The Tough Crack but Don't Break

The pipe on the left is the remake mentioned in the article below.

Recently I wrote an article for Steemit explaining how to make a glass pipe with pictures and a giveaway of that pipe.  What I did not share in that article was that the finished product was cracked, and that I had a decision to make.  That decision was whether to try to mend the crack or to just make a new piece as close to the first as possible.  So far, the lessons I've learned in my time glassblowing have been highly metaphorical to my life. Being a thought rich systematic art form, glass is generally unforgiving when treated incorrectly, like many other things in life.  Every time I make a mistake in glass working, I can notice where I've made a similar mistake in my general life.  

Every glassblower knows the feeling of having excitement over a finished piece, only to pull it out of the kiln to reveal a crack.  Some glassblowers just throw the piece away, or give it away and move on.  Some glassblowers determine a solution, especially if it's a special piece or a custom piece. For this piece, having planned to do a giveaway for it, we decided it was best I just try to recreate it.  I considered trying to mend the crack, but considering it happened under the flower, the thickest part of the glass, I'd probably just make it worse by trying to fix it.  

This is highly metaphorical for our lives this past year.  The arrest for us in many ways was a crack, one metaphorically in a terrible spot.  Had we tried to stay and mend that crack, we probably would have made that crack even bigger, to have an even larger effect on our lives than it already had.  Our best case scenario would have been an ugly scar from a badly healed crack.  We were facing imminent loss of basic freedoms and we needed to make a choice.  Like with the pipe, we decided it was just time to make a new one, so to speak.  We had already been robbed for nearly everything, so we decided to pack up what we had left and move to make a new, hopefully crack free, life.

When things go wrong in life, it's important to consider all aspects of the problem before trying to fix it.  This is something I've struggled with, as I've never been known as a completely well thought out person.  I have my moments, like anyone else, but for the most part I go through my days working off of half digested thoughts. This is true for many people, although many of those people (and for myself for most of my life) aren't aware of this flaw.  I tend to be the sort of person who encounters a problem, comes up with one solution and rolls with it. This has not served me well in glassblowing or life.

My first instinct with the pipe was to heat it in the kiln, stick it in the flame and try to mend the crack.  On a tube without a thick glass flower added to it, this could work.  What made me reconsider is that sometimes, even with perfect conditions, the crack will get worse, or just heal with a scar I can't remove.  It seemed clear that my attempts to mend the cracked piece were futile. Had I tried, I would have wasted time, gas and glass, as it probably would have broken to the point where it was unusable.  I considered the fact that I could recreate the piece (I did it once, didn't I?) and the fact that it might even be better than the first, which made me optimistic.  We'll either give the cracked piece to a friend, or keep it ourselves as a shop piece.  Regardless of the crack, it's still functional. 

So I recreated the pipe, and in my opinion it turned out better than the first, although I forgot to put a carb hole in the side of it, becoming yet another metaphor.  Sometimes in your new start, you forget essential things and make mistakes.  Sometimes it is easily fixable, sometimes it's not.  It's up to you to decide the difference.  This is a common mistake many glassblowers make. Just so long as the glass is treated right when attempting the fix, there should be no issue. When we get more gas, that is oxygen and propane(butane in our case), I'll carefully blow out a carb hole on this piece and put it in the kiln for another soak to remove any stress. The pipe is also different in the fact that it's a bit bigger and shaped differently.  The design is slightly different and in many ways better.   

I couldn't help being struck by the metaphor here.  Sometimes in life you need to rebuild.  Generally, it doesn't look the same in the end.  Often times this can be for the better,  but it's almost always different from the original intended goal before the crack.  And sometimes, even if the new version is better it still has it's problems, in this case the missing carb hole.  Life is about being able to adjust to cracks and mishaps without things completely falling apart.  While our new life here in Mexico is by no means perfect, we both consider it to be much better than the lives we had in the states.  I'm happy I didn't try to mend that crack, as I'd probably be sitting in jail or on probation unhappy with the result. My life is not perfect, but the issues I face here seem way easier to overcome than the ones I faced with the arrest in the United States.  

Glassblowing has taught me a lot about life and how to handle problems.  Being something I've always dreamed of doing, it has been a useful life coach in many ways, as I am still motivated to continue despite bad days.  When I first started blowing again, I was once again struck with the reality that I am not where I want to be, or say I am.  The same goes for my thinking.  Due to my think up one solution and roll with it mindset, I had myself fooled into thinking I was a well thought out person.  A true well thought out person would consider many options to chose the best, often ending in a good result every time.  I waste a lot of time with my half baked mindset, but glassblowing is teaching me that in a way that I can understand.  Every time I am able to overcome some issue I have with glass, be it picking a hole or a cold seal or just remembering all the steps, I am that much more confident in my abilities to overcome my issues in life.  

As for the pipe, the winner is richardcrill. Contact us with your contact information and we'll get the pipe sent out as soon as we fix that carb hole.  Thanks for your patience.