As the Creator Intended

Yesterday, I tried an art form I had never done before, and no, I don't mean "one that requires talent". A friend gave Asherel and me tickets to a little gallery that teaches glass fusion classes. I had no idea what glass fusion even was, but it sounded better than what I had planned for Tuesday night, which was to go to the internet site where i could watch the sales tick off on my new book. Hard as it was to pull away from that exciting activity, we headed off the little gallery, which was nestled in a shopping center.

Right off the bat, luck was with us. Since I personally believe there is no such thing as luck, I will leave it to your imagination what or Who was really with us. It was a BYOB event, which meant to every participant except those at our table that this was a license to leave the designated driver home. Now I have nothing against a glass of wine while handling sharp shards of glass that you cut and snip so little pieces fly off into neighboring table occupants' eyes. I was concerned that copious amounts of alcohol were being consumed (one couple had two bottles perched beside them) and I didn't see any taxis waiting to haul their tottering rear ends home.

But back to that luck part. We sat down at a table where, praise be to God, there was another teenager (the only other young person there besides Asherel). Her father wore a tshirt that said, "Elevation Church." They had no bottles of booze. This was his BYOD night instead- Bring Your Own Daughter. He had 6 children, all girls, and each week he took one girl out alone to a wonderful event of their choosing. I settled happily at that table.
"Do you do other artistic endeavors?" I asked the girl.
She blinked at me. "um....what?"
"Do you do art?"
"I play softball...is that art?"
"It depends on how you play it. It could be," I said smiling.
"And how did you get dragged into this?" I asked the kind father.
"Actually, I have done this before. I suggested it. I really like it."
Well there, in two short sentences, I had potentially alienated the only other sober people in the shop.

The owner began the class saying, "Glass fusion is a lot of fun."
After that sentence, I was lost. Small wisps of comprehensible instructions flitted in and out of her instructional discourse. I knew I needed two layers near the edge or the piece would get "wonky". I knew that if I clipped a corner off the glass, wear the goggles and warn the others to close their eyes or duck. I knew that opaque and translucent created different effects and one should never be layered on top of the other but for the life of me, couldn't remember which.

"Any questions?" she asked.
Oh, where to start.... I was all questions. I wasn't even sure if layer one was the form we were given or if that was the zero layer and we needed two more layers atop that.
"What would you like to make?" she asked holding out our choices.
"A trivet...I guess," I answered.
"What color background glass?"
I paused. I had no idea. I didn't know what I wanted to put on my trivet. I turned to Asherel who is usually helpful in artistic matters.
"Should I do a blue trivet and put Honeybun on it?"
Asherel raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure you want to try to make something that looks real," she advised.
"Blue," I told Jen, the owner.
Asherel shook her head and gathered her supplies to make her pendants.
I went and gathered little pieces of glass in yellows and browns for my dog head.

As I carefully arranged the glass on my trivet, I realized that little angular pieces were not easily assembled to create anything remotely looking like a dog.
Jen looked over my shoulder.
"What are we making?" she asked.
You are making a whole bunch of drunks that will be driving home as a menace to society, I thought, but, "I am making a dog."
She peered at the trivet and squinted. I wanted to tell her at that point that I was a professional artist, but then thought that might make her more dubious of my talent than just being silent about that little tidbit of info.
"I see it," she said.
"You do? Because frankly at this point...I don't."
She patted my shoulder and drank some more wine.

It actually was a lot of fun. The people with the wine were turning out masterpieces. Asherel made some really lovely pendants. My dog on the trivet looked vaguely canine, and I could always just call it abstract art. The pieces were left at the gallery where they would be fired, and we were warned, your never know what they will look like when they come out. That was the fun of glass fusion, Jen told us. It would resemble what you put in the kiln, but could be completely unexpectedly different when it emerged.

"Now these are the simple rules to make you like the piece you make. You can choose to ignore them," warned Jen, "But then you aren't going to like what comes out of the kiln, and you will blame me."

I thought about how God must feel. He gathers all the raw materials for decent, responsible, good, and loving human beings, and then He throws us in the kiln of Life. We all are individually and often surprisingly transformed by the circumstances in the fire of living. Some of us emerge as masterpieces, but I suspect most of us don't come out quite as the Creator intended.

Job 23:10-12 (NIV)
But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. [11] My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. [12] I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.


-Everything is possible with God