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How the Business flies

“When I owned the neon shop, I told people that it required bumblebee wings to run that business—bumblebee wings are an apt metaphor because of the incessant flapping of the wings to keep the thing flying, and bumblebee wings defy conventional wisdom as to how they actually work.  The glass art business requires butterfly wings.  Butterflies need perfect conditions to fly; if it is too cold, a butterfly will sun itself and pump warm liquid into its wings.  When its wings are warmed it will take off flying.

            While at the beach last summer, I was walking down a sand road grazing on blackberries and chokecherries.  It was a glorious day with bright sunshine and a surreal blue sky—a perfect 82 degrees.  I looked down the path from where I had come and saw a large butterfly bobbing and weaving fast towards me.  With all of its hot flower nectar energy it swooped around me and zipped on down the road in front of me…. Yeah, blowing glass is a lot like that.”

"There is a strange alchemy about glass in which one submits earth to fire to bring out qualities of wind and water."

"You need the Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh"

courtesy of NPR

Lately I've been thinking that the third dimension, height, is a construct actuated by the earths magnetic field and that living things are charged carbon particles standing on end against a magnetic earth. If there were only gravity we would be pressed flat against the surface. Some force is holding us upright.  Every living thing grows perpendicular to the  earth's surface. On other planets where there is a weak magnetic field there are only surface and surface anomalies. Our sensibilities are such that when we see these anomalies we attribute their construction to intelligent life.

Here are some pictures I took alone the way