Now that I am living back home, am single, and working only one job that currently is mostly 9-5, I have a lot of time on my hands. This free time has motivated me to try some new things I’ve always been interested in but never had the opportunity to experience! One of these things is glass working. [Disclaimer – I mostly only started to have an interest in it after I’d found an awesome Groupon, so it wasn’t quite “always”.]
Glass working is not really an activity you can take up on your own. It’s expensive, first of all, to purchase supplies and equipment, and as good as YouTube and Google are, it could potentially be dangerous when tried alone without an expert. Fortunately, I found that great deal on Groupon for a local artist with equally great reviews, and equally fortunately I had a good friend equally excited to #trythenewthing!
We found our way to Somerville after work one Thursday, and – I wasn’t quite expecting this – I was very nervous. Our teacher and resident artist, Eric, was friendly and knowledgeable and comforting, but did you know that you work glass with fire?? Sometimes I get a little nervous near a hot oven. Perhaps this new activity wasn’t the best thing for me to try…
Also, watching something that you’ve known to be solid and hard and potentially breakable for your whole life turn into neon malleable goo in a matter of minutes is actually a bit disconcerting. It takes a while to reconcile what you’re seeing to the logic of what you know is happening.
But before I knew it, my protective goggles were on, glass tubes were in my hands, and I was standing over a torch spinning said tubes as they melted and I attempted to weld them together. I will be honest with you – when am I ever not? – this first weld did not look pretty. I was not a natural.
But Eric didn’t seem too horrified and he let me keep going. My friend was a little bit more of a natural, but then again she’s always been quite the creative and the artist so that was to be expected. We both chose to make marbles next, which Eric said was a quick and easy beginner option… It did look pretty quick and easy when he was doing it…
Glass working takes PATIENCE. And when you are a n00b it is not quick or easy. I picked out my marble colors, though, and while I had some trouble with the process of adding a handle to the marble while we polished it and ensured it was a perfect circle, our devoted teacher said he would fix that for me later, and all in all, I think I did pretty okay. (He says some of his larger and more intricate marbles he has sold for 400 DOLLARS! Can you believe that? A marble! For $400! I mean, I can believe it’s worth that much now that I know how much work goes into it, but on the buyer end… It’s a marble.)
My friend and I had a few options for our second project, but we both ultimately decided to do a newer glass working technique, one that creates a 3D plant-looking creation within a smaller glass bubble. She turned hers into a bracelet for her mother-in-law-to-be, while I made mine with the goal of affixing it to the top of a wine stopper. I felt like this one was a little easier – it didn’t require the same precision and perfection that creating a perfectly smooth globe did, but at this point I was also more comfortable with the process and the flame – practice makes better, amirite?
I’ll keep you updated when I return and create more intricate creations and become the glass artiste I have hiding inside of me. At the very least, I’m thinking it’s a pretty fun and unique and personal gift idea. What ultimately fascinates me is that there are people doing this intricate and labor intensive work every day to make some of the beautiful things we regularly use and have in our homes. And we have no idea the process or heart and soul that goes into them! But now I do, and maybe you do a little more, too. #foodforthought