The teacher for my class was local glass artist Jane McCaulley, who teaches a class at Spiva about once a month. Check out her glasswork here.

While Jane introduced herself, I glanced at the tools we’d be using that day. They seemed foreign to me (except for the Sharpie – I know Sharpies), and I began to get a bit nervous.

But with Jane’s clear instruction and helpful visual aids (she’s a former elementary art teacher), I began to relax. When Jane mentioned that she offered a glass camp for kids in the summer I thought, “If kids can do this, then why can’t I?”

Our project that Saturday required us to use pieces of colored glass to decorate a clear glass piece which would eventually become a tray.

First, we learned the names and functions of the tools on our table and also practiced using each of them.

Then we went hunting.

Hunting for pieces of colored glass that would complete our artistic visions, that is.

I wish I could say that I had a grand vision of what I wanted my tray to look like, but didn’t.

I had nothing.

Nada.

So I just starting sifting through glass and picking out pieces that “spoke” to me, like the one that had an iridescent sheen that changed from blue to green in different light (Pick me, I’m shiny!), and another that sported a dragonfly pattern (Pick me, I’m interesting!)

If the piece looked peculiar, I snatched it up – with the exception of the one with the snowflake pattern that I immediately rejected because of my utter disdain for snow and cold.

Next, I unloaded my loot onto the white paper at my table, then sat back and considered it (like any professional artist, of course).

That’s when I started to feel a bit panicked again. How was I going to turn this Island of Misfit Glass into a respectable piece of art?

Then I remembered Jane’s encouraging words: There was no right or wrong way to do this.

I picked up one piece and placed it on the clear glass.

Then another, and another.

Once I was satisfied with my pattern, I leaned back and admired it.

I’d done it!

It was unusual-looking, but I’d done it.

Wait!

I wasn’t done – I still had to glue the pieces to the tray (with Suave hairspray, of all things), and before I could glue them, I had to clean them.

That meant I had to remove every single piece I’d worked so hard to arrange on there.

Sigh.

Oh, well. I snapped a photo of my pattern (thank goodness for smartphones), and then began the painstaking cleaning/gluing/replacing process.

Jane had instructed us to leave our trays at our spots when we were finished; she’d take them home and fire them and then we’d be able to pick them up the following week.

I took one last look at my chaotic, mismatched tray and thought, “Well, at least I had fun and I learned something.”