Savannah was kind enough to let Avery use her glass house while the little blue's was under construction. There were idea's and immages ping ponging around the little tiger's mind in such a way that shec ould hardly stand it, and had to let them out some how. Finally, she was able to uncork it all and let the immages flow down from her mind and out of her hands as she worked quickly.
Her sketches she'd done of the idea in her head hang on clothespins or on magnets, so that a corner of the studio soon resembled a dark room, with prints drying. Avery had burned herself twice in her hurry, once badly enough to make her stop, and pull out Savannah's first aid kit, quickly doctoring herself.
Now she sat in the chair, carefully, meticulously, turning her sketches into reality. It was sweaty work, and viciously exacting. Bleeding color into color, shape into shape as she wanted required hundreds of trips to the glory hole.
But here, at least, she could be patient.
White hot flames licked through the open furnace doors, blasting out heat. The exhaust fan hummed like an engine to keep the fumes coating the glass, and not her lungs, to an iridescent hue. For two days, she'd worked with the chemicals, mixing and experimenting like a mad scientist until she'd perfected the colors she desired. Copper for the deep turquoise, iron for a rich golden yello. Manganese for a royal, bluish purple. The red, the true ruby she wanted had given her trouble, as it did any glass artist. She was working with that now, sandwiching that section between two layers of clear glass. She'd used copper again, with reducing agents tin the melt to ensure a pure color. And Though it was poisonous, and potentially dangerous even under controlled conditions, she'd chosen sodium cyanide.
Even with this the casing was necessary to prevent the red from going livery. The first gather of the new section was blown, rotated, then carefully trailed from the iron. The used long tweezers to draw the molten, taffylike glass into a subtly feathery shape. Sweat dripped down onto the cotton bandanna she'd tied around her brow, as she worked the second gather, repeated the procedure.
Again and again, she went to the glory hole to reheat, not only to keep the glass hot, but to ensure against thermal strains that could break any vessel, and the heart of the artist. To prevent searing her hands, she dripped water over the pipe. Only the tip needed to be kept hot.
She wanted the wall of the peice to be thin enough that light could seep and be refracted through it. This required additional trips for heating and careful patient work with toolsr flattening and for adding the curves she envisioned.
Hours now, hours after she'd blown the first gather, she placed the vessel into the annealing oven and struck the pontil. The sculpture stood now in the annealing oven, ready to be finished, fully three feet high, all bleeding colors and twisting sinuous shapes. A tangle of limbs, surely, unashamedly sexual, beatifully human. You could almost make out faces. They seemed to melt into imagination, leaving only the sensation of absolute fulfillment. It was impossible to see where one form began, and the other left off. so compleatly, so perfectly were they merbed. It was a celebration of the human spirit, and the sexuality of the beast.
It wasn't untill later, that she stood with Savannah, watching her friend as she marvled at the peice, now finished, standing on the work table.
"What do you call it?"
"Surrender" Avery smiled, looking it over. More please then she could say. "It took forever to get the colors right. You wouldn't believe what i remelted and discareded but I could see it, perfectly and it had to be exact...." She smiled at Savannah. "Come on. Help me back it up so I can take it to Jenna. I'm having dinner with her tonight. I wanna give it to her then."
Her friend grinned and nodded, and they set to work. Soon the crate was loaded up into the back of Avery's jeep, and she was headed to jenna's. Oh wouldn't momma be surprised?
