Side projects and glass marbles

One night at Penland, we wandered down the hill in the middle of the road (no sidewalks!) with flashlights (no streetlights!) to attend the resident artists' open studios at the Barns.

We visited Sarah Vaughn's studio and she told us the story behind a tray of marbles on her workbench. Most of the studios are medium agnostic, with the exception of her dedicated glass studio. In between her projects, Sarah forages for glass shards – remnants of previous artists' work – and gathers each individual piece into a marble, allowing it to become the shape and size it wants to be.

I love so many aspects of this story: working on a side project with no expectation that it becomes anything, repurposing items that have a history, creating a collection, letting materials do what they want to do.

It also piqued my curiosity about marbles. So when a last minute spot opened up in a marble making workshop at The Crucible, I jumped on it and found myself driving to Oakland a few days later.

Marble making is meditative. You sit in front of a flame, heat up glass until it becomes molten (the consistency of incredibly dangerous taffy), and spin spin spin the glass until it gathers in a ball.

I made five marbles. The clear glass one is a gravity marble. Each colored one uses a different technique. They are all delightfully spherical-ish.

Modeled by my beautiful new mannequin hands!

The bottom right marble is my absolute favorite. I love to carry it in my jacket pocket and roll it between my fingers. Still can't believe I made it.

Year of Stories recent listen: Moth Radio Hour podcast