During the summer between my second and third year I took a couple of workshops at The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. These courses were with Richard (Dick) Marquis for three weeks and then Lino Tagliopietra for another three weeks.

Wow.

It was amazing, Dick was one of the first Americans to go to Italy and work and learn in their factories. During that time he learned as much as he could about the intricate colour tricks developed in Venice in the sixteenth century, tricks that are still used today. He also has a contagious irreverence for glass (I mean it is just sand) that I caught in a big bad way.

Lino is generally regarded as one of the finest glassblowers living. An incredibly generous man both with his time and information I was way out of my league in his course, but watching him showed me that anything was possible with glass. It was simply a matter of learning the right tricks. (ya! Simply! This guy had been blowing glass every day since he was 14 in 1945) More about Lino later.

Dick’s influence was profound. He was very serious about his work, but not. Does that make sense? He once made a series of vases using very demanding and time consuming techniques, then painted over them to deny the work that went into them. He once said "I make pretty things for people to buy." It is a philosophy that I have taken to heart.

Having said that, I made Hugh. He came from the mold blowing that I had learned previously. After the glass ‘head’ was made, I glued in place stained glass for the hair, then the excess glue I covered up with ground tea leaves (I opened up a couple of tea bags). The beret and cap insignia were mine from the military. He is a somewhat vindictive homage to an old friend of mine, who was a former boss. This was part of a series of three pieces all dealing with former friends. ‘Muffy’ was an old girlfriend and ‘Spike’ was the guy she dumped me for.

But I’m not bitter.