Angelo Rossi Makes Memory Glass from Cremated Remains in Niagara Falls
Maestro Angelo Rossi is Canada’s foremost hot glass artist and master glass craftsman. The man has been practicing and pioneering the art of glassblowing since the age of ten when he learned the basics from his father in Murano Italy. After spending his youth in Europe’s most historic and revered glass production center, Angelo moved to Canada in 1971. Over the course of many years he opened several different glass blowing studios, the most notable being those located in Cornwall, Ontario where he perfected a new shade of cranberry glass. This pink coloured glass was all the rage in the 1970s and early 1980s and is still popular today among collectors. Five years ago Angelo ‘retired’ and now operates a tourist-centric glass blowing studio in Niagara Falls as a tourist attraction at the base of Skylon Tower.
Angelo Rossi with The Angel. Other shapes and sizes of funerary glass sculpture include a dog, bones, dolphins, a dove, eagles and swans.
Funerary Glass is becoming more popular again as documented in this Digital Journal article about cheaper cremations impacting the Canadian art glass market which pinpoints the origins of the trend on how Basic Funerals cremation service has changed the funeral home service landscape. The online death service provider has mushroomed in size in just a few years by delivering the innovations keenly appreciated by a new generation of web savvy Canadian consumers. The bereaved family now has more money to spend on the extras including custom glass funeral urns and sculptures.
As a service for grieving families, Angelo Rossi makes ‘memory glass’ which is a type of funerary glass where cremated human remains are added directly into the mix, and can be seen inside the finished piece. The technical difficulties of making memory glass sculpture are encountered in the different thermal expansion rates of the ingredients. Calcium, sodium and phosphorus, the three most abundant elements in white human bone ash — cremated remains — have different rates of expansion than the soda lime glass. So if the glassblower adds too much of the ashes, the glass sculpture will be more likely to crack as cools in the annealing oven or later in any temperature flux inside the house or in shipping.
During the process, the hot glass blob is rolled in the ashes of the cremated human remains to become the white dress of an angelic figure. Maestro Angelo Rossi perfected this practice many years ago and today making the art work has become an oddly religious act of devotion. As his assistant brings him hot glass, he molds the figure — its as though the molten glass pours from hands and into the art piece. Its a slightly spiritual process, and he’s rather quiet and reflective during its creation.
‘The Angel’ is Angelo’s best selling memory glass sculpture design. Here’s Angelo attaching the head of The Angel, which is faceless blob until molded with a very specialized tool — the face of an angel.
There are ashes from cremated human remains in the robe of the sculpture and you can see how they glow with any light source — especially when back lit by sunlight. Its a really nice effect and would indeed bring comfort to anyone suffering the loss of a friend , family member or beloved pet. The object could indeed become a focal point for their prayers. Price is $500
You can read about another Toronto funerary glassblower Eric Davy and watch him make a glass funeral urn from scratch on Dumpdiggers Eric Davy makes a glass funeral urn with original pictures illustrating the ‘blow by blow’ account.
