Steve's favorite text message of last week came from our ever intrepid Production Manager, Ryan Dolittle (who does a lot.) The text went: "God smote the furnace." This relates to a rather Homeric tale of one of our new crucibles that was installed and cracked (smote.) Let's travel back in time to explain. We have 2 crucibles. They are massive, ceramic, glazed, round bowls that are installed into our furnaces and burn under an 'eternal flame,' to the tune of two thousand degrees. Their contents?... molten clear glass, obviously an essential glassybaby ingredient. As a matter of course, crucibles have a life span and need to be replaced. Ryan scheduled this work to be done, lovingly, at the end of December. That way, suspending production would allow glassblowers holiday time off. The old crucibles cooled, the new crucibles were installed and the Seattle snow of a mythological nature kept falling. Apparently, there was a power outage that concurred with the crucible change. Ryan's working theory is that one of the crucibles was unevenly heated during the power outage, which created a thermal shock to this extraordinarily strong ceramic bowl...hence the crack. So, bear with me, production was suspended again, 600 pounds of molten glass was extricated (see photo above), the cracked crucible was extricated and a new crucible was installed. By all accounts this is an extremely rare event, which has elicited a lively discourse on physics, thermal dynamics and spirituality.
Ryan was able to gather an emergency dream team to deal with removing the 600 pounds of glass. As it turned out, it was the Amazon team, all women. And my favorite anecdote...was Quade arriving to help... with sage to burn in our hot shop that had been smote. We are happily up and running now. Phew.
We have a very wonderful new customer Suzanne, hailing from Portland, Oregon. I had the pleasure of speaking with her on the phone about our seconds sale. Wisely, she is organizing a personal shopper, seconds envoy, to buy for her. Subsequent to our phone conversation, I noticed a web order with a very meaningful message, which she sweetly has allowed me to share:
"My sister received one of your True White glassybaby as a supportive gift from a friend while she was helping me go through breast cancer treatment this past year. My sister sent one to me this Christmas as a celebration for the fact that I am healthy and finished with my treatment. I am now sending one to my daughter-in-law as she lost her father to cancer recently. The cycle continues, but the hope and support never fail. Thank you, Suzanne"
Thank you for this message Suzanne. We love that you have discovered us. Your enthusiasm and life force are palpable.
Until Next Time, Nicola
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