Blue
Blue
Stepping foot into the hot shop always brings me a sense of peace. The scent of brick and burnt glass and sweat and passion, and okay, yeah, occasionally singed hair. The sounds of steel on crystal, the whoosh of air being forced into the kiln, the hiss of the flame, strong and raging. The murmur of voices, calm yet loud enough to be heard above the din. The black scorched floors - flame-kissed cement peppered with bright greens and blues and reds. People literally breathing their creations into life. Little pieces of their souls escaping their bodies and minds, being pressed and blown and swirled into a new fragile, colorful existence. There is nowhere else in the world like this place.
When I’m here, there is nothing other than my bench and pipe and block and crimps and jacks. There is nothing other than pools of molten rock to focus on as I rush against the forces of heat and pressure and time to encourage them into the shapes that live in my mind. While I primarily work alone, I’m rarely the only one in the shop. There is a quiet comradery here, filled with up nods and soft, distant smiles, and the collective awareness that none of us are ever fully present while we’re lost in our own hearts and minds, and our art is speaking to us like an old friend. When someone does assist another artist by spinning a pipe or sprinkling down fine glass sand like magical glitter fairies, words are spoken, but only the bare minimum required to instruct the other. Nothing else is needed.
It’s not lonely here. Even without words, none of us are ever truly alone in this place. We’re surrounded by souls that understand ours even when most of the world doesn’t. There is laughter here too. Encouragement and companionship. A kind ear, a strong hand, a supportive shoulder. There are smiles shared over pictures of children and tears of lost loves wept. Soulful and easy conversations as we start the fires in the morning and snuff them out at night. Connections found in the moments before and after emotions rise and roll across the surface, leaving us raw and open in a way most aren’t outside of these walls.
Outside of these walls, I’m happy and light and personable. It’s not an act that I put on for the rest of the world; it’s genuinely who I am. It’s who I’ve always been. I like laughter and friendships. Late-night beers, dancing at clubs, and sleepover movie nights with friends even though I’m thirty-three. I like the fact that I’m quick to smile and slow to anger. I like that my life is full of joy and simplicity. I like that the darkness in my soul is so much dimmer and more manageable than it is for so many other people. It still exists, but it simmers quietly in the background rather than overtaking my heart and filling my mind. The glass and flame and focus help me contain it.
I don’t think anyone who’d lived my life would have made it through unscathed and without some small measure of darkness finding its way in. It’s not like I’ve had a particularly hard life, I suppose, but I’ve been through enough to have been left with scars. I’m an only child whose parents were loving and caring when I was younger and who still support me as a gay man covered in tattoos and piercings and blue hair as an adult. We don’t see each other all that often; our lives are just different, and we don’t exactly share a lot of common interests. The few times a year we get together for holidays or birthdays seem to use up all of our conversational ammo pretty quickly. Even so, we love one another, and I know if I ever needed them, they’d be there for me. I know that makes me lucky, and I’m grateful for it.
I’ve always been relatively popular. People just sort of gravitate toward me, and I rather like that. Not because I need to be the center of attention, but because I like being around other people. I like being able to make them smile. I like encouraging and supporting them. I like knowing that I can offer some good in this world, even if it’s only by lending a hand or providing a shoulder to cry on.
I’ve never had a serious illness or been severely injured. I didn’t drop out of school. I’ve never been homeless, not quite anyway, and the handful of times I tried pot in my twenties is the extent of my drug use history, aside from the few drinks I have once a week when I go out dancing or to karaoke with friends. In truth, if not for my history with romance, I wouldn’t have much darkness to twist into glass.
My first serious boyfriend cheated on me. Quickly and with multiple people. For a long time, he convinced me that his cheating was the result of my shortcomings, not any fault of his own. The one after that was so deep in denial that even going to the occasional ball game with him as his buddy wasn’t something he was prepared to offer me. I lived quietly in his closet as I tried to convince myself that having to hide was worth it because he loved me. News flash. It wasn’t, and he didn’t. The boyfriend I moved to Seattle with…well, the less said about him, the better. Lesson learned. Bruises heal faster than broken bones, and even those are good as new long before the nightmares stop.
I don’t have a lot of room to complain, considering how hard life is for so many other folks. So I don’t. My attempts at romance have left me wounded and wary, but I try not to let those experiences affect anything other than my love life these days. I’ve spent some time in therapy and learned some meditation techniques and breathing exercises that help during the rare moments I still wake up lost in the past, but for the most part, I channel any feelings that bubble up into my art, and it works for me. I get to release my anger and fear and sadness and loathing. I get to take everything that is dark and dangerous and hurt and turn it into something beautiful. I get to remember that I can choose the shape of my own life.
I know that it’s easy to take advantage of someone like me. I’m not na?ve, and I’m not an idiot. I know there are people in the world without any goodness in their souls. I know there are people who see those like me - with my heart on my sleeve and my willingness to help and my genuine love of joy and kindness - and only see a target. I try not to let anyone take advantage of me these days, but I also try not to let the fact that they might, change me. I don’t want to see the world as a grey Orwellian hellscape. I want glass-half-full, sunny days on the beach, bubbly, glittery wonder in my life. I just try to use a bit more caution than I exercised when I was a little younger and a lot more innocent.
I’m grateful that through it all, I’ve had art in my life for nearly as long as I can remember. I didn’t find it through therapy or as a way to cope with my past. I’ve loved glassblowing since I first tried it in tenth grade. Should I have had the chance to try it in a high school setting? Fuck no. I think it’s pretty obvious to most people that barely supervised teens shouldn’t be allowed to play with fire so hot it melts rock. This shit is an insurance nightmare, and someone could have been seriously hurt. While I haven’t ever bothered to check, I’m sure that it’s no longer something the school offers.
The town I grew up in was small. Really small. The art class my sophomore year consisted of six students. The instructor was a glass artist who had gotten her teaching degree as a way to pay her bills when she never managed to become a rich and famous artist, and the school just sort of let her do what she wanted. That happened to be spending all day convincing her few students that they wanted to be struggling artists as well. In my case, it worked. Will I ever be rich? Nope. Will I ever be Chihuly famous? Not a chance. Still, I couldn’t imagine my life without it.