Glass and beads

Thursday April 3rd

Pati’s class today. Mmmm…more canes! Anyways, we worked on our gardens, this time I incorporated silver foil into my bead to give it a bit more oomf. It worked. Plus, I’m better at making these beads the second time ’round Pati did a demo of her latticino bead - it’s really pretty. I won one of her latticino beads so I’m happy. It’s really gorgeous.

After lunch, we got a visit from glass maestro Vittorio Constantini! Pati knows him and invited him to come and do a demo for us. (Thanks Pati!!) This guy does unbelievably realistic bugs and fish. He kindly did a demonstration of a butterfly and a seashell. I would recommend anyone visiting Venice to go to his shop in Venice (he’s not based in Murano) as his command of glass is amazing. It was interesting to see him make a butterfly wing. He started making it by building up a blob of clear on the end of a opaque rod (I think lapis blue). He then gave the blog 4 thin swipes of opaque colour. He attached a thick stringer as a punty and then started twisting the punty rod. (To stop and explain it to someone, it was like he was making a twistie but instead of pulling it out long he kept it as a hot blob and spun it on the spot.) He then squeezed out the blob to the shape of a wing and you could see the effect that the 4 swipes of colour had on the wing. Sorry to describe it like this, it’s better to see it in person. I’ve uploaded the photos so maybe it might make a bit more sense there.

Another interesting thing he did was have the butterfly on a thin punty as he worked on it. Lucio did this also when doing his arm demo. Again, this has blown my mind! Gosh, do I sound just like a glass noobie? All you experienced lampworkers probably have seen this all before and are like “Yawn”? Oh well, I have to start somewhere :-D  Vittorio makes a sea shell while waiting for the butterfly to cool down.

Later in the day Johnny O did another boro bead demo. Man, that is so impressive. I’ll never tire of watching him do it. The way he does it is like nothing I do in glass bead making - the steps he takes are completely different. One day, when I grow up I’m gonna play with boro! But I’d like to take a class with Johnny O first!

Marianne, Sharon and I head home after the demo. Our late nights and days of endless adrenalin are starting to catch up with us and we are starting to feel it. We head to the supermarket for food for dinner and ice-cream for dessert. We head back to our place and make dinner and chat. It was nice to sit back and chill for the evening. And the ice-cream sure helped!!

Wednesday 2nd

Again I make it to Carlo Dona’s shop to swap the rod holder over to a stringer holder.  Tove and Susanne make it to Carlo Dona’s too.  After chatting with Roberto, we head over to Bar De Ice for our morning cappuccino.  The sunlight streams into this café in the mornings and it’s lovely to sit and wake up for class here.

Today is day 1 of Pati Walton’s 3-Day Masterclass.  This time around I’m better with the glass.  Actually my attitude to class is changing.  Before I was feeling like a slave to the glass, begging it to behave, puzzling why things wouldn’t work the way I wanted to.  The glass was an enigma to me. But now, the more I watch people work glass the more confident I am with the glass.  I see people telling the glass what to do and the glass behaving.  These classes here in Murano have been worth it, for sure.

This afternoon Dorothy, our Magic sister who is a US lady who lives in Italy, phones up Lucio Bubacco (as you do) and makes an appointment for us all to go over and see him at his studio today.  She tried to get us in after Pati’s class, but he preferred we came in sooner.  So we took a mid afternoon break and took a class excursion to see Lucio.

His studio is well designed and laid out (and warm!).  He is working an instalment of angels which is huge and amazing.  Everywhere you look there is something new to see.  We walk into the next room and find the equivalent for devils and then some more pieces.   We take loads of photos and we are all impressed.  He does a quick demo for us – a lady’s arm wearing a beaded bracelet and holding a rose.  He uses the same rods of glass from Effetre that we use, some are thicker than what I buy it as but he melts and cools the glass and forms the curves of an arm so simply.

His torch is huge and made for him by Carlisle – it’s in the shape of a dragon’s head which is impressive.  This torch he’s able to bring the flame from a huge bushy flame to a small flame.   He does some amazing thing with the rod of glass – making a punty with it but it’s only as thick as fine stringer. This attachment never breaks during the demo.   It’s kind of hard to describe, and I hope I have a photo to show you it.

We leave Lucio’s studio to walk back to our studio but there is a huge thunderstorm brewing.  The wind is whipping at us but no rain yet.  We high tail it back to the studio just in time.  Laura from Vetrofond comes for a visit today too, bringing her daughter and a friend.  We all settle back into our masterclass with Pati again and I get my garden bead finished.  I spill my after class beer over my rods and stringer.  Argh.

Tonight is another night at home rather than Venice.  I hit the supermarket before it shuts and run into Indie too.  The storm is well over and the sunset is bringing out some beautiful pinks on the old Murano buildings.  Indie and I stop at various points on the way home to take photos.  Daylight savings is a little weird at first but it’s definitely has its good points.

(PS. For the reason behind the “carrot” joke you might read about on other people’s blogs/comments - see the Lucio photos…when I post them up.)

Sunday 30th

Sarah’s class – intro to colour reactions
Sarah Hornik’s class – Intro to Colour Reactions. Class starts at a compromised time between Q’s time and Night Owl Sarah’s time – 10am. Nice time to start actually. I could get some shopping done before class J It’s a fun class for me to see all the colour reactions happening. I have all these reactive glasses at home but I’ve never used them together, if at all. So many ideas start flowing into my head.

Tonight is the last day for our Magic sisters, Esther and Nachuma, so we head out to Venice for a good bye dinner. We hit our new favourite restaurant, I think it’s called Del Alviso, and I order the fish soup that Indie had the other night. For 13 euro it’s great value and an amazing dive into Venice marine life. You don’t need a ride in a glass bottom boat at all.

I tell the girls about Mike Frantz’ new odd lot colours for sale back at the apartment. Mike and Corina are leaving tomorrow morning so we know that they will be awake packing for it. After dinner we make the trek to Corina’s apartment (where the glass is) and pull Mike out of his apartment to wheel and deal with us. The girls finally leave around midnight with happy bundles of new glass.

Daylight savings arrives tonight. We move our clocks forward from 12am to 1am, groan and hit the pillow.

Monday 31st
The next morning Marianne shows me the necklace she bought off Corina. It is a stunning Quark necklace. We hear Mike and Corina moving around getting their last things packed. We open our door and become the happy recipients of some food and some small rods of glass. I buy a bracelet off of Corina too – it’s one of her Quark bead bracelets. The quarks are gorgeous. She gives Marianne and I a string of her beads to share amongst us. How sweet! These are great examples of Corina’s fine stringer work and wee beads. Marianne and I hug Mike goodbye and leave for class with the glow of glassy goodness in our cheeks We spot Corina walking back to her apartment with Davide Penso. We hug her goodbye and say hello to Davide.

Sarah H’s class – Focals. I’ve been looking forward to this class. I love wigwags. I love her faux reticello beads. I have regretted not buying one of Sarah’s faux reticello beads months ago, but then Sarah told me I already own one. What?? I look down at the pile of Sarah beads I have around my neck. And there is one there – called Archaeology. How silly am I?

Esther and Nachuma leave today too. There’s tears and hugs as we say our goodbyes. A flurry of signatures and email addresses are swapped and then they’re off. Sigh. The class room is quieter without their sound of their chatter and exploding glass

This afternoon we get a visit from Davide Penso. We don’t get to speak to him, he mainly chats with Q. Davide is a jewellery designer so his beads are made to fill his designs. His style is unique to the other Muranese glass bead workers.

Tonight is Di’s last night – so off to Venice again to farewell a friend. We hit the pizza pub tonight and I witness Di’s unique way of eating a pizza. I join in following her lead, but she looks cuter and more impish doing it than me J

After Venice, I head back with a few people back to the studio to make a faux reticello bead. Fatigue hits me hard and I don’t get to finish it. Guiltily I shove it straight into the vermiculite and I drag my arse home to catch up on that hour we lost last night.

Tuesday 1st April – April Fools Day

In Italy, it’s tradition on April 1st to give out fish-shaped chocolates to everyone. Ursula, our Italian Magic sister, brings a very large bag of some very good chocolate fish. We also have Susan from Switzerland who brought us a big bag of mixed Lindt chocolates to share. So the kitchen becomes a frequented spot for me today J Q also brings out a box of Belgian chocolates every few days too. So Q and Susan have a mild discussion on who has the better chocolate – Belgium or Switzerland. I think I’ll have another chocolate and mull over whom I should agree with.

I hit Carlo Dona’s shop again today. This time I’m buying for Pati – I have some tools on order with Roberto already so I try to avoid looking at anything else hanging on his wall. Pati asked me to pick up a stringer holder for her. Roberto has to leave and close the shop shortly so I end up buying in a hurry and got the wrong thing – a rod holder. I had offered to meet Tove and Susanne (Swedish) this morning and take them to Carlo Dona’s, but instead we hit the coffee shop.

Sarah H’s class – Silver secrets. Again, another fun class for me, as I haven’t had much experience with playing with silver. Di East leaves for home today. I have off loaded her of things as best as I could. I bought a lot of her beads that she made during her stay here. We all hug her goodbye, Sarah H is teaching in the UK later this year so will be meeting up with her then. Q takes Di to the vaporetto stop.

When Q gets back he tells us some frightening news. Pati Walton phoned him while he was out with Di. She said she had the flu and wouldn’t be able to do her masterclass the next day. Q said he almost fell into the canal. Then he realised – April Fools day! Pati and John got Q with a good one. Pati did have a cold the day before but she had recovered well and will be in for class. LOL! Poor Quinton J

Pati and John actually make it to the studio today for a visit. After class we stay back for drinks.

I guess you are no longer wondering how I come up with weird dreams of men that glow or have leopard spots - my titles are starting to explain what goes on in my head

Saturday 29th March

As I’m chowing down breakfast in our Murano apartment this morning, I hear a knock at the door. It’s Mike Frantz. “Hey, what you guys doin’ for breakfast?”. I offered, “Prunes.” Mike disappears.

Pati’s Aquarium bead - Day 2. Pati shows us her way of doing some of her undersea creatures - my favourite is the crab. I’m really happy with this and think straight away that I want to show this to my friend Dom at home who is also a Cancerian. I’m determined to be good at ‘drawing’ crabs. I name it “Crabby Pati”. Pati starts singing Sponge Bob Square Pants theme song - her and John are fans of the show. No wonder I get along with them both!

Pati gets stuck into showing us how she makes a seahorse murrini. It’s very cool watching her work these murrini, I’ve never seen it done so I’m quite fascinated with the process. And then something happens that leaves me in awe of Pati - her almost completed seahorse breaks from the punty, flies through the air into a plastic bag which starts to melt and smolder. Unfazed, Pati says, “Don’t panic” and retrieves the seahorse, re-attaches it to the punty, picks off the bits of melted plastic and resumes encasing it! A perfect example of what to do when you drop your bead - pick it up, dust it off and keep at it. Loved it! We make our version of her aquarium beads and I have better success with it today.

During the class, we get visits from Lucio Babacco, Diego Bottocini (spell?) of CriDi and Luigi Cattelan and then later on Mike Frantz and Davide Salvadore. These guys just come for a visit and a look at what we’re doing. No demos, but it’s pretty cool. I resist the urge to pick up my camera and photograph them.

After class that day, I get chatting to Sharon. Sharon is wearing one of her beads today - her sculptured rose. I tell her how I remember her rose but not her at one of our bead meetings in Brisbane last year. I also tell her how I got an idea inspired by the Vetrofond odd lot colour “Pineapple Sparkle”, to actually make a pineapple with that colour. She shows me how she makes her sculptured rose, and she uses “Free range organic salmon” pink (which I think is “Watermelon”) - pretty! After that demo, Sharon has a go with making a pineapple. It turns out awesome! And she gave it to me!! Sharon rocks.

Corina and Mike come visit the studio again, and Sarah H and Indie too. Sarah H has been dying to do a Bead Mash-up and talks Corina into doing it. So the two of them sit down and proceed to make the Bead Mash-up beads. What happens in a bead mash-up is that they both start making a bead, around half-way they swap beads and finish it off putting their on style on it. I hope I’ve got this right, but Corina turns Sarah’s bead into a fish. And then puts a frog onto her bead. They end up being very cool beads - a little bit Sarah and a little bit Corina. And it was very fun to watch. I’m not sure who has them now. Anyone know?

It’s late by the time we get back to our apartment. Marianne and I scrounge up a quick dinner of pasta. Our front door is open for some reason, and we get a visit from Corina and Mike. Corina brings wine, fruit and chocolate. Mike brings a collection of Davide Salvadore’s murrini. Wow! That stuff is hot. I’ve got a few pictures to of them too. I saw a catalogue of Davide’s African collection of glass musical instruments in our last apartment, so I recognised a few of the pieces. We all chatted and joked around, told some stories. And we eventually buy a selection of the newest Vetrofond odd lots from Mike. Marianne and I eventually get back to our apartment and go to bed.

The days are starting to get slightly surreal - it starts and ends with Mike Frantz, a good dose of Pati, Corina and Sarah with sprinklings of Italian artists - Salvadore, Diego and Lucio. Excuse me sir, when does my head stop spinning? Even though I’m not getting a lot of sleep, I am not really tired. The adrenalin, the anticipation and the excitement of each day keep me going.

These next few days are a bit of a blur. Early rising and late to bed becomes the norm as more people show up for classes and more cool people start showing up at the studio. Murano Magic turns it up a notch. So now it will turn it moments in memory from the diary, sometimes day by day - see how I go . This will speed things up abit for you guys that are reading my slow diary blog and seeing final pictures at other people’s sites

From Thursday 27th March…

Day 2 of Pati’s garden bead class and we play with more canes, flowers and garden beads. My bead making patience has greatly improved since yesterday. She also shows us how a alphabet letter murrini is made after we were all very impressed with her little signature murrini that says in tiny writing “Pati 2008″. She just puts that murrini together so easily - I’m still tossing up whether to give it (alphabet murrini) a go myself. It’s a big commitment that I’m not sure I want to get into. Once you start with a couple of letter and numbers, you have to do them all!!

Sarah Hornik and Indie arrive at the studio today too, after catching up on some jet-lagged induced sleep. Yay, I finally get to meet Sarah! (Insert more girly squealing here.) We get together in the kitchen and have a chat about traveling after I start a sentence with “When I was in Ethiopia last month..”. Sarah is coming to teach classes in Australia soon and she was asking for recommendations for days off and for Sydney. She is really stoked and excited about coming to Aus, so I write myself a note “travel tips for Sarah” Can’t wait to show her our little corner of the world.

We all head out for dinner in Venice later than usual that night. This is my first time to Venice this trip so I follow the crowd. The usual pizza joint they eat at is closed so we head in another direction along the water to find an open restaurant. Lucky - we find one open that’s willing to take on our group. I sit across Indie and discover her sense of humor. She orders a seafood soup, saying she is not hungry. Out comes an big bowl brimming with crustaceans that smells awesome. Indie declares, “This isn’t a soup. It is a National Geographic Special”. (Photo of the soup the night I order it.) She’s right - it has so much seafood in it that we can’t believe the good price for it!

This restaurant turns into a firm favourite with our group during the rest of our stay. Sarah makes an impression on the owner/chef on that very first night. On subsequent visits, he makes her a special vegetarian pasta just for her. Plus he comes out of the kitchen to say hello and kiss her when she arrives! Lucky girl. Simone is very handsome. I bet he hopes Sarah visits Murano again soon, eh Sarah?

Friday 28th March

My day starts at Carlo Dona’s shop. I, with Sharon, go to knock on the door but Esther opens it before I get to. She and Nachuma are shopping before class today. Aha, you have to get there early to get a pick of the tools, me thinks Roberto is forever patient with us and answers our questions. His shop is small and it gets even smaller with 4 of us in there. I can’t remember what I bought. Maybe I was there for moral support for someone

Pati’s Aquarium bead class - Day 1. Again we start with canes and stringers that are needed for the aquarium. I really like her aquarium beads. I think it’s the Cancerian in me. After lunch, we all take a ‘quick’ visit to Effetre’s show room. These visits have to booked ahead of time so we had to slot it in the middle of Pati’s class. She doesn’t mind and comes along too with John and Cosi. Sarah H and Lindalee Tritton is with us too.

Well, Effetre’s visit is different to Vetrofond’s factory. We get to see most of their murrini, cut and uncut, stock and their odd lot stock. We have some fun raiding it and make some purchases. There are only a few photos as we aren’t “allowed” to take a lot of photos here. Poo. But Sarah H goes a little nuts and gets excited. She starts looking for a place to live right there in the store room. We tell her to hold up on her decision to moving to Effetre’s and then tell her about the Vetrofond factory tour

In the evening after Pati’s class, Sarah H gets on the torch to do a demo bead. Corina and Mike rock up to watch and so does Di. She makes a perfectly perfect bead on the minor torch and also resists poking Corina with a hot rod after she says those words “real torch” to her. It was so funny. But us hot head-ers have almost, al-most convinced Corina to try to make a bead on a hot head. Pity we don’t have one in the class as I think we might have gotten her onto it straight away Not sure if Corina is gonna like me for saying all that

Almost everyone heads off to Venice for dinner and I stay back and ask Di East to demo a hollow bead and some fuming for me. The hollow bead she does is reminisent in style to how John Olson does his - off mandrel. Di has a good crack at it and it was amazing to watch try something out that she’s only seen once. You can tell she understands glass well to remember John’s steps. She makes almost the whole bead and then fumes the inside of it and then decorates the inside of it, closes it off, rounds it up and then some how pokes bead holes into it. I get her some hot fingers to chuck the bead into the kiln. I think it survived! Di then shows me the fuming and fumes a few beads in different ways. I buy a fuming kit off her as well as her book. I ask her to sign it for me and she does I like Di.

Murano Magic is now over Finally complete. I am happy and satisfied and weirdly confident that I’ll be back in Murano one day soon. I made some awesome friends and great memories. Now, I’m continuing on my travels through Milan, Lake Como and now Switzerland’s Interlaken area. Internet access is not really user friendly in Italy but now that I’m in Switzerland the internet access situation has improved. Yay, more story telling!

Wednesday 26th March

I woke up this morning puzzling over another weird dream: I met a man who was a leopard! He still had his spots on his skin. I think I must have inhaled some of that silver and gold fuming from John’s demo. Again this man looked like one of John Olson’s beads come to life!

Today is Pati Walton’s class - Garden Beads! Yay! We start off making all sorts of stringer and cane for flowers and stems and greenery. Pati shows us her flowers and then it’s our turn to practise. A great idea from Pati was to practise our flowers on little lollipops and maria’s on the end of the rods - quick and simple rather than making a whole bead to practise on. Less waste of glass and you might come up with some great buttons or pendants!

We head out for lunch to our usual place. The weather is still unusually cold in Italy, around 10 degrees, and has everyone getting stuck into soups and pastas. John Olson (Johnny for short) is good value at lunch. Actually, he’s good value all around the place. He’s always chatting and curious about everyone and having a joke with us all. And he and Pati tease each other which makes for a good laugh. Those two are definitely a comedy duo, with Cosi being the scene stealer. Cosi is adorable and so tiny and people are always saying how they’re going to take her home. She gets alot of attention from all of us - she’s always to be found being cradled in someones warm arms

Anyways back at class, Pati demonstrates her garden bead to us - she makes it look so easy! We all make one ourselves. Well, I attempt to make one. My stringer control is way off the richter scale and my bead cracks quite abit. I curse myself and want to put my bead into the vermiculite. But Pati shows us how to repair the cracks and always tells us not to panic or dump the bead when things go wrong. And I eventually realise that my torch flame is up way too high for any stringer work. But it’s a bit late now, and I’m starting to develop an attitude and a grudge towards my bead making skills. I see it and try to stop it from raising it’s ugly head. I think I chat to Johnny O a bit more that day - he’s always up for a chat. Cool guy.

But now in hindsight, the one big thing that I will take away from Pati’s class is her ability to not panic in the face of bead disaster. Of course she’s been torching waa-ay long than my piddly 1 year so she’s confident and most likely seen alot of disasters in her time. So it was great to see her work cool and calm and to lead by example, and I have I will now channel “the confidence of Pati” when I make beads now until I become confident with myself and the glass. And another big step that I took is that I am a hothead user at home and have only had a brief stint on a dual-fuel torch once before Murano. So I think not knowing too much about the torch to start with kind of threw me too.

But, I make one more stuff up before the end of the day. I encase my bead. This is okay to encase a bead but not when it wasn’t one of the steps to reproduce in our class project. I so just wanted to go home that afternoon and sulk. But I stayed back after class instead and make more stamen cane for flowers for tomorrow. Well, lucky I did because in walks Mike Frantz with Corina Tettinger! Pati and John were about to leave, and Quinton had gone to pick up Sarah Hornik and Indie from the airport so Pati and John stayed back and caught up with Corina and Mike. I couldn’t believe and couldn’t concentrate on melting my rod to stuff into an optic mold, so I kept melting and cooling my rod, over and over I grinned like an idiot and waved at Corina. She walked around the table looking and chatting to us. She came over to me and we said hi, she asked if we had met before, I said no and introduced myself. She says she really wants to go to Australia and teach - Marianne, Sharon and I were all like “YEAH!” She sat down next to me while I’m still melting and cooling my rod, not concentrating at all. Corina notices and says, “C’mon, what are you doing here? Make something.” Gah! How embarrassing, I hadn’t realised what I was doing So, I put my brain back into gear and stuff that melted rod into the optic mold. Next came the putting the stringer into the grooves. Good thing my brain wasn’t working other wise I would have frozen with stage fright with my wobbly stringer control. I dived straight into it and made wonky lines. Corina jumps in straight away and helps me with tips - wow! I finally realised that I had just watched her Stringer Control video shortly before I left, and then the full realisation of it all (who she was and my stringer control was shit) hit me. But she was awesome and didn’t miss a beat and I had no time to stay nervous. She got me holding the stringer and rod right, the flame right and guided me through it. How cool is that?! I would have to say my whole attitude towards my bead making had changed right then.

Corina notices my Carlo Dona tools next to me and asks about them. She picks up my blow tube and starts unblocking it. I suggest that she uses it and make a hollow bead which she promptly does (I now have Corina spit in my hollow tube now - wow! I’m never gonna wash that tube again!! Hahah! Di East comes in to the studio too and everyone is talking - a real buzz. Di offers to do a demo for us students, but I have to miss out and head back to the apartment. Due to all the apartments fluff ups, Marianne and I have a chance to move into a cheaper, closer apartment that has a computer and wireless (oh yeah baby!). It also happens to be in between Corina and Mike’s apartments (very cool). So I say my goodbyes and tell Corina that we will be neighbours. I go home to pack for tomorrow’s move. Ugh - I have to say that packing is one of my least favourite past times. Even though I travel alot, you’d think I wouldn’t mind it, but packing backpacks is not one of my super powers so it tends to be “bag stuffing” that I’m good at.

Tuesday 25th March

Woke up this morning after having a weird dream about a man that was dressed in black but he glowed blue.  He had a pet (dog?) that was irridescent kind of like aurora b, oh crap, I had to pick a word I can’t spell didn’t I? Borealis!  Aurora borealis. Anyway back to the dream, I figure that John’s boro bead demo from yesterday really made an impression on my mind.  The colours in his beads are brilliant and they were the same colour as the man and dog in my dream - weird but cool.

But enough about my psychedelic trips, there’s a whole day to write about. Today we visited the Vetrofond glass factory!  Well we all had to meet at the Museo vaporetto stop to catch the Alilaguna boat to Marco Polo Airport.  (The vaporettos are the boats that take you around Murano, Venice and all the little islands.  The Alilaguna is the convenient airport boat that takes you to Venice and Murano.)  Quinton managed to herd us onto the vaporetto and then into a coffee shop once we arrived at the airport.  We managed to fluster the barista with a massive order of coffees which is hard to do to Italian baristas.  We sat on our coffees until Laura, the sales manager for Verofond arrived.  She organised Quinton’s van and another car to take us all to the factory.

By now we’re all getting abit excited as we were about to see the birth place of Vetrfond glass and odd lots.  (Insert girly squealing here.)  Arriving at the factory, we all piled in to one of the offices for introductions and a few rules for safety by Laura.  One of the rules is no photos to be taken inside the factory.  Then we moved in a tight group around the factory floor which is interesting but it has nothing to do with glass rods.  Woah, it’s warm, and there’s hot furnace’s burning, men with rods of hot glass swinging around us, loud machines and hot kilns.  I’m nervous for my jacket, but they all are working in synchronisation.  So as long as we don’t swing our arms around then we’re okay.  The factory’s biggest product is light shades - they’re number one in Italy.  Glass rod making is a small part of their business.

 The glass masters and assistants were checking us out.  Apparently we’re the first lot of students taken through the place – ever – so we are new to them.  Plus we’re all females, of course.  Italian factory workers do the same as any all-male factory’s do - they put up girly pin-ups on the walls.  And we saw someone’s collection of cans of international beers.

Laura takes us around to see the big kiln, the glass cutting areas, the shed where all the colour materials are, and finally we arrive at where they make our glass rods.  Unfortunately they weren’t running as normal due to maintenance.  But we got to see the 2 pots - one for regular colours and the other for odd colours.  We got to see loads of clear rods stacked at the end of the run. That must have been the last lot they did before closing the machines.  We are then taken to the store room for the cut glass rods and we go crazy.  We’re allowed to take photos in here so flash bulbs are popping everywhere.  We’re all eyeing off the colours, touching the glass, licking the glass, photographing the glass…bascially squealing like little girls.  We spot a couple of “odd” shades in there too.

After about 20 minutes we have all calmed down and composed ourselves.  Laura then walks us back to the offices.  On the way we watch a master making horses.  It takes him 55 seconds from start to finish to make one.  Very impressive.  Back at the office we get to meet Mr Moretti - a busy man of few words.  We’re then off to lunch, paid for by Vetronfond.  It was a nice local restaurant full of people.  I ordered a pizza.  Actually their menu was great, and the menu of the day was pretty cheap.  There was something like 5 or 6 pages for their pizza menu - the vegetarian option was at least one page long.

We had a nice time chatting with Laura.  After lunch we piled back into the cars and headed back to Murano again.  We were all chatty and bouncy on the Alilaguna, we’re all buzzing from the tour.  Back on Murano, we 3 Sharon, Marianne and I, go hunt down Carlo Dona’s shop.  Carlo Dona is a tool shop now being run by his son Roberto Dona.  We don’t find it but manage to see Andrea Guibelli’s shop again.  Sharon hadn’t seen Andrea work so we stop in there and watch him blow a bead.  We ask him for directions to Carlo Dona’s shop.  So finally we get to Carlo Dona’s….oh and it’s bad.  So bad - because we spent alot of money there!!!  Oh that place is amazing.  We buy blow tubes for making hollows, glass scissors, mashers, pincers, tweezers, rod warmers…. Oh holy crap our luggage is going to be heavy!

So after the tool shop, we dash back to the studio to try out our new tools!  When everyone saw our tools, they all asked for directions back to the store!  Roberto Dona is going to be busy the next 2 weeks, for sure