Remembrance is the act of remembering, the ability to remember or a memorial. I’ve been a full time glass artist for over 20 years… DO I remember cutting my first piece of glass… Actually yes, I was 12, living in Switzerland… attending a British school. My teacher had turned the bomb shelter in the building our school was in; into a craft room for his students! I was lucky enough to be one of them. Jump forward almost 20 years to my life as a glass artist…. Working in glass was actually very much a fluke… I took over some ones spot in a class so that she wouldn’t loose her money…. I was a committed fibre artist…
Do I remember making my first glass bead sort of… What I do remember is lighting my minor for the first time… I kept turning the gas up and up and up so when it did finally light I had a flame that was probably 8 or 9 feet long! Luckily my torch in those days was in the middle of the studio! My son was really impressed with Mommy’s latest ‘TOY’!
But I didn’t start on a minor I started on a hot head about 16 years ago, I got it in the fall of ’94 then about the time I wanted to really start trying to teach myself how to make beads, I broke a bone in my left hand… so I stuck the glass down inside the cast… I still work left handed! Most of my early beads were made out of strips of window glass..
This is my first necklace made from moretti... probably made out of the first moretti beads that I made on my hot head that didn't crack... circa fall of 95... I'd got my first moretti that summer...I also remember the first year I lived in NB in 2001 I worked in an unheated uninsulated garage… I had a garbage bag stuffed in between the window and the wall so that the flame didn’t get blown around. I had to dip my mandrels in the house otherwise the bead release froze and or the mandrels were to cold to touch… I didn’t even have a kiln then, I batch annealed in a fusing kiln that was kept in the dungeon.
My bead studio now is lovely … I can sit and watch the fishing boats come and go and it has heat… and lots of glass! What more could I want!
The closed cabinet is FULL of 13 inch rods of glass... THis is an old picture the boxes have been recycled... and replaced with a hydrolic press!
This is a current necklace....
I actually wrote this almost two months ago… as soon as I finished the blog on Exploration… in the last two months my parents have decided to sell the house that they have been living in for 57 years so I will be going home to help clean it out in two weeks… I’m sure that will bring back all sorts of memories….
This is actually a picture of the back of the house... I always came and went through the back door so saw this view far more often than then front view, also all the large trees have been removed from the front yard so it no longer looks the way I
REMEMBER it!
Another week later... the house is sold (this house picture actually came off of the Remax listing) so I will just be boxing, shoveling, packing, pitching and helping pick what is being moved... and yes moving day is while I'm there... Sounds like I will be alone in the house for 5 days... probably with no internet or TV....
Think I'll post this... or it could get very long!
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