tuesday

Stained glass is one of my favorite things. I am, unfortunately, an awfully obsessive lady, and when one dream gets into my head, there's little chance it will ever leave me. This summer has left me with lots of time to carefully chew on the cud of my future (mostly researching grad schools for MFA programs in poetry, avenues of film restoration, and day-dreaming about becoming the next Iris Berry- one of my all-time heroes). I suppose this is my roundabout way of declaring my love for the art of stained glass and trying to jam it into the crammed bookshelf that is my life. And, literally, my bookshelves. 

When I am not fretting (what a wonderful word!) about the near-yet-distant future, I am thinking about gallivanting around Russia and Western Europe. I should like to hop in and out of gothic churches and cathedrals, and of course stop by La Chappelle du Rosaire de Vence- the chapel designed by a then seventy-seven year old Matisse in 1947. I think we all ought to keep the promises we made our thirteen year old selves and find the gumption and dash within us to become the brassy, plucky souls we always hoped we'd be. In my case, I'm going to need time, and a whole lot of it!

Secretly, and not so secretly, I would love to be a stained glass artist's apprentice. I am quite obsessed with dying art forms that must be passed on to sustain themselves (to name but a few of my favorites: silent film accompaniment, millinery, beekeeping, and of course, stained glass). For the past two years or so, I have been terribly tempted to try for an apprenticeship at the nearby Brooklyn Stained Glass Conservation Center, and perhaps as Paul Celan knows, "it is time it was time."

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