The Hands

Description

This piece was a labor of love for me. I first saw the design by Craig and Karl on a Lifewater bottle that someone had brought into the office where I worked some years ago. I loved the colors and the design. The bottle sat on my desk for over two years and every time I looked at it, I thought, ‘boy, that would look so good in glass’. I had to purchase 9 bottles before I could find one without the image cut off somewhere, but finally found one.

A friend helped me tweak out the pattern that I sketched (I can’t draw at all) and the project was born. It took me almost 2 years to finish this piece for a number of reasons. I was working an 80 hour week and had the additional difficulty of trying to find glass that looked like the drawing and in the right colors. It turned out to be an almost impossible quest and I can’t say how many hours I spent cruising glass shops in New England and online shops looking for what I wanted. For some areas I was able to use dichroic patterned glass and some weird colored fusible glass to mirror the pattern and colors in the drawing. But for other looks it was necessary for me to fuse the glass in a kiln at a friend’s house to get the lined and polka dot look in glass that I needed.

The hands are set against a background of clear swirled baroque to give the impression of foggy mist swirling in the background, and surrounded by black/white/clear baroque for consistency. It is in a zinc frame that is now painted black (I didn’t like the silver look).

I hope you enjoy looking at it. I do every day. I can tell you all that there will never be another one like it.