No one can predict what a day will bring
BOSTON - On a chilly winter morning here, two furnaces inside the Massachusetts College of Art and Design burn at upwards of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat is palpable as you enter the room, but it doesn’t seem to bother a group of students working nearby.
They’re here learning the ancient art of glassblowing, a technique of blowing a bubble with hot molten glass to form objects. The craft has been around since ancient times, but a few modern advancements have helped make it available to more people.
“I found glass was the thing that caught my eye the most,” said Sara MacNeil, a 19year-old sophomore at MassArt, who is majoring in glass.
Not too long ago, MacNeil might have had trouble accessing the artsy major — even at an art school.
The popularity of glassblowing in the United States has been steadily growing because of a development in the 1960s called the studio glass movement, when furnaces used to melt glass could be made much smaller. Until then, glasswork had to be done in an industrial furnace; now, the furnace is
In just the past few months, we have seen the greatest upset, the greatest comeback, and the greatest flub in modern history on the grandest of stages of politics, sports and entertainment.
You know what I am talking about: Hillary Clinton’s unexpected defeat in the presidential election, the New England Patriots’ comeback victory in the Super Bowl, and the Best Picture envelope swap at the Oscars.
Now, as I have lived for over half a century, as my career has reached a » more the size of a small car.
“It’s been rapidly developing in the last 10 years,” said James McLeod, a professor of glass at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
The studio glass movement pushed the medium from utilitarian objects — drinkware and windows — to fine art.
“It started being taught at colleges because it was so accessible,” said James Yood, a professor of art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “It left the manufacturer and went into the artists’ studios.”
College students trained in glassblowing became teachers, and glass studios began popping up in neighborhoods alongside urban mainstays like coffee shops, dry cleaners and pet groomers.
The studio glass movement all started with the work of Harvey K. Littleton, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he started the school’s first glass program and where student Dale Chihuly learned his art.
Some of glassblowing’s popularity might be due in part to Chihuly’s recognizable large-scale sculptures, which can be found plateau, as my children have all but moved out and as I have frequent thoughts of my upcoming retirement, I wake up each morning wondering if the offerings of the day will be unique or the “same old.”
Over the past few decades, with technology, the Internet and information moving at warp speed, I have learned to live by the adage ‘Change is the new constant.’ In our work environment we have had to accept and embrace change even though it is the source of the greatest stress: a change in job, change in home, change in relationship. Nearly all of us have gone through getting hired or fired, moving or resettling, and marriage or divorce — all are changes.
Now, ‘change is the new constant’ has become a cliché. What these past months have taught me is a new maxim to live by: ‘Unpredictability is the new certainty.’
Humans seek certainty and predictability. After the basic needs of food and shelter are met, our brain seeks certainty. When we look at brain imaging studies during decision making, we find that ambiguity lights up the amygdala, the fear center, and dims the striatal system, the reward center.
To better understand change and unpredictability, let’s take the analogy of driving a car. We feel safe and comfortable when we are parked in our garage. But as soon as we start to drive, we face change. We speed up or take a left or a right or a U-turn. We are helped through these changes by having a map or a GPS to guide us.
These changes have become the new normal. But, as predicted, even this kind of change doesn’t last. Now the new normal is unpredictability. Unpredictability is having a GPS signal which functions intermittently, or having an approaching car veer into our lane, or the lane abruptly ending due to a construction crew. These are the unpredictabilities we must contend with.
Surviving in the unpredictable world will require a level of bracing and getting used to. We must learn to accept and to prepare for the unpredictability that each morning may bring. Such are the certainties of life in our world.
around the world, from Las Vegas casinos to city botanic gardens and museums. Permanent Chihuly collections reside in at least 32 states.
Chihuly, who also started the glass program at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1969, is the “pied piper” of glass, Yood said. “Every significant American city has a place where people could go and blow glass,” he said.
Glass artist April Wagner, who owns Epiphany Glass studio in Pontiac, Michigan, said she has seen a greater interest in the technique lately. She makes glass sculptures for corporate buildings, hospitals and public spaces, but occasionally offers workshops on glassblowing.
“People come in and try it for an hour,” Wagner said. “You can start painting in your garage, but you can’t necessarily start blowing glass in your garage.”
Her biggest goal for the workshops is to expose participants to the intricacies of glassblowing. “We wanted to increase the understanding of what it takes to create a glass work,” she said.
But Salida, Colorado-based glass artist Brice Turnbull said his career is still novel to many.
“A lot of people are still very surprised that anyone does this,” Turnbull said. “They’re surprised anyone can make a living doing it.”