Glass: Sand, Ash, Heat tells a multi-faceted story of scientific achievement, worldwide trade in objects and ideas, and, always, beautiful artistic expression.

The New Orleans Museum of Art holds an extraordinary collection of glass, with nearly 5,000 works ranging from tiny ancient Egyptian amulets to large-scale contemporary works of conceptual sculpture and including nearly every moment of glass expression between. This richly illustrated survey presents different avenues of understanding and interpreting these works of art, bringing together essays by museum curators and conservators, as well as a glass artist, a foodways historian, a laboratory scientist, and a New Orleans Black Masking Mardi Gras Indian. Glass: Sand, Ash, Heat reveals human connection through glass, a material that embodies a rich historical exchange between technology and the arts.