Making Souvenirs For Gawkers

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I just watched a TV show on PBS about a group of glass-blowers who it looked like were masters of their craft that had come together to work for a week and each day of the week had a different theme. The work they did required a lot of cooperation and coordination to make it happen. There was an audience who seemed to be part of the deal and everybody had a good time clapping and enjoying themselves when they finished a piece.

Watching the documentaries on PBS is the only time I've seen anything like this happen. The only glass work I've seen anybody do in person has been the souvenir makers at carnivals and state fairs and such, but even the simple stuff they did fascinated me. The pieces these masters were creating were beyond my comprehension. The learning curve must take decades.

I've seen another documentary about the work of another glass artist that has a shop up near Charlotte. He had an exhibition at the Mint Museum and the documentary covered that and how he created his art pieces in his shop. Some of his pieces were huge, and it took a whole crew of workers sometime a couple of years to put them together. I'd love to see his work in person.

How could I never have been exposed to that world? I've made it my business to be around artists of all kinds as often as possible, but I never saw anybody do any glass-blowing. By that I mean that by never having seen anything like that happen, I couldn't work up a desire to do it.

The fact that I learned how to weld amazes me. A lot of people have never been around where somebody was actually welding enough to find out if they might be interested in learning how to do it. Pipe welding is a very serious skilled craft that takes years to learn to do it right so that you can pass the tests to get a job.

One of the reasons the glass-blowing TV show interested me was that as I watched I realized I could do the same thing with molten metal that the glass-blowers can do with molten glass. Not using the breath to blow up molten metal with an air tube, but it might be done with compressed air. I never thought about trying it.

A craft that involves glass and metal happens when copper objects are sprinkled with glass beads and put into an over that heats the copper hot enough to melt the glass beads. When that happens and the metal cools down and the glass re-hardens and the end product is buffed out the results can be fascinating.

There was a souvenir shop in Key West where a couple ran a shop that anybody could come in off the streets and design their own pieces with the provided copper and glass beads. The couple would sell them the supplies and provide the oven and help them figure out what they wanted, and they made a good living.

Right around the corner from that shop on Duval Street was this guy who was a candle maker. He melted different colors of wax into a rectangular form and then carve various shapes into the layered candle wax. I was very impressed with how he set up his work table just inside the large glass display windows on the sidewalk of Duval Street where there is lots of foot traffic.

The candle-maker was a big-bellied friendly guy with a long beard. He may or may not have been all that talented an artist, but that wasn't his schtick. That part of it was about being able to see him work while walking by the window of his shop.

He carved the shapes into the rectangular blocks of candle wax and chatted with the people who seemed fascinated by watching him do it. Then they bought a candle to remind them of getting to watch him work. I reckon most everybody has seen artists set up shop in a shopping mall and work the same mojo.

In Jackson Square down on the waterfront in the French Quarter of New Orleans there are always portrait artists who will do a pastel drawing for $10-20. It was always interesting to me to watch them work. Some of the artists didn't like voyeurs that wasn't gonna spring for the money, so I'd watch one for a while and then move to another.

I thought that would be a neat way to pick up some cash on the bum. The supplies wouldn't cost too much and four or five portraits a day would pay for a good sit-down meal and a bed for the night. I've never worked at drawing as much as it might take for me to develop the small talent I seem to have.

Being able to get hold some money to make things mo' comfortable was always a hassle when I went out on the bum. I always left on some impulsive whim and was hardly ever prepared to travel with even the minimum of comforts like a sleeping bag and a change of clothing.

I did do what it took to learn to read tarot cards to pick up a dime occasionally. From there I went on to learn how to read palms and then the more tedious task of learning astrology. I did do it for money infrequently, but most of the time I got what I wanted or needed from people by doing it for free. I don't need much. If I have enough to get off by myself to contemplate the specious present, I'm fairly satisfied with just enough.

I couldn't have my new electric juicer if I was still a bum on the road. Even a manual juicer would probably be more trouble to take on the bum than it was worth. Growing and juicing wheatgrass as the mainstay of my current diet is a real change of pace.

There is something very satisfying, however, about preparing a nice glass of fresh apple and carrot juice along with my coffee for breakfast. My brother stated that I might turn orange. Preparing carrot juice is a breeze with my Omega juicer. and cleaning the machine up after I'm done has become an easy routine. I usually take the juicer apart and wash all the parts in soapy water and put it back together before I drink the juice. That way it's a bit of a reward for cleaning up right away.

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