I'm really not averse to art, despite what my family and close friends might think. I once had a bridge partner named Art. I've even been known to say a prayer that began "Thou art…" And last year when we were on the Celebrity Eclipse, on the top deck in the middle of the Atlantic, it was "art" that kept me warm…or warmer.
Okay, so maybe we (or I) didn't give the Hot Glass Show at Sea a fair shot. It was kind of cool (no pun intended) to watch young and talented artists at work making miraculous pieces of glass in a hot stove (okay, oven) and in the process educating people like me, who didn't have a clue how they did it.
What they did that cold, windy day on the Atlantic was sell their mini-masterpieces to people who'd watched them being made, and the proceeds went to a scholarship for a student in Corning, which I know as having a hockey team and my wife knows as being the hub of some kind of kitchenware.
The Hot Glass Show at Sea is performed on three of Celebrity's four Solstice Class ships — the Solstice and Equinox are the others — and benefits students at The Studio, located at the Corning Museum of Glass. Yes, the Corning that's in New York…where the hockey team plays and where the kitchenware is made.
The latest recipient benefactor of a Celebrity scholarship is a young man named Dane Jack, class of 2012. In addition to the financial assistance, it also led to a job for Dane.
That's right, on a Celebrity ship.
Too bad his name's not Art.
Carnival Splendor
7 nights
August 26, 2012
Long Beach (return): Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta
Inside: $549
Cost per day: $78
www.carnival.com