i've spent the last year and a half blowing out of the Edgefield shop, enjoying the company of friends while learning so much. i have been trying to make enough production to earn a living, but balance it with enough playing with the glass to keep my heart happy. the result is exciting!
i have, through production, mastered many forms, and found a new level of understanding of the glass that feels like how i feel every morning i wake up next to my wife.
through playing, i have developed some interesting things that may turn out to be fantastic elements to my future work.
today i am very excited to go pick up yesterday's pieces because some of those pieces are my first attempts at graal blanks. and Peter gave me some old Paradise Paints he found in some tucked away box of his, so between traditional carving techniques and painting the glass, i am invigorated and enthusiastic about the possibilities! it feels like an "aha!" moment. finally i see a way for me to tell stories in the glass! if i had stepped out of my own head years ago i would have discovered these possibilities, but then it wouldn't have been the perfect moment...
as with any present work, at any point in time, the past culminates to produce a piece not possible a year before that. i feel at the edge of a long gestation period, and can't wait to bring life to the many ideas forming in my head, and to see where it goes from here.
i am finally on the right road, i feel. and i am cornily skipping down it.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
i so very much miss living at the oregon coast.
after living there 9 years it is in my blood. i am now back living in the beautiful valley of my youth, and i do love it here, and there are definitely more opportunities here in many ways...but i can't step outside and smell the crisp salt air of the ocean, or experience the indescribable awe-inspiring beauty every day.
alot of people i met at the coast who either grew up there or had been living there more than a year would say to me, "i hardly even go to the beach anymore, it's just kinda 'blah' now." i always wondered what was wrong with them.
if i hadn't moved back and gotten a regular job for a while i would never have met the woman who will become my wife in a couple of months, so i don't regret moving away...but i am working toward building the sales of my glass art to the point that i can support both of us if need be, and we can move back to the coast. selling wholesale and over the internet can make that happen.
in the mean time, i am excited about working with other glass artist and friends in the area, which i also wouldn't be able to do had i not moved back. i am happy with the current situation, and am savoring it- even though i do hope in the future to be back on the shores my heart yearns for.
this is the first time in my life that i am dreaming of a future that is different than the present moment, while simultaneously being perfectly happy with where i am. i used to just be unhappy with my life and wish it would change- but did little to make that happen. now i seem to be happy with my life, while recognizing that life is change, and that i can help steer my future toward the vision of how i want it to be, since it will indeed change whether i want it to or not.
maybe this is that "personal growth" they talk about...sweet.
after living there 9 years it is in my blood. i am now back living in the beautiful valley of my youth, and i do love it here, and there are definitely more opportunities here in many ways...but i can't step outside and smell the crisp salt air of the ocean, or experience the indescribable awe-inspiring beauty every day.
alot of people i met at the coast who either grew up there or had been living there more than a year would say to me, "i hardly even go to the beach anymore, it's just kinda 'blah' now." i always wondered what was wrong with them.
if i hadn't moved back and gotten a regular job for a while i would never have met the woman who will become my wife in a couple of months, so i don't regret moving away...but i am working toward building the sales of my glass art to the point that i can support both of us if need be, and we can move back to the coast. selling wholesale and over the internet can make that happen.
in the mean time, i am excited about working with other glass artist and friends in the area, which i also wouldn't be able to do had i not moved back. i am happy with the current situation, and am savoring it- even though i do hope in the future to be back on the shores my heart yearns for.
this is the first time in my life that i am dreaming of a future that is different than the present moment, while simultaneously being perfectly happy with where i am. i used to just be unhappy with my life and wish it would change- but did little to make that happen. now i seem to be happy with my life, while recognizing that life is change, and that i can help steer my future toward the vision of how i want it to be, since it will indeed change whether i want it to or not.
maybe this is that "personal growth" they talk about...sweet.
Monday, March 5, 2012
I finally started going though boxes in the garage that have been packed and moved around different storage situations for years. i found a little notepad from the hotel in Vegas that i found in the room, and apparently had been writing some of my random poems in.
i was no doubt drunk, as i always was at that time in my life, and i'm not even sure i finished it, or if the abrupt ending made sense to me.
here are the scribbled lines:
11/15/05
It's not thru burning
are we spent,
but life thru learning
have we been lent
the truth of the sky
suffusing the night.
For Day is the intruder
trespassing the swollen lips
-----
maybe i meant to go on, but got lost in my Tullamore Dew...maybe i just forgot the period.
it's strange that i'm still the person who wrote that, and yet my life has changed so much in the last 7 years- I have changed- so that it's like trying to decipher a note someone wrote me long ago...someone who liked to be unclear about what he was trying to convey. like he wants you to know, but a part of him wants you to have to figure it out. like giving too much away will make him lose himself...
i am still internally conflicted by a compelling drive to share myself with the world, and an inherent need to keep myself safe.
but hopefully my poetry gets better.
i was no doubt drunk, as i always was at that time in my life, and i'm not even sure i finished it, or if the abrupt ending made sense to me.
here are the scribbled lines:
11/15/05
It's not thru burning
are we spent,
but life thru learning
have we been lent
the truth of the sky
suffusing the night.
For Day is the intruder
trespassing the swollen lips
-----
maybe i meant to go on, but got lost in my Tullamore Dew...maybe i just forgot the period.
it's strange that i'm still the person who wrote that, and yet my life has changed so much in the last 7 years- I have changed- so that it's like trying to decipher a note someone wrote me long ago...someone who liked to be unclear about what he was trying to convey. like he wants you to know, but a part of him wants you to have to figure it out. like giving too much away will make him lose himself...
i am still internally conflicted by a compelling drive to share myself with the world, and an inherent need to keep myself safe.
but hopefully my poetry gets better.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
just took a walk to the meat market on the corner. actual meat, not a bar. as i walked home with my brown paper bag tucked under my arm, i noted that eight years ago it would have been beer instead of chicken breasts in my brown paper bag as i slowly walked home. and i would have already been drunk.
i saw two live white cats, and one dead tabby cat on my walk. i went by that old run-down abandoned house that squatters obviously inhabit in lue of paying tenants. there is a new rent-a-fence around the perimeter. i walked around it and saw that a fire had occurred in the bedroom without a window that people would crawl in to sleep or whatever they did in there. in the past i have looked in, curiosity driving me, and seen the old bed and shelves that looked like they belonged in the fifties. books were strewn across the room, and everything was musty and falling apart. signs of recent occupation were mixed in with the old furnishings, such as candy bar wrappers and newer books, like anachronistic bread crumbs.
in the garage with the side door torn out there were stacks of old tires, and hand-built benches, and a couple of folding chairs arranged around an old storage box, an apple that had been used to smoke pot through tossed down with empty beer bottles. graffiti was painted sporadically on the rotting walls.
most of the places where windows or doors used to be had old plywood nailed in their places, other than the few entrances unsolicited tenants had created. there was a giant portion of the roof, probably five feet square, that had fallen in, and a wheelchair ramp coming off the tiny porch, wood rotting, portions slumping from age.
the backyard was large, and upon exploration i found an old wooden straight ladder that had been hidden under a bushy tree that hadn't been pruned in decades. i imagine the squatters used it to get in the window.
this house is old, and it tells me a story. it tells me that a family was raised here, whether happily or otherwise. someone was born in this house, and spent many years growing in the rooms, sleeping on that twin bed mouldering in the corner. when the kids grew up and moved out the couple lived on, fixing cars in the garage, and fixing dinner in the kitchen. when they became too old to walk comfortably down the stairs a ramp was built, jutting out from the front porch, turning ninety degrees, and running down slowly to the driveway, where the car sat generally unused. when the husband finally died after outliving his dear wife (if you can call that living) the house went to the son or daughter that couldn't afford to fix it up, had no use for it, or perhaps were invalid, and the house sat there alone in it's entropy. perhaps some mementos were removed and carried to relatives' homes, but the furniture was left to rot with the house, the story of these people.
eventually people without roofs over their heads found a way under this one. ninety percent of a roof is better than none. as nameless as the original occupants to me, these untold number of vagrants have left footprints as solid as the owners did. some only found shelter for a couple hours of drugs and socializing, some found shelter from winter storms and a place to close their eyes.
the fire damage i saw today emanated and was centralized from the window that people crawled in that contained the bed and books. i imagine someone trying to keep warm, and possibly read a bit, messed up. the fire department was no doubt called to put it out, it certainly didn't take out the whole building, and i'm sure the owner was forced to at least put a fence up around it. nothing else has been done, and there is no for sale sign.
and there is no barbed wire around the top, so it only adds a small obstacle to getting in out of the rain....
i saw two live white cats, and one dead tabby cat on my walk. i went by that old run-down abandoned house that squatters obviously inhabit in lue of paying tenants. there is a new rent-a-fence around the perimeter. i walked around it and saw that a fire had occurred in the bedroom without a window that people would crawl in to sleep or whatever they did in there. in the past i have looked in, curiosity driving me, and seen the old bed and shelves that looked like they belonged in the fifties. books were strewn across the room, and everything was musty and falling apart. signs of recent occupation were mixed in with the old furnishings, such as candy bar wrappers and newer books, like anachronistic bread crumbs.
in the garage with the side door torn out there were stacks of old tires, and hand-built benches, and a couple of folding chairs arranged around an old storage box, an apple that had been used to smoke pot through tossed down with empty beer bottles. graffiti was painted sporadically on the rotting walls.
most of the places where windows or doors used to be had old plywood nailed in their places, other than the few entrances unsolicited tenants had created. there was a giant portion of the roof, probably five feet square, that had fallen in, and a wheelchair ramp coming off the tiny porch, wood rotting, portions slumping from age.
the backyard was large, and upon exploration i found an old wooden straight ladder that had been hidden under a bushy tree that hadn't been pruned in decades. i imagine the squatters used it to get in the window.
this house is old, and it tells me a story. it tells me that a family was raised here, whether happily or otherwise. someone was born in this house, and spent many years growing in the rooms, sleeping on that twin bed mouldering in the corner. when the kids grew up and moved out the couple lived on, fixing cars in the garage, and fixing dinner in the kitchen. when they became too old to walk comfortably down the stairs a ramp was built, jutting out from the front porch, turning ninety degrees, and running down slowly to the driveway, where the car sat generally unused. when the husband finally died after outliving his dear wife (if you can call that living) the house went to the son or daughter that couldn't afford to fix it up, had no use for it, or perhaps were invalid, and the house sat there alone in it's entropy. perhaps some mementos were removed and carried to relatives' homes, but the furniture was left to rot with the house, the story of these people.
eventually people without roofs over their heads found a way under this one. ninety percent of a roof is better than none. as nameless as the original occupants to me, these untold number of vagrants have left footprints as solid as the owners did. some only found shelter for a couple hours of drugs and socializing, some found shelter from winter storms and a place to close their eyes.
the fire damage i saw today emanated and was centralized from the window that people crawled in that contained the bed and books. i imagine someone trying to keep warm, and possibly read a bit, messed up. the fire department was no doubt called to put it out, it certainly didn't take out the whole building, and i'm sure the owner was forced to at least put a fence up around it. nothing else has been done, and there is no for sale sign.
and there is no barbed wire around the top, so it only adds a small obstacle to getting in out of the rain....
Thursday, December 1, 2011
On Light
I find myself inexorably drawn to Light in it's myriad forms. On a deceptively mundane level, I can't help but collect flashlights. I have flashlights as varied as a medium sized utility fills your hand like a small piece of firewood flashlight, to tiny keychain light that requires only one tiny battery, to a spotlight on a compressor contraption that charges off the wall. I can put on my hat with the built-in LED's in the brim to search for one of the many free Harbor Freight 9 LED hand-sized flashlights I've collected. Somewhere I have a couple Maglights I used to carry on my belt with the included sheath that always falls apart after a year (sad, I know). Yesterday I was given a gift of a sleek looking black flashlight with a belt clip built in, which I adore.
I don't know if it's the light itself that attracts me, or the things it allows to happen. Everything you see is Light. Each color you see is a different vibrating, quivering portion of a band of light. Pigments simply capture that portion, or spit it back at you. Growing up in my dad's Vacuum Deposition Lab, where he and his partners pioneered Dichroic Glass, I thought it was such a perfect melding of science and magic to be able to separate the light spectrum like that, and to actually see the colors that light is made up of. Did you know that in the glare of a full spectrum light bulb you may have screwed into your fan-light is pure encompassing Cyan? Or a Gold that will stop your heart? Or a Magenta that can enchant you? Or any other color you could imagine because they are all wavelengths vibrating at different speeds hidden in that ray of light?
On a philosophical level,possibly a psychological one(if they are in fact two different things) you could say that I crave the ability to shed light on a subject. I want to have within my reach the light required to cause things to take their shape. Without light everything is just lumps in the dark. Light breeds understanding. (it goes without saying that darkness is equally important to the whole in ways I'm sure you've ruminated about about, and which we won't go into in this discussion of light, as that's a whole other subject we could talk about at length...) When I have my flashlight on my belt, no corner I encounter will remain dark and unknown to me.
At this particular time of the year, my thoughts run to the symbology of having light available in the darkest portion of the cycle of the seasons. It is not only a tool, but an assurance that Light exists, and a quietly whispered promise of the Sun's return...
I don't know if it's the light itself that attracts me, or the things it allows to happen. Everything you see is Light. Each color you see is a different vibrating, quivering portion of a band of light. Pigments simply capture that portion, or spit it back at you. Growing up in my dad's Vacuum Deposition Lab, where he and his partners pioneered Dichroic Glass, I thought it was such a perfect melding of science and magic to be able to separate the light spectrum like that, and to actually see the colors that light is made up of. Did you know that in the glare of a full spectrum light bulb you may have screwed into your fan-light is pure encompassing Cyan? Or a Gold that will stop your heart? Or a Magenta that can enchant you? Or any other color you could imagine because they are all wavelengths vibrating at different speeds hidden in that ray of light?
On a philosophical level,possibly a psychological one(if they are in fact two different things) you could say that I crave the ability to shed light on a subject. I want to have within my reach the light required to cause things to take their shape. Without light everything is just lumps in the dark. Light breeds understanding. (it goes without saying that darkness is equally important to the whole in ways I'm sure you've ruminated about about, and which we won't go into in this discussion of light, as that's a whole other subject we could talk about at length...) When I have my flashlight on my belt, no corner I encounter will remain dark and unknown to me.
At this particular time of the year, my thoughts run to the symbology of having light available in the darkest portion of the cycle of the seasons. It is not only a tool, but an assurance that Light exists, and a quietly whispered promise of the Sun's return...
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Wind in the Trees
last night.
Angry that the leaves still clung to the trees.
I watched the gusts
whip the upraised branches,
almost to the ground they emerged from,
it's impatience evident.
Today there is no brown earth beneath them,
only shades of gold.
The Alders stand,
branches like bare bones
swaying in the bitter breeze.
Soon the snows will ride in on the
cold East Wind,
bringing Winter down from the mountain.
And under Death's mantle
the remnants of summer will decay,
biding it's time,
to emerge once more as verdant tips on white branches,
swaying in the warm breath
of some tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
paint joy over the pain
finally painted this morning. it's been a couple years since i did. maybe when i was in wyoming for that spring...keep thinking, "i need to set this space up, and then i can paint." or "after i do this other crap i need to do, i can paint."
reality is i just have trouble starting. i don't know if it's fear of failure, fear of success, or just plain having trouble manifesting my life outside my head. most likely it's all that and more.
but this morning i'm feeling all the sadness descend, and it was the most readily available creative outlet available, so i dove in. amidst the mess of the living room that i'm supposed to clean, but rarely happens, i pulled out the starter set my fiance so thoughtfully bought for me and used the minimal palette to create an underpainting for what will be my first painting in years, and will hopefully open up the blocked creative juices that have my mind whirling, but my hand raised frozen in uncertainty of where to start...
paint is a great laxative. do not take internally.
reality is i just have trouble starting. i don't know if it's fear of failure, fear of success, or just plain having trouble manifesting my life outside my head. most likely it's all that and more.
but this morning i'm feeling all the sadness descend, and it was the most readily available creative outlet available, so i dove in. amidst the mess of the living room that i'm supposed to clean, but rarely happens, i pulled out the starter set my fiance so thoughtfully bought for me and used the minimal palette to create an underpainting for what will be my first painting in years, and will hopefully open up the blocked creative juices that have my mind whirling, but my hand raised frozen in uncertainty of where to start...
paint is a great laxative. do not take internally.
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