blowing it.

I forgot to bring my camera today... :(   I'll remember tomorrow.

It was hard for me to sleep last night... I thought there were spiders crawling on me. That, along with being really dirty (no shampoo or conditioner) led to my morning emotions to be on high. I'm not as scared of bears, and only had two encounters with bees today. 

When I got to class this morning, I learned that we ARE blowing glass in this class. So, I learned how to blow glass. I'm not good (at all), but I'm learning. 

I'm really a 2-D person... I don't think or make stuff in 3-D, and it's hard for me to think that way. Our instructors put us with partners today. They based the partnering off of our photos of our work... They put me with a girl whose work I really liked, and she liked mine too... actually, we had both been talking about how the other people's work was so different from ours and what we like. 

I like layering patterns, images and symbols... I don't want to make a 4-story glass cube. First they gave us each HUGE 3ftx8ft paper to draw on... I kinda freaked. I don't like drawing out what I want to do. I can draw something, if I want to... and then I'll work on that until I get it how I want it, but I don't sketch out ideas... especially 3-D ideas. So I froze. I still haven't done any more drawing on it. My instructor Sheryl, showed me how she collages ideas and patterns in her sketch book... I think that is much more my thing than drawing.  I brought back images and glue to my room to work on collages.

So, glass blowing.... ahhh.... it's HOT. really hot! My hand stings a little from being too close to the glory hole... (yes, glass blowing is full of clean-yet-dirty slang... and for people who aren't used to it, it's easy to feel like a 15-year old cracking up every time someone talks "glass blowing"). The first thing I made was a ball... then I made it into two... and it looked like a butt, so I tried to make it into a snowman. It doesn't look like a snowman, or anything, but tomorrow we are taking it into the cold shop where I'll learn how to cut it and etch on it. 

The second thing I made (when I say "I," I mean me and a LOT of help from the assistant), was a glass bubble with a quarter-sized hole in the top. I'm really not that big on blowing glass. I don't want to make vases or cups... the only thing I wouldn't mind learning how to make would be bubbles to put the feathers I've collected in.

Next we drew on cardboard with hot glass. Now this was so cool. Our instructor Thurman is really great. He basically will blow glass, while we watch and then say, "your turn." And then we have to do it... not as much instruction as actually trying it ourselves. I like that... I learn that way.  He took hot glass and dripped it on the cardboard. At first he set the cardboard on fire, and almost abandoned the project, but then we wet the cardboard and did it. The glass burns and drips in really neat patterns and shapes. (I kept mine).

After dinner, I found a CVS! So now I can be clean! I'm pretty tired... almost fell asleep during yoga (afternoon, not morning... I slept as late as possible - 8:30).

I went up to the studio at night and some people in our class are sick... really sick (stomach virus) I hope I stay well. Sheryl was teaching us how to sculpt with wax. And then.... well, this is the difference between boys and girls:

Us (girls/women): All sitting in the studio making little sculptures and molds out of wax.

Them (boys/men): In the hot shop and outside, trying to figure out ridiculous things to blow a glass bubble into... Like digging a hole in the ground and blowing a bubble in the dirt... a dirt-mold.

We had to go to watch them blow glass in the dirt (which turned out pretty cool), and then they tried a metal cage (didn't work) and then a cardboard tube (phallic jokes were made). Ahhh, art school....