and still captivated by iridescence.  No longer do I stand in the road and seek out puddles of iridescence.  But show me the Northern lights or a peacock in full plumage and I’m content to stare for hours on end.  Small wonder that I would be drawn to collecting Carnival Glass.  Pattern glass and opalescent glass hold some fascination, but for me, they lack the pizazz that Carnival Glass packs.  As I’m typing this, I’m surrounded by Carnival Glass bowls and plates of various colors hanging on our walls.  It’s as if those iridescent puddles were captured somehow and transposed on the colored glass.  This greatly enhances the design of the patterns and makes them jump to life.  These colorful works of art also don’t dry up and leave you like those oil puddles.  All that’s required is light to wake up their sleeping beauty.  Sunlight, incandescent light and fluorescent light all have different effects on the colors that dance over the face of the glass.  The rainbow of colors that radiate from this wonderful glass is what sets it apart from the common place.  Art glass and stretch glass also captivate me because of the iridescence.  I would guess that many of you also have a love for art glass and stretch glass for the same reasons.

 What a fascinating hobby Carnival Glass collecting is!  Even if there were no “New discoveries” unearthed in our hobby, the fascination would still be there.  This is because the iridescent effect on glass is rarely the same.  Differences range from subtle to pronounced and cover one end of the rainbow to the other.  Get a couple of Carnival Glass collectors together and the topic will soon turn to iridescence.

So to you seekers of iridescent beauty this is my advice to you.  “Surround yourself with Carnival Glass and you will never have to chase rainbows or stand in the road gazing into oily puddles ever again”.

 

Iridescence Rules!