Anticipation - It's Making Me Wait

I'm giggling as I write this because I actually looked up the definition of anticipation - the theme of my second Art Bead Scene Blog Carnival post.Webster's defines anticipation as " the act of looking forward; especially : pleasurable expectation."

I don't know that I've EVER associated the word "pleasurable" with anticipation. There's NOTHING pleasurable about it. I would call it "tortuous expectation."

Sometimes, beads look better than you even dreamed they could!

First of all, wait has never been my favorite word. I want it right NOW ...or yesterday would be better. So that I choose to work in a medium (glass) that requires some cooling down time is perplexing. It's so NOT me.

It kills me to know that I made a bead that I cannot touch, feel, marvel at right NOW. I have gone to bed and been unable to sleep and found myself bundled up in a housecoat and winter coat to traipse across my yard to the shop...just to see... knowing full well the kiln had not had enough time to ramp down. Sometimes I sit there staring at it, making sure it is ramping down...willing it to ramp faster.

And...sometimes they look worse! This bead idea came from one of my best selling fused pieces. It doesn't work as well as a torched bead...

The painful expectation continues when I finally do get to open that door...will the beads look as good as I thought they might going in??? (Glass changes colors when it's hot and the length of the time in the kiln can affect color too.) Will I be happy or sad when I open that door? Will I love it? Or will it be a disaster??? Will the beads work as I intended??? Or will all my hard work fall apart in my hands?

The Eggster Bunny

Some days, the anticipation leads to elation. Other days, I swear I need to sell my torch! No matter what, I always seem to find a new avenue I want to explore, a color I want to try, a scale I want to play with. And I find myself, staring at the kiln one more time, wrapped in the throes of tortuous expectation yet again.