A Hot Mess Part Seventeen: Penumbra

25 January

I'm about to disappear again. Five days from now I'll be doing my best to remember how to work hot glass. We had our first class meeting of the semester two days ago; all we did was sign waivers and pick lab slots. Our Tuesday night team is together again. The regular cast of characters is back, with a handful of advancing beginners and a few returning after some time away. I had already gotten through my ritual hour of impostor syndrome panic five hours before class, when I looked at the roster. By the time I walked into the studio, I was ready for whatever.

So, here's the thing that happens when I look at the stuff I've made:

When I'm in the classroom, and, really, any time during the semester, my glass has a life of its own. I scrutinize each piece, noticing the flaws, the thickness, the little errors all over. I see every one for what it isn't. Each piece is up against the obviously perfect work of all of my other classmates.

Then the semester ends. I start to see the pieces not for what they aren't, but for what they are. This, I think, is how most of my friends are looking at my work, and why, during the semester, I can't understand how they could possibly like anything I'm doing. When I'm away from the classroom, my glass has a chance to breathe; or, more realistically, I do. Away from the classroom, my pieces are what they are, and they glow when the sun hits them.

The transition happens the minute I get home from the final critique of the semester.

The few pieces I truly like find their places in one of two cabinets, shielded from dust and from cats. I have already tossed the worst pieces into the waste bucket, where someone will take them and smash them into shards to be melted into their next works of art*. The next-to-worst ones live in a box, out of sight, most likely destined for the waste bucket sometime in the next semester. Some are worthy of selling for charity, and leave the house in exchange for donations. Other pieces have my friends' names on them, and I gladly send them away.

That leaves a handful of pieces I don't outright hate but don't like very much either. While we're supposed to be making art, we still sometimes focus on usefulness instead, much to the annoyance of our instructor.

Last semester was full of half-failed experiments. In learning how to use the wet saw for cutting angles, and in learning the wrong way to make a drop vase, I wound up with half a vase with an angled mouth. It didn't sell, and I was about to put it in the destined-for-waste box when I realized that it would be perfect to hold Jack's razor.

Maine #11, with its tree that stretched into a snake, didn't sell either. It became a hairbrush container, and I'm glad I still have it.

Another Maine fail that went under the saw for practice became a pencil holder.

And yet another Maine fail that didn't sell turned out to be perfect for holding all the wooden spoons that had been jamming a kitchen drawer for years.

The two glow-in-the-dark ghosts that look like utter shit in the daylight were living in the go-to-waste box, but I pulled them out a few days ago. They'll live on a window sill until next fall, when, I hope, better ghosts will replace them.

Our first Tuesday night session will be February 4. I'm going to work with clear glass for a while. I want to get better control of shapes and thickness so that, when I do use color again, my pieces will have more grace and height than they do now. That's the plan, anyway. Whether or not I stick to it is another matter. Color is irresistible.

(*I do this too. It's fun to go trash-picking. Two of my classmates are geniuses at using scraps. When we were just starting out, My Classmate and I picked through the refuse to get our hands on color we weren't otherwise supposed to be using. Three of my favorite pieces are made from odds and ends. Last semester I unloaded a malformed cat; one of my classmates saw it, liked it, and took it home. That bucket is a gold mine.)