Two sessions of fused glass classes have left me with a house full of amateurish pieces and a mind full of musings. I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be an artist, what artistic temperament is, and about the various ways I work my thoughts: through photographs, through words, and through the work of my hands. There is something gestating here, and I'm not sure what, but I'm excited to learn.
I just discovered poet David Whyte, and loved these thoughts of his:
I had a very humbling and very adolescent experience earlier this year, through an artistic residency in Tacoma, attempting to put the art of poetry into a new and different form - glass. Glass in all its forms: Molten glass. Blown glass. Cast, solid glass. Glass to be worked with slowly and painstakingly over days and then broken and shattered and quickly swept away. Glass to be burnt and seared by; glass to be sweated and muttered over; glass to be held up to the light and almost reluctantly admired. I longed for the utter simplicity of pen and paper, of fingers typing and a laptop keyboard. But no, it was glass, glass and glass.
It has indeed been humbling, and I'm taking a break for a couple of months to think about what I've learned and to generate new ideas before going back to the studio. What a frustrating and compelling medium. I'm so glad to have found it.
