So, . . . about that week in Oakland: My experience there was frustrating and rewarding. Glass flameworking, which is what the workshop that I attended was about, is different both in process and materials from the glass fusing that I've been doing. 
The type of glass used is also incompatible with the kind used in fusing. I was the slow learner in a class of three. I don't have the hand-eye coordination that is needed for that first crucial step of bonding one glass rod to another in a 4500 degree flame. (I learned that it is far less painful to burn yourself with a piece of glass that has just been in a 4500 degree open flame than with a pan that has been in a 450 degree oven.) At the halfway point, I decided to concentrate on the processes that we'd learned the previous two days rather than move ahead with more advanced projects. Despite my difficulty learning these new techniques and dealing with an instructor who was clearly frustrated working with me, I'm glad that I got to experiment with the process.More recently, I spent Mother's Day week-end in San Jose. On Saturday, Rachael and I went for a 4.1 mile walk in Almaden Quicksilver Park. About an hour after we returned to her house, we were joined by Ben, Wendy and Maddie. Ben and Rachael took charge of dinner, while I got to enjoy Maddie. I am amazed by how much her language ability advances from one visit to the next.
On Sunday, Rachael and I played with 
her Mother's Day gift to me. A bit of history: When my kidlets were young, the three of us made group drawings. The project would start with one of us drawing something on a piece of paper then passing it to the next person who would add their touches. After a number of 
go-rounds, we'd have a completed picture. Rachael and I continued with these 
drawings long after Ben stopped doing them with us. Often we would get into "wars" where she would draw something to attack my drawing (or vice versa) and I would respond with my own attack or lethal defense. I can remember Rachael and I doing these kind of drawings when she was in Colorado teaching snow boarding and kayaking (in different seasons). We may have done them even more recently.
Rachael's Mother's Day gift to me was a set of acrylic paints, a blank 14" x 18" canvas and the experience of once again combining our creative impulses. This time we stipulated that there would be no wars.
4 comments:
Good to see you back in the blogosphere. Take care of that thumb!
I missed you, your writing, your art, the way you share everything with your family, the way you burn and show us, I dig ;)
That's the most fantastic mothers day present I think I have ever heard of...and the best tradition of things to do with your children! I am very impressed with that:) That woman cannot have been a very good tutor if you didn't catch on first go....she was probably jealous!!
Timoteo: Thanks. Thumbs healed now. Cut myself this morning though.
Lorraine: Thanks Lorraine. I'm having a huge problem doing stuff I must do and want to do. I still waaay waaay behind with the must do stuff.
Nola: I was really happy that Rachael thought of that as a Mother's Day gift. She's also going to be doing it with your boyfriend. I'm glad to see a tradition possibly emerge. I was really a rotten rotten student. And she was a rotten teacher.
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