This is Joanna, a good friend from my high school days. I hadn't seen her for ages, but when I found out that she is doing glass sculpture at Hershey, I had to check it out. Art is cool, and when neat, kind, thoughtful people do art, it's even more meaningful.

The glass sculptures start out as (ahem) glass, in rods like you see here.

Then, Joanna heats them up with this burner.

While the glass is soft (all glass is liquid -- even windows flow downward. Windows on old houses are much thicker at the bottom), Joanna molds it into the shape she needs. Colored glass is glass which has impurities introduced into it. For example, red glass has gold in it. The burner runs on two gasses which usually mix. Depending on the color glass (and the chemical makeup of the impurities), she modifies the amount of oxygen and other gasses in the torch to keep the color pure.

After she makes a sculpture, it goes into the kiln.

They make a lot of hershey kisses in earrings and pendants. Joanna also makes some beautiful, lithe dragons, reindeer, and other figurines. Tennessee Williams would go nuts in here. I don't have pictures of her work because, frankly, the place was sparkling from crystal so much, most of the digital images didn't come out.

Joanna was gracious, patient, and kind the whole time. Her smiling was beaming as bright as the crystal. God does a great work in His children. (read her article about Christ and the arts)

But, alas, customers came, and I had to leave. But my journey wasn't over.

After all, what's Christmas without Karaoke?