Had my first stained glass tonight. The instructor, Jimmy, seems really nice, and also seems to really know his stuff. He says he's been doing stained glass for 15 years and teaching for most of that time. It sounds like it's his living, between repair work and commissions (in that order), teaching, and working in a stained glass supply store one day a week.

Tonight was mostly talk. Which was fine, the extent of what I had known about stained glass can be summed up like this: "It's pretty." We did see some action toward the end of class, in the form of practice cutting and breaking on window glass. I won the "Golden Band-Aid Award" for drawing the first blood of the quarter, via an invisible glass splinter embedded in the ball of my thumb. Would that I had such success in the cutting itself: it seems that for me, applying enough pressure with the cutter to create a good score in the glass means I've got too much momentum to closely follow the pattern... or going slowly enough to closely follow the pattern means my score is much too weak, causing the glass to break incorrectly. I hope I'll get better; I felt somewhat discouraged by the time class was over.





We are to pick out or design patterns in time for next week's class. Says Jimmy: "Most of the stained glass supply stores around here know me as the guy who lets his beginners do whatever they want." I expect I'll be designing my own, which will be an additional challenge because this class does not cover design---but finishing something I designed myself will be twice as sweet as finishing a project out of my book.

There are ten students in my class. Three of us are smokers, a phenomenal percentage in such a small group... perhaps it's simply an overlap in the danger-seeking demographic. While enjoying a getting-to-know-you cigarette outside, I told my new classmates about my high school wood shop class. Most everyone else chose for a project a clock fashioned out of a polished cross-slice of tree trunk. I chose a wall-hutch, with spindles and shelves and drawers. In short, it was way too much. The project never did get finished---I ended up moving away suddenly before the semester was over but I don't think I'd've gotten it done in time anyway---I believe I took an Incomplete for the class. That should have taught me a lesson about what reward an overachiever can expect... but I don't think I learned a thing.

Posted by Michelle on September 24, 2002 11:22 PM