It doesn’t get any better than this
Cedi wanted to make his second cane blue, but we’d used up the blue already. I made sure there would be blue left on Saturday for him. Getting Cedi successfully through several canes in this workshop put me a full year or more ahead of my previously planned schedule.
All the while throughout the days of the workshop while we were making this cane and engaged in other glass pursuits, Herb and Tom were doing double duty working on various mechanical projects like the crusher and the quickie grinder and planning the crating and cooking. This was their one duty or more like five, their other was to be film crew and archivists. Both these men stepped up with their all for this workshop and I will be eternally grateful for their help on all levels, physical, intellectual, emotional and financial. I could not have pulled this workshop off with a third of the success it had without their tireless devoted assistance. We developed a camaraderie amongst us over these five days which I think will last long into the future. I can only hope that they had as much fun as Cedi and I did. Doug filled out our team by being here Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday to participate in the creative joy with the powder glass fun in the evenings and also to assist with cooking and crating up Cedi’s treasure.
Friday Doug came over in the afternoon and also Bill and Robin came for dinner. Bill loaned us his travel trailer to house Herb for this workshop and he stepped right up and cooked dinner for us on Friday as all the rest of us were immersed in various glass and or mechanical jobs related to getting beads made or getting Cedi’s treasure ready for shipment. Saturday was staring us in the face and it was our last day to have glass and also the big last day to pack up all the stuff to send home with Cedi. I spent a couple of hours cutting up a five gallon bucket of cane chunks for Cedi to take home to make into beads with his hot clay mold technique.
We got the whole first cane on film and had a joyous celebration of the moment. Thursday I had red, yellow, green, and purple in the pots. Cedi suggested blue so we would have the Ghana flag colors all at once. I changed out the purple for blue and his cane made on Friday has the Ghana flag colors. We made it with the same decoration as I’d been doing for two days and continued with through Saturday.
The canes remind me of a Carousel and I am calling them carousel canes/ beads.
Tom was welding on the crusher all afternoon in the outdoor heat ( which was perhaps cooler than the indoor heat of the shop, but the sun was brutal) after working on it mechanically all morning. Everyone was grinding their beads in shifts on the belt machine and after the quickie grinder was up and running to show Cedi, there was another grinding station at work which was used by all. By Friday evening some grinding was going on in the house grinding room as well. We took a nice dinner out on the patio by the pool and it was a cool and relaxing time. Then I rolled out Ruby, my 1942 Harley, for Cedi to check out and took him for a ride around the place. He was totally taken by the motorcycle ride.
Friday afternoon I gave Cedi a lamp workshop and demonstrated to him my fusing on the mandrel technique and also showed him how to set signature canes on a bead in the lamp.
I’d prepared the parts for fusing the previous night and mounted them on the sticks to show him how that part worked. There were four beads in the oven for him to work after I gave him my demo and he did a right fine job setting the signature canes and fusing them into the bead cane. I presented him with a nice handful of dental tools for his shop and a large pin vice mandrel holder for his lamp work. We also sent him with two thick aluminum plates for use in his lamp shop with the hot plate and the signature canes and for a marver, these courtesy of Herb. Bill and Robin left around eight after Robin did our dishes and all the rest of us worked together in the shop until near midnight- another eighteen hour day and everyone was still having fun.
Saturday - our big last day! Once again I’m up and in the shop at five AM unloading the oven and firing up all the equipment. The team rises and after coffee and toast we are off to the shop. I make four carousel canes with Ghana flag colors and then Cedi is once again put on the pipe. This time we get him through a fine blue white red traditional chevron cane and it goes into the oven nice and warm. It will produce 14 prime specimen beads for Cedi. We followed with a red cane which lost it’s bubble , but will provide a goodly amount of raw material for his hot mold technique. David Pinkham showed up around one and Herb and David loaded the small generator which Herb built, onto David’s trailer while Cedi and I were making cane. After the glory hole work Cedi fired a cycle of beads in the small oven using his new clay molds which worked just fine.
He demonstrated his shaping technique to us in making a few beads from some solid cane chunks like we were sending him home with. All the while this was going on Herb and Tom and I and then Doug were calculating and measuring and packing up the two big crates of machine and parts
and the four buckets of glass all of which was headed home with Cedi on the airplane.
I walked away in tears and still cant hold them back when I look back on the events of the week. Tears of joy they are.
I’ll be processing all this for some time. We all will.
Between Cedi and I we have over sixty years time working hot glass. While this project has only been on my dreamscape for a little over two years, something like it has been in Cedi’s dreams for much longer. Thanks to the help of all the people I mentioned here and many others to numerous to fit into this narrative we have begun this journey with a giant step.
One of Cedi’s last remarks at the airport was, “ this all seems like a dream.” Herb told him “it’s a dream we are living and making real ”
My sis showed up in the afternoon and had a nice visit with us all and took some nice pictures of the goings on and various demonstrations of technique. She stayed until the heat near gave her heat stroke and headed home early to miss dinner at Melissa’s . She did ok in the end but got pretty heat fazed and made a good decision to head home and cool off before she got hurt. Our planned meeting in the afternoon didn’t materialize as we were completely absorbed with packing and crating and glass work and Karrie didn’t call. We decided to have an abbreviated meeting after the reception dinner at Melissa’s. At six we got somewhat civilized and headed into Melissa’s for a wonderful evening visit and diner in their garden. Fred rode his motorcycle down from Lake Tahoe to meed Cedi and join us for dinner. After dinner he gave us all a show of his turquois carvings.
It was a nice change of pace for us all and the meal was excellent. We all had a good tour of Tori’s new playhouse and I got in a hefty grandpa bit of jumping on the trampoline with Tori.
By around nine we headed back to finish our packing and Cedi did one last demo with the clay molds. Again it was midnight and Cedi and I were out in the shop packing the last bucket before bed. Five am wasn’t far off.
I rose Sunday at four fifteen and eased out to the shop to relieve the oven of Cedi’s cane. I wanted to get it cool and cut up for him and packed into the last crate before we headed out at six fifteen to make his flight. It was a busy morning for us all, coffee, last packing, and for me grinding. I cut up all the cane and ground one prime specimen bead for Cedi to wear home. Then I made him a certificate of completion from the Seymour Chevron first course of study. We got a good photo of the presentation and loaded out.
( that's his large blue chevron on a string above the certificate )
We went in in three vehicles. Cedi with me in my car, and Herb and Tom in the minivan with all the shipping crates and luggage and David in his truck. I had a long and serious talk with Cedi on our trip to Reno and we are both in agreement that we want to see this Ghana chevron making enterprise get going. Cedi is well connected both in Ghana and in Europe and other world centers of bead interest. He is going to begin seeking interest and vectors for funding for this project at local, national and international levels. After an incredibly intense five days working with Cedi, I feel that he is absolutely well suited to both make the chevron cane and manage the enterprise. We have developed a rapport both with glass working and with conversation and communication and I am more then ever feeling positive about the outcome of the project.
At the airport we spent an hour and ten minutes getting Cedi’s seven check in parcels through the TSA checkpoint. We had to unpack all the buckets and crates and fortunate for us the TSA ladies were having a good day. They quizzed us mightily about all the broken glass ( four buckets of it -canes, lip trims, crushed cullet and multi color pipe pop offs ) After learning of our mission and Cedi’s work they eased up a bit and gave a more cursory look and didn’t give us the big hassle. We were so relieved and grateful Herb headed out to the car and retrieved some beads which we gave them by way of thanks. They aren’t allowed to take gratuity so I told them that the beads must be lost and that they must have found them......... it all worked out. David followed us in to the airport and his assistance was invaluable dealing with TSA and the shipping issue. His travel experience and diplomacy served Cedi and the project well her - also his swiss army knife with the phillips screw driver. I was told on the phone that TSA had tools, but they were short of them today. I’d called ahead for the weights and measures and costs of excess luggage and when we got to the check in, the airline informed us that the fees were double what I was told. In the blink of an eye Herb stepped up gave his plastic and said “ put it on this .” What an incredible close to the week. I am without words to express my gratitude.
We walked Cedi up to his security checkpoint in good time for his flight, had hugs all around and parted.
Hands Across the Water Cedi Chevron Workshop continued.....
