Oh wait, I was supposed to talk about other stuff (specifically, “extra”, night-time type activities), like the Boro FlameOff, too, not just Dietmar's torch. Well, I watched one fellow named Jedidiah (whose last name I don't recall, sorry) make a wonderful rotation of axis bead, which he started by striping the inside of some boro tubing with the “new” crayon colors—it's the first really attractive use I've seen in person of the opaque cadmium boros. He said he felt bad because he only made the one kind of bead. Well, I've alluded to before the weakness of those of us who can't focus...I was feeling really broke this year, but his was definitely one of the beads I was sorry not to get.

The boro flameoff was a fundraising event, in which teams of 8–9 people worked for one hour to make a boro bead or other goodie. In hour two, (9–10pm) among the contestants were Lewis Wilson, who was aiming to make the biggest boro bead; and my boro teacher, Doni Hatz, whose team taught class (along with Tim Drier) I took some years ago. Doni is a scientific glassblower, and thus her approach is by nature meticulous, not to mention impressively skilled. She made one of her jacketed beads, of purple coneflowers, and yours truly actually was responsible for transferring a couple of the flowers to the kiln. Thankfully I managed not to drop them! Despite her (mild) frustration with the unfamiliar torch melting her petals in unaccumstomed ways, she managed to “win” the flame-off: her piece got the highest bid. I was delighted for her.

As it happens, I missed that part of the bidding, though somebody kindly gave me an extra ticket to the banquet; I came just in time for the poisonous yellow dessert, and am happy to report I survived this gustatory experience, and even more pleased I didn't have to pay for it...Speaking of wretched food experiences, Portland has terrible Indian food if the one place (which claimed to have been voted the best by the city) is any indication. As it happens, we have a decent Indian population in the tri county area, and as a high proportion of the folks visiting Metro Detroit area Indian restaurants tend to be Indian, I've noticed this cuisine seems to have retained its native flavors (not to mention heat index) more successfully than some other ethnic cuisines. I shoulda known better when I saw everyone in the Portland restaurant was white. On the other hand, both the Thai restaurants I tried—Ruen, near the Convention center, and a chain, Typhoon, were very good. Yum.

Aside from the food at the Banquet, I was delighted to see Craig Milliron get the Hall of Flame award, and I had a really lovely time chatting to people, though as usual the acoustics were appalling and I was hoarse by the end of the evening. Lessee, I also checked out the two gallery shows, Gallery 33 and the Bullseye Factory Gallery, and both were very nice: absolutely some gorgeous pieces; as a stringer I liked that emphasis (on finished jewelry) in the Gallery 33 show. I missed the Silly Bead Contest entirely, missed the fact that Kim Miles was in my own row in my room (there were three this year) in the Bead Bazaar. I briefly sat in on the Instructors’ Seminar as my roomie from last year got a last minute Bullseye tour and couldn't attend the beginning. Lots on liability issues: insurance agents aren't typically thrilled with the idea of folks burning stuff inside their homes, but the organizers actually managed to find a guy to write policies for flameworkers. And warn us to inform our agents we were running a business out of our homes, pronto, if we hadn't already. (I'd done this back when I lived in Detroit, but we switched agents when we moved. I did indeed contact mine when I got back, but she seemed magnificently unconcerned. Better than the prior agent's response, which was basically, ‘don't ask and don't tell’...)

By now you're probably wondering if I'm ever going to get to Dietmar's torch. He set it up during Open Torch, which like the Boro Flame-off, Banquet, Gallery Crawl and Silly Bead Contest, are evening activities.

I've been impressed with Dietmar Kuehlmorgen's posts on glass chemistry for as long as I've been reading them; the topic is only imperfectly understood, and though some glass artists really know their chemistry inside and out, beadmakers do not typically tend to fall into this class. Mr. Kuehlmorgen is one of a handful of people who does.

Those of us who have appreciated his help on the Forum got to meet the man in person at Gathering this year. Softspoken, outgoing, and quite funny, he enchanted everyone with his meterslong strings of “seed” beads, all carefully numbered experiments with color mixing. He could go right to a specific number, say ‘987’ too. These little beads were made, he said, on the torch he brought with him, a (likely) handmade affair running on paraffin wax cubes and compressed air.

It was a huge hit at Open Torch. I tried it myself, and found it required a good deal of discipline. Firstly, it makes a hothead screamingly fast by comparison, and you learn to control your breathing so as not to upset the flame. No glasses are necessary to shield your eyes. Though Dietmar claims to have made borosilicate beads with it, I found working Effetre stringer to be plenty challanging enough. For me the biggest difficulty is that the smallest mandrel I could lay my hands on was 1/16”, and get it hot enough for the initial wrap made it difficult to make a hollow bead. I persevered, however:) Under normal circumstances, working with a flame that small, I'd want to use a .045 or .035” diameter mandrel, so I could get it hot more easily.

I have another picture of him, which actually is in slightly better focus, but I think this one captures his personality more faithfully.

• part i: summary, daytime programming
• part ii: summary, evening programming, plus Dietmar's Torch (this page)
• part iii: a bit about portland, especially its gardens

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.

Sylvus Tarn