May 31, 2006

I had my first stained glass workshop last night and I think I may have found a new passion.

I forgot how relaxing and at home I feel making art in a common studio space. It's fucking fun people. It doesn't hurt that there's this really nice and eminently genuine french (from france) young lady instructor with the hands of a ninety-year-old gendarme to help me and to make fun of me when I ask for a band-aid.

"C'est le verre Miriam, tu va etre blesser tout le temps. Tu peut pas avoir une band-aid chaque fois!"

There are three other people in the class and we all listened to the french jazz radio station and learned to score and tear glass and then how to trace cartoons for the learners window we will be producing.

Tearing glass is really interesting. You first score the glass with a little wheeled cutter, then it' s not really like breaking the glass into two peices, the closest analogy is tearing. You grip the glass on either side of the score between your thumb and your curved index finger and then just pull out swiftly. At first I couldn't do it, because I wasn't putting the right pressure on the motion or something, so I could sweat and struggle and my glass stayed as solid as could be. Then suddenly by acident I pulled the right way (quickly and without much effort), and the glass broke along the score like it was made of spun suger. What I had forgotten about learning to use your body a certain way is that once you discover a way to do something, it becomes hardwired really quickly, it's not so cerebral as other types of learning.

Of course we are practising now with clear window glass which is very simple to tear and to score. Coloured glasses all have different tempers because they are a mix of minerals, and dyes and all that. So once I have moved up in the class I will probably become more frustrated.

All in all though, in comparison to my driving lessons the stained glass course was a complete success.