Stella...

After the first glass blowing class finished, Agnes said to make note of any dreams of glass we had.  I thought it was a given I would dream about glass, because my dreams are so vivid, and I dream regularly. I didn't know just how much the dream that night would unfold into the piece I made the second week.

That Friday night, I dreamed I was making small paper-weight sized strawberries.  They were red with green tops.  When I woke up, I made note in my journal about the dream, but didn't plan on talking about it to Agnes.  I thought that surely everyone dreams of the glass-blowing class after they are there for over 4 hours playing with glass and fire.

The second Friday rolled around and it was time for us to choose the colors for the bowl we were making.  She let us look through some powder colors which went all through the glass, rather than in streaks like the chips of glass do.  She pulled out a blue, and then a pinkish color.  "This one's called Strawberry", she said and she poured a little out.

I thought I should tell her about my dream at that point, so I did.  She told me it would be a pink color, but we could add red and it would look like a strawberry.  She said that her pieces will come to her in dreams, and if you get inspiration in a dream you should go with it.  That's how my second piece came to be a strawberry bowl.



I was first of the four of us to go.  Agnes helped a lot on my piece, along with her apprentice Cody.  There were a lot more techniques to making the bowl, and a lot more involvement from all of the "team" of students and teachers.  It was a fun class and I really love the bowl.



The Friday I was to go back for my last class, Agness called as I was leaving to say that the gas was leaking, so we wouldn't be having a class that night.  I had to wait two weeks to see my strawberry piece. When I got there this week, I was excited to see my bowl for the first time, it really looks like a strawberry.

It was pink with swirls of red throughout.  Because we put it in a mold, it made some really interesting shapes in the glass and some air got caught too, which I think makes it awesome!






When Agnes asked me about the bowl, I told her how I wanted to use the strawberry color as soon as she brought it out because I thought it would look like my Nanny's vase, that I got from my Grandmama.   I told her how similar the color was, and how it was funny how I've thought of Nanny several times since starting the glass blowing because her names was Stella Agnes.  Agnes smiled and said, "My middle name is Stella.".   I just had to laugh.

Strawberry Bowl with Nanny's vase

The bowl carries a little bump on it's side from where I touched the side of the furnace while spinning it and bringing the pipe out.  Agnes said we could try to fix it while we were working on it, but I wanted to keep it.



Because now, it REALLY looks like Nanny's vase!



I've named my bowl Stella.  I don't know yet what her function will be, but for now she just makes me smile.