Faerie's Blurty

Coming Together . . . . .

Glass -

I have loved glass for as long as I can remember - the deeply colored crackle bowls in my living room that amazed me in the contradiction of being solid and cracked at the same time, the blown glass figurines that I collected throughout my adolescence and topped my wedding cake, going to historical sites on vacation and watching glass blowing for as long as my parents would let me, visiting the giant pottery in Williamsburg and going down every row to see as much as possible, picking up cut crystal goblets and bowls and running my fingers over all the sharp edges.

Glass is amazing. It is tough and fragile at the same time. It is made of nothing - at least that was how I saw it. I grew up by the ocean. There was sand everywhere. It had no value. Yet take it, heat it and mix in a few other ingredients and miracles happened. It can be blown and shaped in a million different ways. It can be made into something practical or into something whimsical. If something with as little value as sand can be made into something of such priceless beauty, there is hope for the fears in the deepest part of your soul.

Bach -

I love Baroque music, especially Bach. Bach set the foundation for western music. He created the forms and structures of time and sound. Bach is precise and orderly but demands the utmost care and musicianship to perform. To truly make music with Bach, you have to do more than play perfectly structured forms. It demands your soul poured into it. Otherwise it is little more than orderly noise. I have met many musicians who believe that mastery of Bach is the key to musical perfection: if you can play Bach, you can play anything.

Emily Post -

I never quite fit in. It wasn't any one particular thing - it was the accumulation of things. I never quite felt like I belonged anywhere . . . but I understood etiquette. My friends called me Emily Post. What was the proper seating arrangement for a dinner? Could you wear a particular color or style of shoe at a certain time of year? What did you wear to an afternoon wedding for the cousin you didn't particularly like? What was the proper table setting for a formal dinner? These were the answers I knew. When I got married at 18, it was with such planning that I emerged with a dozen full place settings of elegant china and stemware. I had no idea what my place in the world was but I made do with knowing the place for everything else.

Benvenuto Cellini -

In college, I read the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. He was a Renaissance sculptor. I don't remember what the other pieces he made looked like but I remembered the salt cellar (http://130.238.79.99/ilmh/Ren/cellini-salt.htm). It was amazing to me. Not in any artistic sense - in that regard, it is not particularly to my liking - but in the sense that something so magnificent would be made to hold what to me was such a common item: salt. That was when I learned how important salt had been for most of the world's history. It fascinated me that through many centuries, a person's social status in the upper reaches of society could be determined simply by noting where they sat in relationship to the salt cellar.

Salt -

I've always loved salt. Instead of a salt shaker in the kitchen, I have a small glass container for grabbing pinches. When I started faerie's, the flavored salts quickly became my favorite products. I have to admit, I had never tried sea salts and was skeptical of them. I was amazed last year when we started tasting them in consideration of adding them to the product line. The subtle variations in flavor between the different salts was astonishing. I was hooked. More than that - seeing the fleur de sel and the sel gris, salt that is as close to unadulterated as you can get, I understood salt cellers. You can't shake these. You have to use a pinch or a spoon. It's more than that though. . . the color and texture of these salts deserves to be seen.

Manufacturing -

Manufacturing at all levels fascinates me. From the arrival of materials at the docks on cargo ships, to giant warehouses full of palettes, to filling stations and assembly lines, to packaging and shipping materials - all of it just amazes me. I love the possibilities of manufacturing. I love seeing how something goes from start to finish. It continues to astonish me, what people can make.

So. . . around Christmas I'm just sort of browsing around on ebay and I do a search on salt cellars. I pick out a few that I like and show them to Christopher. He asks if I would like them as my Christmas present. I've been thinking for a while of how to have a salt tasting party for my friends and family that would enjoy it and having pretty salt cellars would be just the thing. When they arrive a few weeks later, I am just captivated. They are tiny and pretty. One - a fish - just seems whimsical; I can put the salt for my fish in a salt fish.

So I look some more on ebay, really just for some diversion . . . there are literally thousands of them - glass, wood, silver, gold, porcelein, china - from all over the world and spanning centuries. I haven't collected anything in years and I ask Christopher if he would mind if I start collecting them . . . it seems to go nicely with my love of salt and it would be nice to do something that was just for me.

That's how it started. As I looked, I always liked the glass ones best. Then I started doing a little research. Over time, a focus has developed to my collection of salt cellars (or open salts): american victorian glass. There are three categories of Victorian glass in my collection: lacy glass - the first molded glass made in this country, american brilliant - leaded cut crystal produced by the artisans arriving in this country from Europe, and early american pattern glass - the first mass produced glassware for the growing middle glass.

So. . . I was thinking how much my salt cellars delight me. I've gotten much more picky about what I purchase now. My little salt cellars provide a connection point for a lot of elements in my life. There are a few other things that also connect in but these are the main ones.

Current Mood: relaxed