Flying into Inverness, Scotland is always a little like opening the door to the playroom. Despite a Glaswegian friend who knocks the Highland capital as “a bit twee”, I’m a total sucker for the greeting-card prettiness of the place, the rolling spring-green hills dotted with Cheviot sheep and tidy hay bales. Pretty has a hard time of it nowadays. Sometimes the soul needs a good shot of twee.
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It’s been over a week since I got back from the Glass Art Society conference in Pittsburgh. I’m still recovering. I’d love to spend some time writing about it, but I’m busy packing for my next trip to North Lands.

GAS? What was so special? In short, the stuff I absolutely LOVED…
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It’s a factory. What can you expect? Sometimes you stumble onto stuff tucked away in dark corners that is truly scary.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised a couple of weeks ago when, as I was clambering through some dusty shelving up on a mezzanine above the R & E department, I happened upon what at first I mistook for the scalps of shrunken long-hairs. Until I decided they were the My Not-So-Little Pony Tails of some kiddy Vampira.

Slowly I realized the hirsute hangings that had wigged me out were glass. I was transfixed.

Confession: after 35 years inside the glass bubble, what increasingly grabs my attention are those objects that ride the slightly disturbing twin rails of beauty and horror. These did it. I was awe-struck.
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