As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy, than to create.

- Star Trek, The Wrath of Khan



Today, Mary shared her birthday present with me. We spent the day in Vancouver Washington, at the Firehouse Glass Studio, where I had purchased a private lesson for her in glass working. I had intended it as a truly private event for her, but it requires a partner, and kindly enough she included me.

That said, I must say that this was every bit as difficult a process as it might seem; Matthew our instructor pulled no punches, he walked us through each step of the way and then handed us a steel rod or glassblowing pipe and said go to it. Fortunately he was ready to jump in if we got in too deep, but he obviously believed in a hands-on method. I managed to mangle a number of pieces as we ventured through solid pieces such as paperweights - mine resembled a rock by the time I got done, but Mary's was much more pristine, a nice orb shot through with wisps of red and glittery Aventurine.

We followed with blowing; this was different than the blowing we had done in the past, in that we were not given the advantage of using a blowing-hose (a method which I could tell Matthew considers a bit of a cheat, but he himself used for purposes of his own demo)....we instead faced the blunt mouthpiece of the pipe itself, puffing away. I could feel myself turning blue while barely able to see the result five feet away on the other end...barely enough to call a bubble. The result of this first experiment was supposed to be a ball, specifically a simple glass ornament. Instead, I produced a misshapen puff that resembled a pickled crab apple. Nevertheless, Matthew assisted as we placed it into the cooling kiln as if it was a Murano masterpiece. I tried again, producing a larger but equally peculiarly shaped object - I decided I had moved up the chain from crab apple to eggplant.

The third section of the day's lessons was in sculptural form; this was accomplished by kneading ground and colored glass into the glowing globs at the end of the red-hot steel, and repeatedly toasting and revolving it in the annealing oven like a toasted marshmallow. I seem to recall losing a lot of marshmallows in the campfire when I was a kid, and was determined not to sacrifice this piece of glass to the same fiery fate. Nevertheless, as I rotated it in the flames and felt my knuckles glazing over in scorch, the flaming marshmallow image did soar past my minds-eye more than once.

Pulling the first glob out and sitting at the workbench, rolling the rod in my left hand and detailing the yellow-hot glass with various shears and tongs with my right, I laboriously clipped, pulled and cajoled, returning the glass to the fiery glory-hole again and again until I had accomplished what purportedly was a red half-open rose; the next step being to attach it to a glowing glob of kneaded-green glass, then pulling it to form a stem. This called for standing and swinging the rod maniacally - actually a gentle swing was more in line with the instruction but I took it upon myself to wave it as much as possible. then a few twists and clips with the shears, a rap on the handle and it landed softly in a vacant spot in the kiln to cool. There it was, but looking at it I realized that instead of delicate blown-glass flower I had managed to create a glowing red Sea-Cucumber-on-a-stick.

Ah well, if not a great glass artisan, maybe I have accomplished a new fast-food delicacy.