love affair with stained glass

this year. it has been a doosy. many many changes. for all kinds of reasons, glass has taken a back seat in my life. i miss it, and i yearn to get back to it. perhaps this month i can. my workspace is in the garage, so weather plays a big part in when i can work. in the winter, with the cold, it is just too damn cold to work that much. i have a warehouse-style propane heater, which works fantastically, but this past winter i had some function issues with it. it seemed like there were more fumes this winter. i know for sure that one of the propane tanks had a leak, i tested it, but after that it seemed like i could still smell the propane. and there was a haze in the air that i hadn’t experienced before. and before you ask, yes i kept a door to the outside open about foot which has been adequate ventilation in the past.

then there is summer. mid june temps hit the high 90’s and ease into the mid 100’s by mid july. it stays blazing hot through august. and i mean blazing. we get probably 20 days over 105 between july and august. probably 30+ days between 100-105 in that time period. september can be super hot too. last september broke all kinds of records. anyway, in the gargage, in summer, you can add another 10-15 degrees to the outside temp. maybe more. sometimes i’ll step out into the garage and it truly feels like stepping into an oven. i had a thermometer out here last summer and one memorable day it was 137 degrees in the garage. it was 117 outside, so…

its difficult to work on glass in that kind of heat. hard to hold on to pieces with sweat slick hands. in the winter, my hands get cold and stiffen up, also making it hard to work the pieces.

i wanted to build a glass shack in my backyard. last year i saved up the money for it, and then needed a root canal. saved some more, sold a piece (or maybe it was a commission, i forget), almost had the money and kia got super sick. bye bye shack. since then i haven’t been able to save, too many things happening needing an infusion of funds. so i tabled it.

the original glass shack, in inglewood

then things changed. my mom passed away. my roommate, after hemming and hawing for a couple months, decided to move into her room. which was fine with me. then, two weeks ago, he announced he was moving out. so now i have two empty bedrooms. i have decided to move my glass workshop into my mom’s room. she was my biggest fan, my most enthusiastic supporter. i think she would be happy with the decision. it’s a good sized room, so i am going to move my computer desk in there too. i’ll put my main work table under the window that looks out into the back yard. maybe the kitties will start going in there again. it is like they are afraid of the space, almost. maybe jadzia will come in an curl up while i work, like she used to. that would be nice. my mom would like that too.

its hard to see her, but she is curled up on the chair, head up-side-down

~ by kellig on July 7, 2011.

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