Jim Smircich!!!

hello out there, i just returned from an amazing two day class is the wonderful town of Lafayette Indiana (Purdue university)!!  I took a class with the “Heat control Master of the Universe”!!!  I came away with a lot of new knowledge about glass and heat and gravity!  Jim is a wonderful teacher and is very methodic about the steps in which to take to make a fine shaped bead!  I thought that we would really not be working on techniques so much and so i was prepared to give my brain to Jim and let him mold it into what he saw fit.  We did some techniques though that were really cool.  I did not know that gold fuming ivory turns it a beautiful pink, an AHA!!! moment!  i had many of those in his class!  He is a very nice and fun dude and i enjoyed meeting him and picking his brain!!!  Besides, he was friends with the one and only Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane!  I knew he had a fun spot in him, i just needed to poke at it, lol!!!!  One of the funny moments from the trip was at dinner.  He ordered a char rare steak!  he wondered if they would cook it to his liking and i told him “Jim, you are the master of heat control, go back there and show them how to char the outside while maintaining the rareness inside”!!!  he chuckled at that!!  I will post my pics with him tomorrow and I am still waiting for my beads that i made, the vase i won, oh yeah, i won it alright!  i told everyone not to even mention it or look at it because it was mine and you know what?  I WON!!  i walked away leaving my new armrests and the beads i bought sitting on my station, ugh so they are being shipped along with my second day class beads!!  Please go to the left of this blog for a link to his website, what a lovely man!!  I encourage everyone to take his class, it is quite amazing how he teaches and believe me you will have some lightbulb moments in his class!!!   I was so humbled to be in his class because he is one of the few pioneers in the American lampworking community that has brought this craft/art back onto the map!!  Thank you Jim!!!  I will always remember the class and meeting you!