At Sheridan College the first piece I was taught to make was allegedly a paperweight.

It is still the first thing I teach people to do in Hot Glass. The process teaches the student the basic skills for working hot glass. Gathering the glass from the furnace, keeping the blowpipe turning to keep the glass from oozing off the pipe and on to the floor, shaping the glass on the ‘Marver’, moving around the studio with the blowpipe, sitting down at the bench, shaping the glass using the hand tools, Paper, Jacks, and reheating the glass in the glory hole.

This was my first, actually my second paperweight. The first one I threw out, I didn’t even put it away in the annealler.

I had announced that I was moving to Toronto from Vancouver, leaving all my family and friends (who all thought I was nuts), sold most of my possessions and indeed moved there. There was no turning back, I had invested so much into this venture that I had to succeed. My first glass teacher, Laura Donefer, told me much later that I was so intense about learning this glass stuff that I scared her.

Imagine my disappointment when the first piece I made was really ugly.

The blob before you is actually an improvement. At any rate I kept it. It usually sits on my desk to remind me were I have come from.