sandandwater

This is a fairly typical representation of what I wear while working in the studio. It's very hot, hazardous and does not lend itself at all to looking glamorous. I pull my hair back and then hide it under a scarf to prevent it from being singed, but also because I do perspire quite a lot and the scarf at least keeps it from mostly running into my eyes. I don't wear any jewelery or anything loose and hanging, and while not pictured here, I typically have what amounts to a men's gym sock pulled up and over the length of my left arm as it is the one that I use closest to the glory hole for gathering flux. I will also usually wear sunglasses or tinted safety goggles, depending on what it is in particular that I am working on during a given day.

Notes: This piece takes place some months down the road from now. I'll be moving around in Pippa's timeline a bit as I tackle her leaving Rory and her time spent in Venice as she attempts to heal emotionally from events of this past August.



Sketching was not her strong suit. It wasn’t even particularly necessary with her chosen craft in most instances. She preferred to work more organically and to be as fluid with her creations as the material she shaped lent itself to be. Molten glass could be controlled and molded, but the process was delicate and time consuming when one was limited to centrifugal force and the very air in their own lungs. It became easier when other tools were added. Steel, water, blocks and casts made of metal with melting points far higher than sand flux.

This, however, needed to be precise. So Pippa sat, charcoal in one hand, gum eraser in the other and large pad of thickly woven sketch paper propped against the angled surface of the drafting table. The sketch would serve as a detailed reference, a quick visual to accompany the one in her mind, used to move into the next step of the process. From this drawing she’d create an inverted three-dimensional likeness out of dampened sand—a mold to cast her sculpture. When she thought of her intended piece, she saw it in the final stage, the way it would look when she showed it to the world. What she was doing on paper and in sand was a deconstruction of sorts, forcing her to mentally work backwards in order to move forward. It had to be perfect.

When she returned to the glass studio in Venice, Pippa wanted to give up the traditional glass blowing altogether in favor of working with casts and molds. Alessandro had a fit, argued. The Signore wouldn’t hear of it. Forbid it, in fact. It wasn’t that it was a lesser art form, it did require its own set of skills and talent but the old Italian gaffer was set in his ways and his beliefs. It was easier, she told him. Easier than trying to compensate for a now deformed hand, the missing finger and the deadened nerves. What she didn’t tell him was that it was easier than facing the memories of what she’d be able to do and being forced to compare them to what she was now capable of—and finding herself lacking. She was his prize student, la stella brillante—the brilliant star. She would not confine herself to less than she was capable of and that was final.

Except for this piece. All ready figured out were the ingredient sums: she’d tallied how much silica she’d need to mix the flux, the sodium dioxide and the lime too (to set the opacity of the material once cooled), and worked out which compounds she needed to achieve the perfect shades and hues to color the glass—gold mostly and in chloride form to get the rich and brilliant reds she imagined—required. She’d done the math and worked the chemistry. Numbers were easy; the execution would prove the challenge. She had to create it. Was driven to it, occupied by the image in her mind to the point of total distraction.

She found herself slipping her fingers into the sugar bowl at breakfast, imaging the delicate white crystals were the more durable granules of sand she could sculpt into a mold for casting. Salty silica instead of the sweet cane coating her fingers with a sticky grit. Pippa had laughed then, it seemed fitting really. Her muse craved gooey confections the way she craved the ability to pull his image out of the page, press it into wet sand, morph it into glass.

In the shower, she’d use the steam and the bar of soap against tempered doors to outline a nearly life-sized image, trying to get a feel for the enormity of what she was undertaking. It would be heavy, unwieldy at times, maybe even impossible without careful planning and the use of hands other than her own. She was grateful to have Alessandro’s studio at her disposal, his students to command and instruct. They’d have no part in the creation but they would lift, turn, carry the piece for her. These things she’d consider as hot water washed away his face just as she’d ended their romance in a torrent of hot tears.

Making her bed, pillows and blankets became construction material as Pippa debated what the base would look like. Sheets wrapped around pillows and bed posts, piled, folded, draped to give form to ideas. It had to be sturdy of course, able to withstand the weight and the stress but also compliment if not actually become part of the piece. Metal she thought then discarded. No, that wouldn’t do—not for him. Stone. Granite. Granite and glass, one supporting the other, entwined and enmeshed. The rock would be the foundation; the glass would run down the thin columns and flow over the angled base, softening it, bringing it to life with color and warmth. Out of the two would emerge her sculpture, not resting atop of it but growing out of the base—the way their relationship should have been.

Every day it was the same for her, this routine of moving through the necessities of life all the while moving closer to completing the only thing that compelled her to keep going in the first place. Her need for perfection made the process painfully slow despite the sense of urgency that pushed her forward. A relentless drive and constant hunger for something that would not be sated kept Pippa in an artistic fugue. Alessandro worried over what would happen when she reached her goal. Pippa kept working.



Pippa Kerr//927

Signore Alessandro

I was sorting through some things and found his picture on my desk so I scanned it in before finding a picture frame for it. My dear Signore, he's taught me so much and given me so much more. I suppose it's no surprise that I've been thinking about Venice again. About making glass in his studio, with him. Even being yelled at by him--no one yells like Alessandro, he has it down to its own art form. I miss that about him. He always pushes and he never, ever lets me run. I miss that too.

The small studio was a mess. Broken glass of every imaginable color covered the floors. Works in progress or even fully finished pieces now ruined. Destroyed by the hands that made them.

“No!” She shrieked the word like an angry child, and like a child she too was in the middle of a tantrum. “Of all the stupid, rude, inconsiderate, ridiculous…no! I’m not doing it.”

There was another crash, more shattered glass on the concrete floor of her studio.

Stubborn. Angry. Violent.

A satisfying crunch as she stamped her foot over the not quite destroyed curve of a bowl.

“He can go to Hell, the selfish, arrogant…how dare he ask me…now…after all these…NO!”

A vase went flying, smashed against the cinderblock wall.

“Arrrgh!” There weren’t words left for Pippa to express her rage, primal sounds and frustrated noises were all that spilled from her lips, tore from her throat as she swept an arm across the table. Clattering bottles, tools, powdered chemicals…they all tumbled to the floor in a resounding crash cum crunch, scattered farther as she kicked at the heap.

“I hate you!” That angry hiss was what it took for the emotional tide to turn. Tears fell, hot and stinging and she couldn’t wipe them away fast enough. Trembling hands, shaking shoulders, chest heaving as she fought against sobs. “I hate you…I hate you…I hate you…”

She sank to the floor, ignoring the jagged glass that pressed through the knee of her jeans and into her skin. Pippa’s focus was on the crumpled sheets of legal stationary. Documented requests from…she snatched the balled up paper from the floor and held them tightly to her chest. Tried to breathe. She didn’t hate him. Could never.

She hated what he didn’t do back then. Hated what he was asking now. But the man? He was someone she’d always love. Yes, he had hurt her. Broken her in ways she hadn’t known possible back then but he also gave her so much, showed her there was more to life than what she had lived. He made her stronger, strong enough to walk away to be herself.

Maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was gratitude. It was…something. Something she couldn’t hate him for because without him, without those experiences she wouldn’t be here now. Wouldn’t have the happiness she’d found.

As she mulled these things over, calmed herself, Pippa smoothed the pages against the cool floor. Reread them. Shook her head. No, she’d not be filling the request. She may owe him a lot but she didn’t owe him this. In this matter her obligations were to someone else entirely and Pippa wouldn’t betray her. Her, she did love.

Collected, subdued and once more the picture of propriety that people associated with Phillipa Kerr, the red headed woman stood. She looked around her studio, blinking and a bit taken aback as if this was the first time she’d noticed the destruction she’d caused. No matter, she’d clean it up, set the space to rights and no one would be the wiser.

Just as she’s always done.

(Editors – ‘Blood’)

“” Alessandro murmured in quiet approval as he stood behind Pippa, absently twisting and turning her curly red locks in his hands, tucking them into the back of her shirt to keep her hair from being further singed in the fire’s heat. He was like that, gentle and quiet when she did something right. One little mistake and he’d be screaming in her ear, gesticulating wildly and cursing her into the next decade. He had a flair for the dramatic, to say the least. “, Pippa…keep going, do not take the time to think, just feel it, . Feel the pull…let gravity, , like that. .”

She’d been there, in Italy, apprenticing with this man for nearly two years. So much learned and still feeling like so much more she needed to know. She had the basics, understood the process but now came the hard part. Learning to trust her instincts, knowing when to break the rules to let creativity reign.

“ Faster, hurry…” He was reaching for the pipe then, not controlling, merely assisting as she spun the heavy rod. Keeping it balanced for her, his hands so much larger and stronger. Calluses thicker. His sense of timing perfected. “Look at it, Pippa! See what you make here, !”

Pippa laughed at the praise, laughed more at grin on the old man’s face as they worked in tandem, watching as the glass thinned and flared, fanned out from the centrifugal force they were creating in the sweltering studio. Faster, they turned the pontil, hand over hand hers and his, moving in sync. “ You’re crazy!”

Later that evening, hours later, they sat on the terrazzo steps that made up the front of Alessandro’s home, drinking wine bottled from vineyards belonging to his sister in Tuscany and sharing a loaf of bread baked fresh by his neighbor. Between them sat the vessel she had been spinning. A platter of vibrant colors, the process of marvering it—rolling it over a marble slab layered in chemicals to add color to the glass, all Pippa’s own doing. She’d done it all herself: the initial gathering of molten glass, forming the first bubbled shape with breath from her own lungs, the following gathers, back and forth to the marver, reheating it in the glory hole. All he had done was watch. Watch and spin as her second pair of hands.

That had been her job for the longest time. Today, master handed over the reins to the apprentice and let her take control. And she’d done . He was proud, she could tell by the speculative glances he kept giving the platter. It had only been in the annealing oven for a few hours, the glass so thin that it didn’t take long for it to gradually cool. Very tricky, what she had done. Avoided the stress fractures common to a piece so delicate.

“…you have the touch. A gift. It’s not only a talent, not just a skill. A gift. ” He took her hands in his, thumbs rubbing over the rough skin of her palms before lifting each, in turn, to his lips for a tender kiss. “A gift.”

“, Alessandro…thank you. I couldn’t possibly—“

“No, no. You do not thank me for this, Phillipa. You thank the Mother Mary, you thank the Holy Father. You thank these.” He lifted her hands again, squeezed them tightly. “This gift I did not give to you, you had it all along. I see it. I knew. When you came around my shop. When you with that awful American Italian asked me for work. When you didn’t cry every time I yell at you. When you get burned and you kept working. I knew, .”

She smiled at him then, always picking on her Italian even as his English sometimes left something to be desired. She never once commented on it, even then she opted for, “I had a good teacher.”

“The best.” Oh, that machismo. He had it in spades. He dropped one of her hands to run a finger along the rim of her glass. “This is very good. Very lovely.”

Releasing her other hand he lifted the platter and looked her right in the eye. “But is only one piece. Promise you can do it again, just the same.”

She bit her bottom lip as she returned his gaze, blue eyes fixed on dark brown. It was a challenge; she recognized it. Pippa had been flying high all evening with a sense of accomplishment but he’d never let her get too full of herself. Alessandro was a good teacher for a reason. “I promise.”

“.” He let go of her platter and watched it shatter across the terrazzo, a million glimmering slivers catching the moonlight. “Tomorrow.”

“I promise.”


Pippa Kerr//Last Call//802

Pippa may have spent part of Sunday afternoon with butterflies in her stomach over the prospect of spending the evening on a date with Rory Stone, lead singer of Breaker Street and currently the reason she loves her job at Last Call so much, but once she hits the glass studio and fires up the first oven she is calm as can be. The low roar of the fire, the pungent smell of basic elements being burned welcomes her, settles her nerves. She knows this place; this is her domain even more so than waiting tables at the intimate nightclub.

He’s going to meet her here and they’ll work on the promised present for his sister’s birthday. She’s actually looking forward to sharing some of this with him. Her version of magic. Pippa smiles as she takes off her jacket, strips off her jewelry and pulls her hair back into a ponytail. In jeans and a tank top she’s nearly ready to get to work, adding a kerchief over her red curls and tying it tightly. The cotton helps cut down on the inevitable sweat that beads her brow, runs into her eyes.

She opens a few windows for proper ventilation and sets up her workspace. With Rory she intends to do simple lampworking but until he gets here, she’s got something else in mind that she wants to try. Cork paddles, long metal pipes and pliers, jacks and files all line up across a long steel bench. Bucket of water by her feet and she’s ready to make her first gather in the melt.

By the time she hears the knock on the studio’s door, Pippa’s got her hands full. She’s cupped a hand around the mouth of the pipe and is blowing bubble in the molten glass on the other end. Satisfied with the size, she brings it to the steel bench, turns on the torch clamped at the side and begins the process of shaping it, rolling the pipe between her hands constantly. “Hi, Ro…”

She glances at him and smiles before turning her attention back to her work. “Want to give me a hand?”