The life of a glassblower means constant contact. When you’re this type of artist, you’re permanently stuck in an inescapable pool of germs. But surprisingly, I’m alright with it.
Here’s a good analogy. Being a glass blower during a pandemic most closely relates to when you’ve been dating someone for just long enough that when you hear them fart for the first time, you’re fine with it. Why? Because it’s love.
In case you’ve never seen Netflix’s “Blown Away” or in general have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain. Basically, at my job, I quite literally blow glass. You put your mouth on the end of a long metal pipe and blow. The problem is that everyone uses the same pipe and because of the fast pace of glass blowing, there’s no time to clean. So all day we’re essentially kissing, spitting, and sweating on each other… and it’s great! Well, it was great, until COVID-19 came along.
Every few years, my whole college glass department in Boston has the privilege of traveling to Seattle for a week, a hotspot for all sorts of creators within the wild world of glass. We spend months planning, fundraising, and arranging specialized visits to museums and with well-known artists. We are prepared to work hard, learn a lot, and of course, party, because nobody parties as hard as the glass community.
This year, we left from Boston on March 1st and were in Seattle for approximately two days when it all fell apart. It was a harsh contrast to our originally scheduled six days. We were under the impression that as soon as we arrived in Seattle, we would be “safe”. There was initially a bit of worry about the trip being canceled due to the virus first starting to show up in the United States, but it was quickly vanquished as a cancellation didn’t happen.
Around four in the afternoon on Tuesday, March 3rd, despite the rain, we were happily running around the grassy fields of a glass studio just outside of Seattle when we were abruptly pulled aside by our professor and told that we had a flight leaving at seven the following morning.
There was no choice but to be on that plane. The news hit us hard, but just as we were a team in glass, we were a part of a team in having to deal with this dramatic disruption. We took our time comforting each other as we began our progression into what felt very much like grief.
We filed back into the van. The air was heavy with emotion. Many of us had waited a long time for this class trip. It’s one of the main networking opportunities we’re offered — an important time to make lifelong connections, and it suddenly ended.
Despite the news, when we arrived back at the hotel, the group made the executive decision that we had no choice but to party. We packed our bags, put on our best outfits, and headed out with no intention of sleeping that night. We explored the neighborhood, went to as many bars as possible, connected with the locals, listened to heavy metal music in a black-lit room strewn with stars, and sang My Chemical Romance at the top of our lungs. I’m usually not one to party this hard, not to mention get up on the stage and scream into a microphone, but I think subconsciously we all knew this might be the last time we would be together for a while. We wanted to enjoy every second.
With the current surreal circumstances, the Seattle glass trip has made me appreciate my teammates even more. I can’t wait to get back to creating art in the studio with them. I’ll be happy to be reunited with my colleagues, in very close contact…eventually.
