The Bowl

A number of years ago (in High School maybe around the summer of 1996) we went to Los Alamos with Dave, Katy, Mark and Dee. I remember it being a really fun trip in many ways. We got to rollerblade a lot, play at the park, explore and just relax. Of all the fun things that we did, I remember one the most. One day we went to a sculpture gallery with my dad and uncle Lawry. The sculptures were pretty cool but on the same property there was a little glass blowing shop. We wandered in and as we sat down to watch, we saw him put on the the liquid glass on the end of a long pipe. We watched him shape, blow, shape, blow and manipulate the glass over and over. Once the glass was in a fairly large ball about the size of a baseball he rolled it in shards of metal. As he did this he explained that the metal will turn a certain color when heated and rolled with the glass. I don't know how much time passed but it was probably close to an hour. All of us sat patiently waiting for the next step and everyone was entranced by his skill. We were amazed at the bowl that he made right in front of us. I seem to remember being surprised as my Dad asked the lady at the counter if we could buy the bowl. She said we could so he paid for the bowl and had it shipped home once it was cooled.

There are many people in this world that have amazing talents. Some of them we don't get to see because we look at the trip as a boring escapade to a sculpture gallery. If we take the opportunity to look beyond what we may think is mundane we may actually find something that really surprises us and gives us a little insight into something new.

Thank you Dad, for taking us there and showing/teaching us about real ART. Here are a few pictures of the bowl from New Mexico.By the way, just so everyone knows, my name is on the sticker on the bottom, not Daniels. ;-)