Sweat

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration

...thomas alva edison

Last post I was inspired by the aboriginal works I'd found online at this link. I don't even know if it's legal to copy someone's beautiful artwork onto a glass canvas, but I did it anyway. I don't think anyone is going to mistake my 50-cent-piece sized bead for the original, so I'm feeling pretty safe.

Here's the thing about glass. It never comes out of the kiln looking the same as when it went in. I thought this bead would be the masterpiece of my career. I was up at 7:30 (it is Sunday), excited as Christmas morning (I still get excited Christmas morning), ready to open the kiln and be awed and surprised and bowled over by my genius.

About that. That genius part. I guess I'm still in the 99% perspiration section of that equation. Because I was disappointed. The colors were dull, the large bead seemed overly busy. It hadn't cracked, so that was a good thing. There's not much worse than a bead that you've spent half-an-hour on coming out of the kiln cracked. Well, okay, there are a lot of things worse than a cracked bead, like cancer or war or throwing up, but it's up there.

But I had a surprise yesterday when Sam came home from work. He brought me some inspiration in the form of this:

which doesn't seem all that inspiring, but it contained this:

Glass. But not just any glass. Glass from Double Helix Glassworks. Reactive glass that changes its whole personality with a little coaxing from the oxygen or natural gas of your torch. It's all very exciting, don't you know, a little like getting a new box of crayons. I used the clear glass called Olympic Rain and made this set:

Nothing special; a wonky hollow, a bumpy bead I love and lots of spacers that have the look of opals and will look great with gold.

Today I'll play with another of the reactive glasses. I found this picture on Flickr and am in awe:

I know there's some silvered ivory in there, I'm not sure of the rest. I'll play around and come up with my own version. Perhaps I'll try my hand at interpreting another aboriginal painting.

Or I'll be forced to play some cards or read a book or clean the fridge.

I'll bet Thomas Edison never had to clean the fridge.