Glass to Holidays

So another Christmas gift was cut last week, I finished cutting the glass for the latest window in 2 nights, with a nice and quite Wednesday to cut and wrap it. I have to say that I love the nights up there when there are only a few of us up there. There are nights that are starting to get crazy in the studio (so not like last year with 24 people in the room) and I am really ready for some people to disappear after the new year – there are a few who make it so that others no longer want to come to glass and I HATE that – cause the ones I like are talking about buying there own kilns- and Tuesdays nights would not be the same without them. It’s like we need to have a vote can you stay or have you over stayed to your welcome and it is time for you to leave. So some of those did leave at the start of fall but you never know when they will show back up. We have a few kiln hogs these days and I really want then to get a kiln for their house for the holidays – however I don’t think we will get that lucky. We have some people who have never taken a class just show up and they have no CLUE what is going on up there and they don’t ask and they wonder why there things don’t turn out. And whets even more of a pain is that they are coming with some of the people who just grate on my nerves… Really I think that it is all about lack of manners and respect…ok so it might be that I am one of the ones who has been up there for the last 5 year…and maybe the church really does just need to shut down for the remodel so that we can filter out a few. But then again this might explain why I have quite fusing over the last few months and I have turned to the stainglass again – that and it is cheaper. However I hear that I might be getting a good bit of glass from Santa…glass can make me happy.

Christmas is right around the corner, and most of my shopping is done, I am still on the search for a few things and I think that I am going to have to bite the bullet and do the online order – which last year I was all over it but this year I am up for the hunt of the items – cause you would think that I have more time to look for things –and yet at other times I feel like there is less time for the little things and more time for fixing real dinners and spending time with friends…the sisters have not asked or requested the money for mom and dads gift, I want to give them the money but I know that they will not take it now since I don’t have a job, I so would love to have one before the new year…Today I had 2 requests for resumes, ok so both of the schools are in MD, but I need to get my feet in the water anyway, anywhere I can – even if that means that I have some EARLY mornings, there are open houses for schools coming up in Jan and many schools start looking for next year teachers by Feb. or march… I have even sent a request for a letter of recommendation from my AP art Teacher who I went and taught for last fall. Need to think of a few others to add to the list, maybe Emily GC …then there is the other idea of going back to the world of computers and lack of sunlight and sitting at a desk all day – but the pay would be good and the time would be flexible- but it is all about the connection and who you know and who can get your foot in the door. And maybe it would work out till the fall and then I could go and teach, because I am so much happier now than I was in the fall sitting at a desk all day looking for something to do that was at least a little creative.

Oh and in the other world of glass – I did go up to the studio to see what happens there in MD…and they had me do a little of everything – I have to say that having to crush dichroic into a powder almost made me cry, ( the power compressor was fun but the crunching glass was like nails down a chalk board) that cutting into a full sheet of dichroic – and that is the LARGE round one- made my heart beat faster and my hand sweat and I but it off till I had to and then I even used the straight line cutter- that pulling glass into stringers with the torch is fun but I still need a LOT of work doing it, that making a large sheet of glass as one big pendant 9 x16 – which is fired and then cut, fire polished and then put on metal bases- can be both fun and a great task at the same time. It was a great experience and I am glad that I went up there to meet all of the people who come and go up there – and you have to move your car when you block them in- I just wish that the weather had been better and that the snow and the ice had stayed away. and I am glad passed on the full time offer for many reason and not just the low pay – it was hard work and maybe you get used to it, standing most of the day with cuts on your hands, but then again there is a pile of stuff that you helped make at then end and you get to see what you accomplished with in the few hours you are there and maybe moving around all of the time I would be thin, but the stress of no money would do that too, the one thing that I found funny is that I stayed one night till 6:15 and I was the last artist there, and to me that was early…but I think that in the end it would ware me out and I would lose my love of glass and that is something that I am not willing or ready to do at this point. Glass is the broken, the cracked, the flawed, the imperfection that we all have in our lives and need to be reminded that nothing is perfect but you have to look for the one thing that can be perfect in your eyes and accept all that comes at you, even if it is cracked, and things break and life goes on – sometime I just have to swim a little harder to get to the top of the water.