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I drifted around the studio, looking for inspiration. This Denis guy would be using the color kiln, at least part of the time—did I want to do something with color while I had the chance? Or combine clear and color?
    My bread-and-butter pieces, the ones I sold most often to visitors, tended to be small and easily carried or shipped—sets of matching glassware, vases, molded sun catchers. The pieces I made for myself, the ones where I got to flex my artistic muscles, were generally larger—although working alone limited the size I could handle, simply due to the mechanics of handling a hot piece, adding the foot, and so on. But over the decade or so I’d been working in my studio, I had managed to perfect a strategy that worked for all but the most ambitious purposes.
    So, a clear body—a vase. With some color—maybe green, in honor of my Irish trip? An idea bubbled up that made me smile: a green snake, coiled around the body of the vase. There were no snakes in Ireland, right? Arizona had its share of snakes, but I’d never gotten personal with them. I detoured to my office computer and did an online search for snakes, so I’d have a visual image to work from. Under snakes of Arizona, the green rat snake popped out. Perfect—green, smooth, and it combined “rat” and “snake.” Apparently I was going to work out my anger toward Allison in this piece, wasn’t I?
    Mentally I ran through the steps I would have to take: a gather first, using the clear glass. More than one, if this was going to be a largish piece. Melt some green glass in the small kiln—not a true kelly green, but something more golden, as befit the Arizona scrub where this snake lived. I filled a small crucible with a mix of yellow and green and set that to melting while I visualized the form. Sinuous, yes, with the snake looping around, its head near the top of the vase. There would be some tricky spots, where I would have to rotate the body of the vase and wrap the molten snake around it, but I had a small turntable that I’d used before for this kind of work. Once again I thought briefly about taking on an apprentice—there were occasions like this when a second set of hands would be useful. But that wouldn’t happen today, and besides, I needed to challenge myself, to get back into the rhythm of glassmaking.
    There are times when all things come together, and this was one of them. The clear glass flowed like thick honey; the furnace was clearly up to its task. The shaping of the vase was easy, a voluptuous balance of curves, bellying out then sweeping in again at the top. I attached and flattened a disk to the foot, so the piece would stand level, then handled the transfer from the blowpipe to a punty without mishap, smoothing the top lip with a brief dip into the glory hole. Then I tapped off the punty and set the vase on the turntable, grasping it with my insulated glove. The shape looked perfect. I took a deep breath before dipping a punty into the viscous green glass from the kiln—I had only one shot to get this right, to drape the thick rope of glass around the exterior. At this point I wished I had three hands of my own—one to rotate the turntable and two to manage the snake glass. But it worked. Quickly I shaped the snake’s head with pincers, tapering its snout just a little, and then stepped back before I could overwork it. Yes!
    Nessa looked up when I came into the shop to relieve her for lunch. “You look pleased with yourself,” she observed.
    I grinned. “I am. Take a look.”
    She went over to the large window that overlooked the studio work area—good advertising for customers, who loved to watch the process. “The vase with the snake? It’s lovely—and an interesting use of glass.”
    “Yes. The furnace works just fine. Damn, that was fun! I thought I’d quit while I was ahead, if you want to primp a bit for your lunch date.”
    “No need. Frank will just have to take me the way I am.”
    Wise woman, Nessa. At