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Firebrand
04-10-2012, 02:28 PM
Hello everyone. I've just established http://milliwiki.org as a place to record and archive all relevant information as it applies to the art of glass murrini. My hope is to build a reference for anyone seeking biographical information about particular and notable artists working or who have worked in the discipline, as well as a resource for documenting and categorizing specific works that are notable, and attaching proper provenance to the maker. In addition, this wiki seeks to gather into one place information regarding particular techniques used to build mosaic cane, to differentiate between types of glasses and techniques, and to provide historical reference to these techniques.

As the catalog of works grows it is becoming apparent that the provenance of some work is being forgotten or mis-attributed. We all may know who did “Screaming Hand” but who made this or that Lion? In what year was a certain character produced? As time progresses the keepers of this knowledge will pass or otherwise fall out, and their knowledge will pass with them. Milliwiki.org is my attempt to correct this tendency before it becomes a problem.

Of course, I am no expert on murrine. I could never build such a compendium on my own. Fortunately with the advent of crowd-sourcing no single person or organization need undertake this monumental task alone. I believe the wiki format has proven to be effective in collating disparate and related material into an easily referenced location, and I think it will prove an exceptional engine for organizing this information.

My hope is that people with exceptional knowledge of the art form will contribute to the site and help to build something that adds value to the glass world for artists, appreciators, collectors, historians and archivists.

If I know little about murrine, I know even less about administrating a heavily coded and scalable site. If you have the requisite PHP, MySQL and mediawiki expertise, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Of course, I fully expect this project to wither on the vine like so many other of my “good” ideas. Therefore I've only purchased 3 months of hosting. If after 3 months the site has proven its value I will continue to fund and administrate, or will pass it on to more capable hands.

Please visit http://milliwiki.org and let me know your ideas. As it stands this is an out-of-the-box installation of the mediawiki engine. I have added no content or customization yet, not even a front page. It is lacking even a basic logo, so if anyone has any ideas or graphics skills in this regard, please let me know.

Go forth and edit. I believe the default setting allows any user to create or edit a page. Please be respectful of copyright and ip. And if you think this is a great idea, please share this link with everyone you know.

Thanks for reading,
Adam

kc-216
04-10-2012, 04:00 PM
it is my dream to become a milli maker. I have had next to no luck making them as of yet but I plan on taking a class as soon as I get some funds for it together. this sounds like a great idea, and although I probably wont have any info to input for quite awhile I will surely read it inside and out. thank you for creating what is sure to be a valuable resource.

Julian
04-10-2012, 04:29 PM
That sounds like a worthy plan. I'll check out the site!

The MP staff has a bit of relevant experience here and there. I can offer some suggestions.

Firebrand
04-10-2012, 09:09 PM
Well, like I said, there's absolutely nothing there at the moment. I really don't even know how to start writing up content for it beyond maybe the front page. It's just something that I thought I would like to see done. I don't expect anything much to come of it, but if I still think it's worth a try. It would be super awesome to have a wiki resource devoted to all glass art, functional and otherwise, but I'm just personally obsessed with murrine at the moment and there really is not all that much info available on the internet.

Julian
04-10-2012, 11:47 PM
We maintain a wiki about glass, at http://www.talkglass.com/wiki.

It was recently upgraded and could use some help with editing, as well.