Alive again... fun with glassblowing.

[flexagon]

Yesterday I felt like myself again for the first time in two weeks. What a miracle to wake up feeling okay -- to have energy to do chores, go to the gym and still go out and be social and take glassblowing class with dr_alycat and cook_ting!

Now I know that glassblowing is awesome, and I see why everyone makes a paperweight before they make anything else... and I know how Chihuly does those wavy bowl shapes... and I want to go back and learn to blow a bubble so that I can make drinking cups. Unfortunately the school in question is really far away across town, which is too bad because they offer a lot of classes. But I know there is glassblowing at MIT as well, and so dr_alycat and I have pledged to see if there happens to be something tempting offered over IAP this year.

(Pledge complete. Grrr. IAP classes open to freshmen only? Maybe the right thing to do is take a class at Diablo and then weasel into the intermediate one.)

Like I really need another hobby. :-)

There is, by the way, an ongoing debate in my head between two voices. Both minimalist. One says "Have just a few meaningful items. Make things by hand so you really appreciate them." The other says "Have just a few things and don't be attached to them. There are better things to find meaning in than things."

The third voice just wants to play with molten glass.

Comments

[mangosteen]

I did a class at Diablo about 18 months ago. It was fun on a whole bunch of different axes, but I think the most interesting thing about it was how it increased the resolution of my world.

"Oh, that's how Chihuly did the wavy glass bowls."
"Huh. I bet you could use some of these skills for candymaking."
"X is made that way because it's the easiest way to make it without fighting the material!"

If the only thing I got out of that class was being able to see the world on a finer scale, that would have been enough. As it turned out, I got a paperweight and a rocks glass out of the deal, too.

[flexagon]

Haha, yes to all that. It reminds me of the things I got out of manufacturing class when I was a mechanical engineeering undergrad: just a lot of looking around and going "I bet that was made by process X!"

Also, your instinct is dead-right: you can use those skills for candymaking. cook_ting is an ex-chef, and he was talking about the similarities between what we did and working with molten sugar... making ribbon candy and the like.