Susan’s Blue Candy Dish

I broke Susan’s cobalt blue candy dish. An old cobalt blue candy dish. It was probably an heirloom. Susan took one look and said “Phooey.” Then she smiled. “Make me something from the pieces.” So I took the pieces home and stared at them. I got an idea. I put them in my rock tumbler and tumbled them into velvety looking beach glass. I didn’t know what to do next. I showed them to Susan and asked what she thought. “I liked it better shiny,” she commented. Phooey, I thought. I put the glass away. That was twenty-five years ago.

One day I took the glass out and stared at it because the time had come to make something for Susan out of the glass. The glass was talking to me. Not only that, I had taken up lampworking in the twenty-five years that had passed, and I will stick mostly anything in the flame. Well, that’s not exactly true. I don’t cook in the flame or light combustibles or body parts. I respect the flame. But I love to play and experiment.

I made lots of beads for Susan using all kinds of inclusions where the COE of the glass didn’t matter. I had didn’t have a plan or directions; I just heeded the laws of chemistry and improvised as I went. After kiln annealing, I put the beads in a box along with with some findings and jewelry tools and other beads and gave them to Susan. She took one look and clapped her hands. “Oh, goody gumdrops!” she exclaimed.

One day when I can tie her down, we will make things with the beads. Here’s to the next 25 years, Susan!