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Roaring fire and heat almost unbearable, flames licking at metal rods and molten glass. It sounds almost alive with its low grumble and crackling pops. She has sweat dripping from her brow. And down the side of her neck, too. It puddles in the small of her back. Her skin itches from sweat falling, drying on the surface. Baked back into those slender muscled arms.
The only break in her concentration as she continues to turn, spin, roll the tools of her trade is a quirking of one eyebrow. Just enough action to indicate that she’s not oblivious to her body’s response to the environment. The acrid, overpoweringly sharp smells of hot metals and burning chemicals mixing with human sweat and the occasional bit of singed hair mingle and make her want to wrinkle her nose, sneeze. But she won’t. Can’t. Her hand is well trained ignoring the impulse to reach, rub at the irritation.
There is so much discipline and control, rigidity and precision that it seems almost contrary to the fluid melt she is gathering on a hot pontil. Curving and flowing, it looks something like sugary ribbon candy as she joins it to the lip of a curved vessel already blown out and rounded. Pulls and loops it with a pair of pliers, and constantly pushing it back into a flame to keep it hot, malleable.
There now; perfection.
She switches tools again, this time a file she dips into a container of cold water then with a steady hand, brings it to the neck of her vase, touches it where warm pipe meets hot glass. A sizzle and a sharp crack as she strikes the file with a mallet and the vessel is free. Lying on an asbestos lined pad. With a practiced act of grace, she slides her hands into a pair of mitts and carries her creation to an annealing oven, the final process in cooling, curing her work.
The only break in her concentration as she continues to turn, spin, roll the tools of her trade is a quirking of one eyebrow. Just enough action to indicate that she’s not oblivious to her body’s response to the environment. The acrid, overpoweringly sharp smells of hot metals and burning chemicals mixing with human sweat and the occasional bit of singed hair mingle and make her want to wrinkle her nose, sneeze. But she won’t. Can’t. Her hand is well trained ignoring the impulse to reach, rub at the irritation.
There is so much discipline and control, rigidity and precision that it seems almost contrary to the fluid melt she is gathering on a hot pontil. Curving and flowing, it looks something like sugary ribbon candy as she joins it to the lip of a curved vessel already blown out and rounded. Pulls and loops it with a pair of pliers, and constantly pushing it back into a flame to keep it hot, malleable.
There now; perfection.
She switches tools again, this time a file she dips into a container of cold water then with a steady hand, brings it to the neck of her vase, touches it where warm pipe meets hot glass. A sizzle and a sharp crack as she strikes the file with a mallet and the vessel is free. Lying on an asbestos lined pad. With a practiced act of grace, she slides her hands into a pair of mitts and carries her creation to an annealing oven, the final process in cooling, curing her work.
