Hammer Time #4

It loaded! It loaded! The little mac that could, i knew you had it in you. i eat very little sugar. today i had a lot, and then the dope, the sugar crash, and the absense of any caffieen has resulted in me wanting to go tobed at the regular time, dispite having woken up at four pm. which was not bad for going to bed at seven thirty am. maybe i should have a nap. i did just break something pretty. maybe my coffee will be cool enough to drink when i wake up...

The nap was a bad idea. it is fricken freezing in here, and then i slept too long. Then I ordered more gas which will be getting here tomorrow, so i have no choice but to call in sick and blow through the last of this tank. My camera is ass, but i hope to have some pictures to post after the show so you can see what i have been up to. I suck at making bowls or at least the holes at the bottom of them. Unfortunate that it would be the focus of the whole piece where my tallent would lacked, but, the fucking things close, or strech, or are on the side, or it was heated funny and warps. If you do not get it right the first time, you have maybe a 25% chance of being able to fix it. 4
Then when you start running lines of colour all over the place you have to now worry about the clear glass between heating up twice as quickly, which will make things inflate irregularly, or if a small spot gets too hot and you have the pressure just a little to high, you get this thin balloon suddenly expand and shatter sending snow flakes of glass through the air. thats bad. the trick is being able to get everything up to the same viscosity so it expands evenly, but keeping it looking like an orb of glowing glass requires you to be spinning it with out shaking it with one hand while the other hand fumbles around for a reemer. My hands are covered in little white spots (a few black ones) where the skin is getting ready to fall off, and they are all super sensative to heat. which sucks. My years of avoiding labour class employment has done me little good as my hands are losing their baby softness to the hard leathery burnt cracks of a lampworking.

Less is more, more is less. If you need it to melt, get it hot enough to melt. Do not waste yourself with a flame that is taking its time, you will use less gas in the long run if you let go on the throttle. Do not let any one talk you into a two stud torch, you cannot use a foot peddle with them, so make sure it has at least four. I got a lot of really bad advice when i was starting. I do not like to mention names, but it was John at Phatty glass. Guy must have no fucking clue. I am not saying you should not order through them, just make sure you know what you want.

Well back to work.

Made something pretty, and decided to take a step back before going ahead, to avoid ruining it. Sure i am on a roll, but rolls end. So when i go back i will do something easy and then get back on it. Buy expensive colours. They look amazing and often times will make up for you lack of tallent, just by looking amazing. Cover in glass and set out to display! It annoys me that most seem more intrested in my scaps of glass than my work. I do have some pretty intresting looking bits of useless glass... when i have free o2 i will melt them all down to marbles, or strech the colour back out into rods. I want to get a mold to slump plates on. How much of this do you understand?

Some colours have to be worked out side of the fire. Which means you will spend four hours spinning that thing as fast as you can trying to build a coil or the thing is going to turn brown. These colours are ofcourse some of the nicest. Not all, but anything with the word Crayon in it is bad news.

Throw out your cell phone. (in a safe and responsible manner) Studies show the bees will not come home so long as your squakin, talkin, and killin your brain cells. Evidance is mountaining that our teenagers are going to go senile in their late twenties. Ring! Ring! Melanoma! Einstein once said that with out the bees, we humans would live no more than four years. Fucked upier, is the bees all leave never to return, but unlike normal abandon nests no other bees are showing up to raid. Perhaps it is because seventy percent of the bee population vanished, and there are no bees left to go out raiding. Maybe you should get rid of your cell phone. Do not believe me? Type bees into google news. Every one is poo pooing the whole thing because the cell phone industry is worth so much, you know the same reason you never hear reports on how cells cause canser. It is not because they do not cause cancer. It has long been known that bees start acting funny near electrical poles, and studies on their ablity to communcat have shown they have a sort of beesp.

Well back to work.

Well that was not very productive. It got rid of a lot of pieces, so there is more room in the kiln... you can always put it in thekiln, you cannot always take it out. So i am nearing the twenty four hour mark on my at the gallery odessy, and with only five hours of sleep and a dozen mocah under my belt i am glad to be nearing the end of this last tank. So that i am ready for the new tanks tomorrow. With a little luck i will show up and they will tell me i am fired. So i can get back to work.

I think you will like it.


Uehen