The purge in progress
Week 13
7 May 2024, 9:30 p.m.
"That went fast!"
That's what I wrote at the top of my notebook page on Sunday, April 28.
CP had filled the tool buckets for our bench. Cherry blossoms floated on the surface of the water.
We almost put it away with a top that had gone far out of round. I thought I'd fixed it, but apparently not.
The mug took so little time that CP told me to go again. We put a lip wrap on it, but I flared the top too much. I didn't like the shape.
The whole thing was sort of wobbly. More on the fate of this one later.
Under the mercury vapor lamps, the glass is bluish-pink. In sunlight, it's lavender.
Dale and Sean arrived in time to see CP swing out another sculptural piece. Then I made a bowl from a piece of Royal Purple rod. This color isn't available anymore. I keep checking.
I'm not sure what color it really is. Every time I use it, something different happens. This time, I got a lavender bottom, a yellowish middle, and a swirl of purple inside. For the lip wrap, we used a piece of dark blue rod I'd found in the waste bucket.
With that one, I think I reached peak bowl. This is a pattern with me. I spend a few weeks figuring out a new shape, bang a bunch out, then start to get worse at it. My next one was the inverse: the discarded blue with a Royal Purple lip wrap. It went all wavy on me.
All morning long, Sage had been doing battle with a frit called Brilliant Yellow. I have that color. It's a pain to work with. It always looks hotter than it is. It's gummy. And it's a snazzy color when it works. The first time she used it, before Sean and Dale arrived, she asked me to bring the punty. The top was very thick and the bottom too cold. It fell to the floor. I spent the rest of the morning apologizing. She seemed totally okay with it, and tried again, this time more aware of its devious ways. I told her that I have one piece, an ornament, at home, that is my only success with Brilliant Yellow. Anywhere else, it's a thread wrapped around something of a different color.
I got into a discussion of Royal Purple with Sean and Dale. I told them I had some frit I'd been holding onto for years. I went to my locker and brought it out.
While I was working, the on-duty tech came in. "They're breaking down the furnace at 12:30."
"No, they're not," I said. "We have tomorrow night."
"Where did you hear this from?"
"The Dean. I have email." Last week, I had verified that Rose and I would get tomorrow night to make up for the fact that the furnace wasn't ready on what was supposed to have been our first day.
"I'll go talk to them," she said.
I dropped the bubble into the square mold. Having passed peak square mold, my jack line was once again sloppy. I decided to spin it out.
CP had never seen this done. He wasn't sure it would work.
"It will," I said. "I've done it before. You get four flops."
So, the outside is pink, the top is amethyst (it's not a lip wrap), and the inside is lavender.
After class was over, I went home, had lunch, and then went out for a mellow penance ride with Sean. He had his 1970s Masi, so I brought out Beaker the Tommasini.
Monday afternoon, I carried my tool case, an empty suitcase, and a plastic poster tube into which I'd drilled two holes to hold my pipes. I was also carrying close to 100 ounces of liquids to drink. The outside temperature was in the high 80s. In the classroom, the thermometer read 95. I turned on the giant fan and stepped into the cool of the hallway to empty my locker.
The annealer holding yesterday's work was still at something over 200 degrees. I'd have to come back Wednesday before the evening bike ride to fetch everything.
Feeling ambitious despite the heat, I put three rod-lip wrap pairs into the small oven and then set out some frit for more bowls.
By the time Rose, Pat, and I were ready to start, the temperature had risen from 95 to 97 and was now at 102. Rose raised the metal door all the way up; I'd not noticed that it had more room to go.
I started with an enamel white and jewel tone frit mix bowl. It was somewhat off round. I wasn't expecting my best work in heat like this.
The next one was worse. The temperature was now 104 degrees.
CP arrived at the end of that one.
"Go again," he said, but I refused. "I need a break."
He made a heart. Sage was mixing the evil yellow with a friendly blue. Rose had been tasked by her neighbor to make a cloche.
She'd showed me a photo yesterday of what looked like an inverted cup with a sort of foot, inside of which was a bundle of matchsticks. I still wasn't sure what I'd been looking at. "What's a cloche?" I asked.
"I don't know, but my neighbor wants me to make one. She's bougie like that."
We decided to use "cloche" as a verb, a noun, an adjective, and as anything else that 104 degrees would allow.
As I was standing at the glory hole to make my next bowl, poppy red with a cornflower lip wrap, I could feel sweat trickling down my butt crack. All in a night's work.
The bowl went into the annealer in one piece. It came out in two on Wednesday.
It was a clean break, with the pieces fitting snugly enough together that I could take a picture and also be confident that I could glue it when I got home.
"Go again," CP said, and this time it was an order. He knew I had three rods in the oven and he was insistent I get through all of them on our last night.
We made the red one's partner, a cornflower blue bowl with a poppy red lip wrap.
It, too, was wavy. I explained the whole peak bowl thing to CP.
He wouldn't let me stop until we'd finished the third, a gold amethyst bowl with a purple lustre lip wrap that we hit with the small torch so that it would shine up before we put it away.
Now it was my turn to make him go again and again. All he wanted to do was drop some glass into the triangle mold to make a solid piece he could cut up for heart stands. He made one and started to clean up. "No! Make another! Go again! Make another!" He doubled over, exhausted and laughing, and then he made another.
And with that, it was 9:30. The spring glassblowing workshop was officially over. The classroom thermometer read 95 degrees.
I took a picture of all the stuff I'd have to haul out, not including the pipes, which were still hot.
The cherry blossoms were a nice touch.
Pumpkin Master and the Section Head came in dressed for outer space. Rose pulled up a chair. "I'm gonna watch them empty the furnace," she said.
I was too tired to move. I plopped down into another chair and watched with her. I suppose we could have felt more sorry for them having to do this at 9:30 at night, but this was their own fault. Had there been proper communication in January, Rose and I wouldn't have had to be here dripping sweat tonight.
"Smile!" Rose called out. Section Head waved, and then they got to work.
"Think of how much more we could have made," Rose said as we watched them haul scoop after scoop of molten glass from the furnace into buckets of water.
They weren't done. The top of the crucible holding the glass we use rests on a ledge. Every time we pull out some glass, and every time the furnace gets filled, a little bit of hot glass seeps between the edge of the crucible and the edge of the ledge. Now, they had to unscrew the panel under the door, extract layers of heat-resistant (and asbestos-filled) fabric, and chip away at a few bricks to get to the gloop behind all of that.
"So they have to rebuild that every time." Rose said.
"So steampunk."
They were still working at 10:30. I collected all my stuff and staggered out to my car.
I woke up the next morning feeling as if a great weight had been lifted. I rode my bike to work with the whole summer ahead of me.
I came back to campus two days later, taking off a few hours early from work so that I could spend all my time sanding down bowls before the evening bike ride.
On the way in, I stopped by the student art show in the gallery one building over from our classroom. The first thing I saw was a magnificent piece, meticulously cold-worked, by New Grace. It was much larger than what I'd seen her make before. With LT2 as her partner, she had someone who could help her get the perfect shape and thinness. I immediately went into impostor mode. What had I been doing all semester?
LT2 had a giant vase he'd crackled.
Tall Vase was his usual, enormous, abstract self.
One of last semester's students submitted her magnificent pickles.
Low Key's submission was a little murrine vase.
We Sunday folks all wound up in the back hallways instead of the main gallery. I've had work in the main room before; this semester, nothing I submitted was of that caliber. Having been gaslit and screwed over for two semesters, I didn't trust anyone to bring back any of my submissions in one piece. I handed them crap. At the time, I didn't care. Now I did. I wished I'd given them something worth looking at.
Sage, working in blue all semester, submitted this vase:
Murano, the only hotshot not in the main gallery, offered a vessel he'd carefully etched.
Farther down the hall was a bowl Sage made with CP's help.
Rose handed them a bowl she'd made with Purple Passion frit.
Two of the pieces I'd submitted were next to each other in the center of the room. One was the third geode from last semester. The other was utter crap, a "Junk in the Trunk" cup within a cup.
The dichroic sheet overlay vase I'd contributed had gone straight from the annealer to the submission box. I hadn't really looked at it until now.
Rose's overlay bowl was nearby.
One of last semester's students submitted a swirly blue cup.
Another of Sage's vases was around the corner.
There was other work in the show too: paintings, drawings, sculptures. I didn't look at any of it. I went straight to the classroom to retrieve all of the shit I'd made.
If nothing else, the bottoms of my bowls were mostly flat, and I didn't need to spend nearly as much time as I thought I would at the wet-sander.
I was disappointed in all of it. Especially the neo lavender square mold. I'd wanted that to look like a mason jar like some of my others do. It didn't.
I packed everything up and headed home. I'd have time to grab a snack and change at home before the ride. On my way, I realized that I ought to have cut the top off the square mold and polished it down. I'd've had time. Now I didn't, and tonight would be the last night that we could do any cold-working.
After the ride, instead of going to dinner with the group, I drove straight back to the classroom, ready to cut and polish.
New Grace was at the wet sander. I complimented her on her show piece.
"The top is so thin and straight. Did you cut it?" I asked.
"Oh, I didn't make that," she said. Wait, what? "It was part of the cold-working class." She'd been taking that class elsewhere this semester. So we can submit things we didn't a hundred percent make ourselves? "I made the thing inside," she said.
Well, now, maybe I hadn't wasted my semester after all.
I went over to the saw, laid the piece so that I'd cut the top at an angle, pushed it gently through, and heard a pop as the top broke into two pieces. I held up the bottom, which was the end I wanted to save. The whole thing was more off-kilter than I'd known. And it now had a big crack in it. I tossed it all into the waste bucket.
I texted Heddy. "Did you guys order yet?" They'd just arrived. "Can you order me a verdura?" I got to the restaurant before any of the food came out.
Meanwhile, the curator of the art show had told us that we could sell our work on Sunday. I'd been texting the workshop folks to find out if anyone was interested. Murano was gung-ho. Sage, Low Key, and Pumpkin Master thought they might toss a few pieces in. I told CP that I'd go if he did. As of Monday night, his plans were still up in the air.
I piled all the bowls together. There were 23 of them. I didn't plan to keep them all. It was time for a purge, and for me to sacrifice another Sunday to glass.
There was rain in the forecast anyway. I wouldn't miss a group ride. Our sale would be set up inside, and, because the muckety-mucks couldn't see keeping the furnace on for one more week, we wouldn't be able to draw folks in by doing glassblowing demos the way we usually do.
I moved things around. I walked away. I moved things around some more. I stacked the bowls I wanted to keep.
I took a piece off the shelf. I took another. I set aside a few for gifts. In the end, I had a suitcase full of glass. I wanted none of it to return to the house. Online, I advertised our sale and threatened to chuck any leftovers into the Delaware River on my way home.
By the time I was finished, I'd managed to clear a shelf to make room for next semester.
This is still unsustainable. I'm already cheating by stacking the bowls. I'd rather be able to see them all.
Week 14
On Sunday at noon, I set up next to Murano.
On a piece of tape, I wrote "serious glass," with an arrow pointing to his work, and "silly glass" pointing to mine. He wasn't thrilled with that, but he didn't remove the label either.
Across from us, the ceramics tech had her work set up. In the back of the room, some of the sculptors had a few things set out. Murano and I were nearest the door. He'd chosen wisely when he set up.
"All this stuff was in boxes in my garage," he said. Neither of us had brought our best work to the sale, but even his B-game beats my A-game by miles.
While I was setting up, I filled him in on the Colonel and last semester's shenanigans.
The sale officially started at 1:00, and that's when Sean, Dale, her brother, and her father came in. Sean and Murano got deep into a converation about old cars or old bikes or maybe both. Dale and her brother puttered about the table, moving things into two piles. By the time they were finished, they'd nearly cleaned me out, and I was grateful, both for their patronage and for not having to jettison anything over the Scudder Falls bridge.
I bought a piece from Murano to add to my collection of work from classmates. I'm running out of room on that shelf too.
At 4:00 the sale was officially over. On my way to the car, I stopped into the art gallery. My timing was perfect; the show was over for the day, and the curator was there by himself. "Any chance I can take my work home today?" I asked. The show was still on for a few more days. We weren't supposed to retrieve our work until Wednesday at the earliest. I didn't want to have to make the trip. He wavered, and then went to fetch a screwdriver so that he could open up the cases for me.
That night, a few friends asked about what was left and laid claim to some of it. Now the only task was to write the final installment of Thirteen Sundays.
Epilogue: Soundtrack
Some folks like to listen to music while they work. We have a bluetooth speaker that people pipe their Spotify playlists into. CP has a single earphone. Me, I have music in my head. It tends to be one song for the entire 4-hour session, usually something from one of my biking playlists. I know I'm getting tired and distracted when the music changes. Whatever it is I have in my head, it tends to match the harmonics of the dueling hood fans over our heads. This semester, I wrote down the song at the start of class. I don't know why I did it, but since I did, I might as well post the 13-week soundtrack here.
2/4/24: "Cascade" by Afro-Celt Sound System
2/5/24: "Chest Fever" by The Band
2/11/24: "Thunderhead" by Afro-Celt Sound System
2/12/24: "Amber" by Afro-Celt Sound System
3/18/24: "Fire Walk With Me" by the Black Keys >> "Deepest Blue" by Karsh Kale
2/19/24: "Devil v Angel" by Bob Mould
2/25/24: somebody's Spotify 80s playlist
2/26/24: somebody's Spotify 80s playlist
3/3/24: somebody's everything I heard in high school Spotify playlist
3/4/24: somebody's everything I heard in high school Spotify playlist
3/10/24: "Magnificent Seven" by Afro-Celt Sound System
3/11/24: "Thunderhead" by Afro-Celt Sound System
3/17/24: "Devil v Angel" by Bob Mould
3/18/24: "The Dance Electric" by Prince
3/24/24: "Magnificent Seven" by Afro-Celt Sound System
3/25/24: "Trouble" by Dave Matthews
3/31/24: "Chest Fever" by The Band
4/1/24: "Snake Charmer" by Astronaut Wife
4/7/24: "Quit Mumblin" by Transglobal Underground
4/8/24: "Keep Hope Alive" by Crystal Method
4/14/24: "Sunspots" >> "Wishing Well" by Bob Mould
4/15/24: "Colossus" by Afro-Celt Sound System
4/21/24: "$300" by Soul Coughing
4/22/24: "Beat a Drum" by R.E.M.
4/28/24: "Whirly 3" by Afro-Celt Sound System
4/29/24: "Right Here Right Now" by Fatboy Slim
Dale was going to give this bowl to her cat.
It's the perfect size for a water dish.
"Don't tell Russell," she wrote.
Kespeadooksit.
7 May 2024, 11:40 p.m.
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