Handle With Care

Sometimes the most beautiful things in life are the most fragile. And sometimes... they're not.

On the list of nots: the Grand Tetons, the moon, and would-be dragons eggs.

On the list of not nots: newborn babies, hopes of love, and glassworks.

And on the list of one of my favorite places to visit: Starfish Glassworks in Victoria, BC. Don't take me to Victoria if you don't have hours to spend in this tiny studio. Once I walk through the doors, I don't come away without a fight in the form of a pouty lower lip.

The studio consists of a tiny upper level where visitors enter and peruse the blown glass products. Prices vary from $$$ to $$$,$$$ and I will never ever be able to afford even the smallest $$$ piece. I'm not that sad, though, as it isn't the result I am so fascinated by - it is the fiery journey to fully blown that fills my soul.

That upper level is made tinier still by the fact that only half the square footage is walkable. A railing sections off the other half which is open to the working studio below. Four kilns, all on, line the far wall; directly beneath the railing are the benches and blowpipes and tongs and mitts and paddles and, of course, the artistes fascinants.

How could anyone not be utterly enthralled? These people take something halfway down Mohs scale of hardness and, with a blow, a twist and some heat (extreme heat), turn it into a gasp. And then they slap a pricetag on it and sell it to some VP who lives in Medina and has likely never even seen the process that brought him or her this work of art. sigh.

The temperature of the upper level is about 90 degrees. Duh. Heat rises and the furnaces below are notched up to a few farenheits below 2000. People are sweating afte 10 minutes in the store. I could care less about the heat; I am hanging over the railing eyes glued to what's happening below. Blowpipes go into furnaces and come out with globs on the end of them; the most sensitive fingers twirl the pipe and round the glob, sensitive lips blow in the end of the pipe and the glob expands. Furnace doors open again and the glob is reheated. Then it is paddled and twirled and snipped with the hugest pair of scissors ever, then it is tweezed and paddled and blown and heated and twirled and paddled again and again.

And then other pipes dip into globs, and globs touch globs and paddles and tweezers are used again. And just when you think you see what the artist is shaping, a sharp tap takes off half the glob united and the other half is stuck back into the furnace and you are completely and utterly baffled by what is going on.

And so it goes, and the people on the upper level come and go like time-lapse photography, and still that silly fool remains hanging over the railing watching the drama unfold. Heat, paddles, tweezers, repeat. And only one thing is certain anymore and that is that the store is damn hot!

At this point, I begin to think the artist below knows I'm there and he is determined to outlast me. He shapes a vase but it's not a vase; he adds color that changes into something completely different when cooled; and finally, finally, he makes a final snip, a tiny one on the edge of what is certainly the lip of A VASE, and, taking the pipe, he gives the swiftest of spins and at the end of the pipe is a plate.

A tap and the plate falls gently into the hands of a mittened assistant who takes it and places it in a box and the creator takes a sip of water and closes the furnace door and steps outside for a quick breath of fresh air.

And I remember to breathe again and turn to find I am the only one left in the studio, my traveling companions are next door at the candy shop. Strangely, I am already sated.