As the years have gone by, I've become less and less enthusiastic about buying people gifts—or, necessarily expecting them to put much money in gifts for me. I make almost all the Christmas gifts I give, now, and usually, I make ornaments such as these.
This one, which was fairly large, was a hostess gift for a woman who adamantly didn't want us to bring anything to an extended family party—but she liked this, because it was hand-made. Borosilicate, dec 2005.
Unlike some earlier experiments with homemade gifts, which either took too long or weren't what the recipient wanted, or both, ornaments strike me as eminently sensible, for several reasons: one, they're appropriate, as a symbol of the holiday; two, though while they're still not up to professional standards (the goal is to make spherical ornamets at least 3” in diameter) they're at least reasonable; three, I enjoy making them, particularly the rotation of axis; and four, they can be made in a reasonable period of time—a professional glassblower can probably crank these things out in less than five minutes, but I'm slow, so it takes me anywhere from 30–45 minutes, plus up to half an hour to wrap and decorate the package. Say an hour or so.
This closeup shows the spiralling effect of rotating the axis.
file created 24dec05
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
