lo and behold

I’ve been reading this book as if it were a novel.  Really.  It’s that good. 

When I took my last class at Snow Farm, I was obsessed with making round, spherical beads, and my teacher, Nancy Tobey, said that Heather Trimlett showed her a method of getting a really good shape using a marble mold.  (I hope I’m not disclosing too many secrets.  This was just one of many, many wonderful things that I learned from Nancy – take a class from her anytime you can!)  Nancy recommended a special marble mold made by Drew Fritts.

So, I wandered over to his website and fell in love with his work.  I ordered the marble mold and also this book.

What I love about this book is that his voice is very conversational and yet fully technical at the same time.  I think that’s a hard balance to strike.  He’s very forthcoming and generous with his knowledge, and he’s incredibly thorough about what he covers. 

There is a huge introductory section about setting up a lampworking studio.  He writes about torches, safety issues, tools, the bench, etc.  In every section, he’s really clear about what matters only if you work at the torch full time and what matters to everyone who lights a torch and melts glass. 

He says, “Here are the options,” and then, “Here’s what I do.”    It’s so helpful.  When an accomplished expert lays out all the options, of course, you want to know which one he chose.  It doesn’t mean that you will choose the exact same, but you can see his work, you can know what he uses, and it feels so much more complete and real than just getting the options and being left there.  I am in the process of moving from a Hothead in my garage to a gas/propane torch in a four-season location TBD, and with this book, I feel like I have a true instruction manual.  If you are a beginner beginner, this part of the book will be immensely helpful. 

He also is very thrifty and handy about his tools. He has figured out how to make items like a rod rest, how to carve graphite, how to make special marble tweezers from a wire hanger and others.  He holds nothing back, with step-by-step instructions on how to make them exactly the way he did.  

After the set-up stuff, I started reading through the techniques, and that’s when it got weird.  I have no access to a torch right now.  I can’t put even a single finger on a rod of hot glass (you know what I mean!) and I’m reading through technique, picturing it in my mind, taking in the concepts, fully engaged and interested.  Reading one after another.  I have several other glass books, and I don’t think I’ve ever had quite the same reaction.  Of course, I will look to the book again when I can actually experiment with the processes, but his writing is so easy to follow, and he doesn’t just say, “Do this and then do this.”  He talks about what the glass is doing and why you need to hold it a certain way, move it a certain way, etc.  The technique section is 115 pages long, and much of what he teaches can crossover to other flamework that is not marbles. 

Another section of the book includes exact recipes he uses to mix Effetre colors.  What an amazing gift.  It could take someone years (as I’m sure it did for him) to figure out all those combinations.  Fun to do, but with his recipes, a person could make just as many new recipes and share them back. 

The last section of the book is over 100 pages of lessons for how to make the twenty marble styles pictured on the front cover.  Fritts says on his website that he doesn’t teach classes, but surely what he has poured into this text is a class in itself.  I am still reading through the techniques, but I fully expect that I will read this book cover to cover before I get back to a torch.  You can buy the book here.