Cavoto Has All His Marbles!
Most kids enjoy playing with marbles. But for Francis Cavoto, adjunct faculty member at BRCC, that childhood fascination has grown into an adult hobby. His current marble collection, which includes the ones he played with as a child, consists of three major kinds of marbles and numbers over 10,000 spheres! His collection of contemporary handmade marbles is on display in the Blue Ridge Community College Kinetic Gallery, located in the lobby of the Fine Arts Center.
In 1992, Cavoto won a large marble collection at a local auction house. In hopes of learning more about his new treasures, Cavoto went to a marble festival in Philadelphia, where he met some glass artists who made contemporary art glass marbles. “After buying a few big glass marbles, I was hooked,” he says.
He has witnessed artists from the United States, Canada, and Japan create beautiful glass marbles at festivals, and has even studied under two extraordinary marble artists -Josh Mazet of Eugene, Oregon, and Daniel Ambrose of Cleveland, Ohio. He explains, “The methods that I have studied include lampworking or torchworking, and furnace working, of both soft and borosilicate glass.”
Cavoto says, “Attending festivals and glass studios across the United States has afforded me the opportunity to build an extensive and diverse collection of art glass marbles, representing male and female artists, old and young.” The collection at BRCC includes the work of more than 50 glass artists from across the country.
The display will be in the BRCC Kinetic Gallery through February 10.
