My second blog (in a year)
Recent work I’ve been doing on Quadra Island.
What a great day! After experiences seeing Ross Richmond and Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen in action at Pilchuck, I’ve been on an inspiration explosion, developing my new work in leaps and bounds. Today’s development’s having me hopping for each hour of bench time; it’s fantastic. I’ve you’ve ever felt a little hum-drum about getting to work, you know how great it feels when that feeling passes.
This morning I saddled up to keep working on some of the landscape/ figurative sculpture that’s kept me busy. The pieces from yesterday are getting there, and I was keen to keep at it. This sculpture stuff feels much more intuitive than the conventional blowing processes I work by sometimes. I love drawing out this stuff, and the challenge has been translating that feeling into the blowing process. It’s about the flow… all about the flow....
So there I am, back at the bench, turning pipe… ah, the familiar aches and pains from yesterday’s work. My regular assistant has been sick, so I find myself getting a little bent out of shape trying to working out different techniques. I made a couple of components right off the bat, and much to my surprise felt a startling new pain in my back.
Now, this is not col. I’ve been keeping fit, excercising, I feel good… pain it not a good thing. It passed, almosted immediately, but I try to take hed from such warnings. A little preventitive measure today can mean never needing a physiotherapist tomorrow, if you follow me.
So, what to do? Was I bending? Twisting? Dancing a bit too much (never). Then, it came to me:
It’s the Right Handed Glassblower Conspiracy, centuries of oppression, coming on to torture me. So… I rebelled. resisted. Threw caution to the wind, spat at the Roman principles that would have killed me in their times. I turned my bench, and starting working along the path of the left-hand.
IT WAS AMAZING!!!! I LOVE IT. When woring with an assistant, I will work right, but as a solo artist
I AM PROUDLY LEFT-HANDED YAAAAYYYYYY!
(try it righty, I dare ya)