This past weekend I was a part of Studio Cruise. For those of you who aren’t aware, it is a driving tour of artist studios. We open our creative space for visitors, display and talk about our work and some of us demonstrate our process. It is always energizing to do this kind of event. People come, they watch me work and feed my ego until I’m so full I can hardly move. They also ask questions and the number one question is “how did you get started?”
That is always a loaded question because there are so many different paths that led to where I am now. At the heart of it in the beginning was the need to express myself in a way that felt good. The heat of the flame and the flow of the molten glass simply makes me feel good. It allows me to take all of my thoughts and emotions and let them flow in silence. It is very much like a meditation that results in a physical object of beauty. It is not a beauty that appeals to everyone. It is a personal beauty and I know immediately when the right person has found their piece. There is a resonance between person and piece. Both the jewelry and the person seem to shine a little brighter in that moment and when that happens everything that brought me to this place makes sense.
On the last day of the Cruise after the last demo of the year was done I let the participants give it a whirl. They all made their own little bead and as I watched them discovering the joys and frustrations of forming the glass I realized again that, yes, this was the right path for me and because of that I have attained mastery. Not perfection, but mastery that comes from many thousands of hours of practice. That realization alone makes all of the years of hard work and sacrifice worth while. Someday I will blog about how I came to do this work, but for today, in the aftermath of repeating the story many times, this seemed more appropriate.
