In the real world

Mostly in fused glass I’m doing abstracts, but the shape of a random piece of clear glass suggested to me this caterpillar climbing over an obstacle.

Does it even look like a caterpillar? Does it suggest an obstacle? Does it matter?

Sometimes from the pile of glass pieces, a figure jumps out at me. Like this one:

I hope you can tell it’s a figure, anyhow.

My eyes have been filled with the colors of spring, and so flowers bloomed in the sun:

Maybe they’ll look more floral when they’ve been fired in the kiln.

Then this one I felt as a volcano:

OK, it’s a stretch.

What I’m even more unsure of is whether all of these pieces are just plain dumb.

In self-defense: It’s not like I’m trying to make them realistic. They’re abstractions of real things.

They just seem so … unimportant.

Self-defense #2: It’s all self-expression, so in a way that is always going to seem “unimportant” in the journalistic sense.

Except that when I am immersed in making these little pieces, I feel completely outside myself. It doesn’t feel like self-expression. It feels like I’m expressing something that comes from inside the glass.

Releasing little spirits that want to get out. That want to jump, blossom, climb, or blow up.

So I help them.

I guess what’s important is that I’m learning to play again.

Today’s penny is a 2014, because I have 14 new pieces ready to fire.