Letting things go….
stop thinking you should be doing what you used to do. Every day is new.
all photos. a schneider
I used to torch glass. I have finally given all of my glass rods away. And, actually, when I think back, the woman was weird and didn’t really thank me for the hundreds of dollars worth of glass, but, I digress. This photo was my first and not very successful attempt at blowing a tiny bottle, but, the colors are gorgeous and I will settle for that! Anything that came out perfect is long gone, for which I am grateful.
I did this torching, called lampworking, in old Venice terms, for about 10 years. I still have the tools and one or two glass kilns. I haven’t been able to let them go. For years I sold beads to jewelry makers and made jewelry myself for shows and for eBay. Ebay was a lot more like Etsy back then. Maybe it was 1999? I think I loved this art more than anything else I’ve done. I still miss it and sometimes do it in my sleep. The problem is as you get older and if your eyes are not about perfectly aligned it is very hard to center a bead, or to center any glass exactly right on a thin rod. In any event now I write and I paint, two things I also love. It is time to let all of this glass love go. You know you outgrow many things in life, and these are just things. The hard part is when you know it is time to let go of people. The hardest part of life.
The moral tale is, of course, when you let go, it always makes space for something new.
I no longer rise at dawn every single day to open my kilns to see what is there. These days I go to my desk where I always hope that I can fill a page or two, each day or two! Slower, but more of what I am today.
And, to all of you who doubt, you can grow as much as you wish.
Great art. Great job.
I have been thinking about your post for several days. About the time you were making glass beads, I was making beaded jewelry and purses for family and friends and selling some. I think back about what appealed to me about the craft - that I could take a messy bowl of beads and make something beautiful from it. I moved a few months ago and brought along seven very large containers of beads that I had moved just six years before. I haven’t beaded it in about a dozen years. I offered them to a couple jewelry makers who hold jewelry sales to benefit pet rescues, but had no takers. I’ll return to that effort soon as with an aging back and older eyes, I don’t fancy wanting ever again to clean up the inevitable spill of thousands of beads that sometimes occurred. I too am writing now and still waiting for the moment when I can feel again that I took something messy and made something beautiful of it. Thank you for helping me to understand what I am looking for in writing.