Flattery for Faience

While students swarmed the halls at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology one Friday late last November, a dozen or so outsiders crowded into a small glass shop in the basement of Building 4. They were recapitulating the first steps of an ancient art. Standing around a workbench, their hands dusty and gray, the group listened to Carolyn Riccardelli, who gingerly patted at a pasty mixture that had the consistency of wet toothpaste.