A Life in Glass - Tracy Weisel

I moved to the town of Cottonwood, Arizona recently. It didn’t take me long to begin exploring the city and the surrounding areas, one of which is a tiny little town up the side of Mingus Mountain named Jerome. Though it is tiny, Jerome is a famous town. Any number of handouts and visitor information books will proclaim that it is “The most haunted town in America”, and it’s history would have to agree. There is a hotel at the top that was an asylum for years, with the surgeon’s house sitting intact right next door. The famous Jerome sliding jail, which dislodged from it’s foundation and slid, mostly intact, some distance down the hill before coming to rest -with a man inside it the entire time, I hear. Maynard James Keenan, of Tool fame, has deep connections to the town, and walking around, it makes perfect sense that he’d be interested in this place. It’s got a feel to it. Something esoterical. Houses that have been around forever, roads that wind and split into random one-way streets. Corners and driveways so sharply angled and tight that it’s a wonder the people who call this place home can navigate them. And yes, plenty of shops, from “The Haunted Hamburger” to Maynard’s own shop, appropriately named, simply, “Puscifer”. And down a side street, it was here that my Girlfriend and I would run into the shop of Mr. Tracy Weisel, informed by a small sign on a sandwich board that something was going on inside the gate of the building we found ourselves in front of.

Valerie and I walked in through the gate. It was mid-afternoon, and from the sound coming from the shop, one of these demonstrations was ongoing. The sounds of a roaring kiln and a man speaking echoed into the courtyard, faintly. As we made our way past the ceramic cups hanging on a rustic display, we stepped into the workshop, where a dozen or so people sat on various stools, watching Tracy work his magic.

An older man, Tracy carries himself through his work area with the familiar efficiency of someone whose life has been intimately and extensively connected to this space. The tools on the bench laid out in a manner that is simultaneously haphazard and methodical. There may be no instruction book for how to arrange a workshop like this, and it may appear that indeed, no manual was consulted - but it’s clear as he walks around the work area that everything is exactly in its place, and that there is a method to the haphazard madness that sits before you. Not a movement is wasted, not a second spent searching for the exact implement needed. It came to me as I watched him work the molten glass that this is a necessary part of producing these pieces of art. The glowing mass on the end of the metal rod that he wielded changed shape by the second, simultaneously solid and fluid, requiring constant movement and attention to avoid losing what it was becoming altogether.

And it still had quite a bit of becoming to get to what it would eventually be. While we did not know it yet, this bulbous, glowing ball of molten orange would - with the care of hundreds of movements, touches, and adjustments - become a beautiful, long stemmed wine glass in front of our eyes over the next quarter of an hour. And through every one of those adjustments, Tracy would narrate, describing what he was doing, why it was necessary, and occasionally, what could go wrong if anything less than absolute precision was used.

If his deft, smooth movement and familiarity with his surroundings weren’t enough to clue people in, all you would have to do is listen to Tracy Weisel talk about what he was doing for a few short moments and you would know - this man is an absolute veteran of pottery and glassblowing. As he spoke of the nuances of heat, turning, cooling, reheating, and each of the tools he switched between on the fly, some of the mystery of what he did became much simpler. I found myself thinking about the years , the sheer number of hours and days, that had to have been invested in doing this one thing - and learning it well - in order to make this display that I found evidence of all around me. There were glasses, mugs, decorations, and physical artwork everywhere in this area, many of which must have taken hours of effort to complete, to say nothing of the aforementioned years of practice and knowledge to get to a point to be able to accomplish even the smallest of these items with consistency. I found myself thinking of the fact that even on his worst day, this man could likely put his hands to a lump of clay and produce something workmanlike, something beautiful. And that, I’ve always believed, is the true mark of professionalism; when you’re not feeling it, when you’re tired or sniffling, when you’re uninspired and would rather be doing anything else, or when you’re outright sick, a pro can do it anyway. Amateurs put it aside, but a pro will get the job done. Pros aren’t fragile. Pros can work in the rain. And I knew from what I was seeing that Tracy Weisel could work in the rain.

As I watched him work, and listened to him talk, I made some connection between myself and this man, some shared idiosyncrasy between us. It happened when he was talking about the difficult and unpredictable nature of the medium in which he worked. He spoke of how in some cases, despite his best effort, some pieces didn’t quite turn out the way he envisioned. That somewhere during the process, something happened that caused them to come out as less than the quality of product that he had come to expect himself to produce. After all these years of practicing his craft, he had reached a point where there was a standard in his mind of what he was able to do. Without him saying it, I understood - as with the images I take, the editing I perform, and the things I write - that in his mind, despite whether others see it or not, some things just don’t meet the standard we set for ourselves. For his part, he said that if someone wanted one of these, all they had to do was make a donation - any amount - into the Humane Society Box he had set at the door.

I would snap a number of pictures while we were here today, as he helped this wine glass become itself. And some weeks later, placing an order for prints, I decided to put one of those photographs on Canvas. We made our way back up to Jerome shortly after that, and dropped in to see the man. He remembered us, and I told him that he was part of our first excursion, we were impressed at what the community had to say about him, and his support of the Humane Society, and that I would like to gift him with this canvas of him, working his craft. Tracy, without missing a beat, would reply: “Why, thank you. My wife will love this. Tell you what - each of you, take a mug home for yourselves, from me.” I think that, more than anything, stands out in my mind about the kind of person he is. When someone did something kind for him, his immediate thought was to return that kindness. And through our interaction, he was gracious and genuine; I don’t think he knows how to be otherwise, and I doubt he’s ever been anything other than himself. I was glad to have had this experience, to make this connection with a fellow artist, although of an entirely different (and more delicate) medium.

And then, before we left, he sat us down and showed us how he makes the mugs that would go home with us, to hold our coffee and tea, and remind us of the kindness that still exists in this world.