Andy Bilecci, who died last November, is remembered fondly by the students he inspired.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Andre George Billeci died in November 2011 at the age of 77. In 1963, he established the Glass Art Program for the NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University. While teaching at Alfred, he supervised the expansion of the school’s extensive glass facilities. By his retirement, the program had grown to include a full graduate and undergraduate curriculum. Billeci was a designer and consultant for Steuben Glass, Mary McFadden Inc., and the Royal College of Art, UK. He visited India three times as a research consultant for The Corning Museum of Glass from 1986 to 1999. His commission work included pieces for Penn Mutual Life & E.I. Dupont de Nemours. He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Carol; sons, Andrew Billeci of Pauma Valley, California, John Billeci of New York City; and brother, S. Daniel Billeci of Pleasant Valley, New York. Below, former student and friend Kathleen Mulcahy reflects on her former professor.
We didn’t speak for the first two months of my graduate years at Alfred. One of the second-year grads in clay, Mike Cindric, came to me and said “you have to speak to him.” How? I thought, he was distant until I realized why. Andy didn’t tell us about his feelings or the misery that he had experienced just three months before I got to Alfred. On June 23, 1972, the Kinzua Dam had burst and flooded the valley from Corning through Alfred to Hornell. Just a week before the flood, Corning had opened a startling wondrous exhibition of Andy’s work — his opus that took years to make. Meticulous, perfectly executed, large-scale forms, magical, planetary-like installations in a darkened space lit within deep red glass forms in crystalline compositions. This world that he presented was chemist meets scientist meets artist meets child. Fantastical, elegant, smooth, and gorgeously rich in thought, all gone, swept through with the entire contents of The Corning Museum. People had lost their lives as well. It put the region in mass mourning.
Andy was holding on, stoic, when I met him, reinventing himself, finding his way as I was finding mine. He taught me this – be self-sufficient, keep going, move forward and don’t complain or blame: There is more to do. At first, I wasn’t sure I liked him, but then I really liked him, admired him and deeply respected him. He wanted us as his students to know glass inside out from bricks and their compositions to the science of glass and the complete understanding of melting glasses and fitting them together. He taught us among other things to love equipment, then love glass deeply, inside, get to know those molecules like family. Appreciate color, form, flow, and then back again to the equipment needed to get there.
Andy Billeci talking with John Nickerson (seated) at the bench
We kept in touch and he would always offer his mantra – keep going. One day he called to say that he and Carol were moving to Florida and had some things for me. After graduate school, my first summer out, I was his personal studio tech at his fantastic Thurston Studio. We melted glasses, experimented, developed new glasses, made forms. Back by the cold working area he was working on a cast glass wall. He had jigs made to shape the hot poured glass sections, fitted to the grinder. He showed me how he had changed the machine from three-phase to single-phase and worked on the gearing system so it ran so smoothly. Years later he gave me that machine and I love it. It is still the best machine in my shop.
It was great to be up there, on the hill. We would walk to the pond behind his house. Carol and Andy would make dinner. We’d go inside where every chair and table was built by Andy, and Carol’s loom took up most of the living room. This told me the work was most important and living in and on and near the work was essential.
—Kathleen Mulcahy
Kathleen Mulcahy worked with Andy Billeci during her MFA studies at Alfred University in the 1970s.
Note: To share your own memories and thoughts about the passing of Andy Billeci, please feel free to use the Comments below.
Thank you, Kathleen. Andy was a good guy and an important figure in the beginnings of American Studio Glass. R.I.P. Andy and thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you Suzanne, Andy would have really appreciated that comment. Kathleen wrote an excellent description of the circumstances he had to live through, and how he did it. He continued to work in his studio for far longer than most people knew, and made many more consulting trips to help people start up, or solve their glass problems.
I have never participated in a blog before, sorry that it took me so long to answer.
I first met Andy at the Hot Glass Information Exchange in 1978 in Boulder Colorado. That was a gathering of studio glass workers and the price of admission to that conference was a paper on doing something in the studio to make it work better. I was one of the organizers. Out of all of the invitations to Heads of Glass Departments in the USA, Andy was the only one who submitted a paper and came to the conference, which was a remarkable gathering made up almost entirely of private studio people, was unheard of at the time and is still talked about 35 years later.
Andy urged me towards technical excellence in the shop. He told me the chemistry I was pursuing was important. He said quality equipment was important but that design was the most important thing of all. Seeing him with John Nickerson ( Nick) in that photo takes me back. Nick nows lives in Asheville NC but was at the conference as well.
I will miss Andy, another important voice gone silent. The memory will certainly go on.
Thanks for everything Andy!
Pete VanderLaan
Thank you Peter, I remember how Andy enjoyed that conference. It was a good one.
Kathleen; Your article was well written, and brought back many memories that I had to deal with before I trusted myself tp respond to it. THANK YOU for the photo of Andy’s red group from the Corning Environment! I will keep that safely stored, or displayed.
Thank you for caring.
Last night it dawned on me that THIS BLOG IS an opportunity to thank all of our faithful friends! Their support helped all of us; Andy, myself and our sons, deal with the issues that we all knew were coming up too soon.
I have held back, thinking that it might not be appropriate for me to speak as I am not a glass worker. There are so many other people who have helped, that I need to express my thoughts and sincere thanks to them also.
So; MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL OF YOU, who have for years kept in touch with him. While he was still active and able to get around and drop in on you. Later, you visited, or called Andy while he was here. Even when he was so ill, please know that your contact brought him so much pleasure. You cannot imagine how honored he felt to still have that caring connection after 40 years. Many of you had kept in touch that whole time as true friends do. Others who also cared but lost touch with him in our moves, also called him after hearing of the situation. That really helped him, and the family. We have friends that we inadvertently lost touch with also, so we understand.
Andy took joy in hearing of your successes, and he was comforted that you knew he was a friend, and you had been listening to the lessons he tried to give you with his example. Andy did really care, and when tragedy struck, he grieved for your loss also.
Life is always changing, sometimes things go well, and other times you have to pick yourself up and ‘keep on’ as Kathleen said. Your friendship all those years was a source of great pleasure to all of us, even now, it helps me .
So, THANK YOU, ALL OF YOU.
Thanks to Susanne, Carol and Peter for adding to this. His good works will continue through all the people he has touched.
Kathleen
Andy was certainly of the greats. My time at Alfred with him was quite wonderful, his advice was invaluable and he helped me find my path. He will be missed.
Jane
Jane, it’s good to hear from you again, and thank you for your comment to the blog. keep in touch…
Carol