Put in 10,000 hours to become an expert. That can be broken down to 1 hr a day over a span of 10 years. What do you want to become an expert in?
This came up in conversation with my mom.
Talk about good timing with the New Year coming up.
I'll get back to you with my thoughts.
I needed to drill glass to wire these hanging lights that I call Cactus Lights. I couldn’t find a step-by-step guide on how to drill glass; not at the hardware store, the stained glass store or on the Internet. I kept stumbling across vague information that always included diamond bits and water, but no specifics.
I was very nervous about proceeding without directions, because I kept envisioning the glass shattering and scaring my face for life. Needless to say, I am as pretty as ever. My face is fine. I didn't get cut even once.
After many hours of drilling, this is what I learned. I hope this how-to will save you time.
You’ll need:
Drill:
Using a sharpie, mark where you want to drill the hole. Depending on how much money you spend on your diamond drill bits, determines how quickly they will cut through the glass. I picked up a set of 50 for about $20 on harbor freight tools.com, and they take about 15 minutes to drill ¼” of glass. I would like to invest in higher quality bits, so that it will take only a minute or two to drill 1/4”.
The shaft on the diamond drill bits can only handle so many rpm, so set your drill or dremel accordingly. You don’t want to snap off the bit while drilling, hence the importance of safety glasses. At first I also wore a face shield, but then it was too difficult looking through that and safety glasses to keep tabs on where I was drilling.
Put on your gloves, safety glasses, ear plugs and dust mask. I worked at a table in my studio, with a chair that was at a comfortable height, since how I knew I was going to be there 15 plus minutes without moving.
Using the eye dropper, drip some water onto the sharpie mark on the glass. Keeping the bit perpendicular to the glass, start drilling. As the water flies away, add more with the eye dropper. Be sure to label the eye dropper so that it doesn’t get used for anything other than assisting in drilling, because powdered glass will be sucked back into the dropper. When the glass powder starts to build up around the hole use the rag to clean it out of there.
Once you’ve drilled your hole, it’s time for the victory dance! It really is empowering to have the tools and know how to drill a solid and yet fragile material. You’ll start noticing glass everywhere and thinking about how long it would take to drill. Have fun!
This is one of the two Cactus Lights that needed to be drilled so I could wire them and turn them into hanging lights. This wine bottle is a little over 2 feet tall.
One of the many shapes of diamond drill bits. I liked the flat bottomed bits the best versus the conical shaped bits. With the extra surface area, they drilled faster. For just this wine bottle I had about 1 inch of glass to drill, which took an hour with my cheap bits. Have I sold you on the nicer bits yet?
This enormous wine bottle had a conveniently concave shaped bottle to keep the water from flinging away while I was drilling.
For more photos of the glass Cactus Lights, check out these installation photos. The wine bottle strand is the shorty! It’s sister is 7 feet tall.
Post Game Show:
Start off by drilling some tests to take the pressure off from having to make a perfect hole the first time around.
Another set up idea is to use a fish tank to catch the excess water. It was suggested to me to use the fish tank motor to circular the water. I think this would be particularly helpful when there is lots of drilling to do.
I tried a glass/masonry bit that didn’t have any abrasive diamonds attached to it and it shattered several glasses. It seems like diamond bits are the way to go.
If you’re drilling a super thin glass bottle, you can put a wooden support in the inside, right on the other side of where you are drilling. This should help prevent the weight of the drill and bit from breaking the glass.
If you have to drill for a while, be mindful to take breaks when your mind starts to wander. You need to stay completely focused while using the drill. Also, be aware if the motor starts to heat up and give it a rest if that happens.
Even though I used water and drilled glass into a power, it wasn’t very messy drilling glass. I obviously didn’t do this around food, but clean up was simple.
Bioneers is the largest, annual environmental conference in the USA. It’s like TED talks, except with a hope filled focus on how to take care of the earth. The three day conference happens every October in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The one session that I connected with took place in a small tent, that seated a couple hundred people. Everyone was barefoot and sitting on the ground. We held a council and shared our knowledge on how we have experienced the divine feminine and the divine masculine.
To me the divine feminine isn’t a goddess. Instead it’s a balance of traits that I‘m searching for, the ones that will make me most effective and content in life. Women are known for being nurturing, but they are also fiercely protect their loved ones. Within myself, I want to be a whole person, both a cook and a bread winner. Then if it happens, find a man who is also actualized and together we’ll be like iron sharpening iron.
Just as women have natural strengths, men do to. I think of the divine masculine as a benchmark for the men I look to date. Are they gentle? Do they know when and how to protect? Are they humble? Are they compassionate? Do they guard their health as being the most important, for how else can you serve without life?
We talked about the imbalance of masculine versus feminine power and how men and women need to treat each other as equals. The session was co-facilitated by a man who looked like my late grate-grandfather, Popsi. He said it was up to the men to honor and respect the women by giving us space to do what we do best: taking things deeper, being creative, forming communities, sharing feelings…
Hearing from this Popsi look-alike that ladies should be praised and valued as essential, was edifying. I felt important. I felt vital. Being apart of this circle meeting gave me the further conviction to better myself, to find that balance of traits within.
Since the New Year I've taken a sabbatical from making art. It wasn’t fulfilling. The art that I chose to create wasn't expressing loud how I was feeling. It was aggravating to create. I needed an active form of art, so I put sculpture on hold and took up martial arts.
About six months later, I tweaked my back and neck from repairing one of my installations. I hurt it from taking down this curtain made from 950 bouncy balls. It was the straw that broke the camels back.This caused a wave of change. Something snapped and I decided that finally I was done being afraid. I’m over having fear keep me from joy.
First I caught a one-way ticket Colorado to see an incredible chiropractor and acupuncturist. Serendipity helped me catch the flight since how I had 10 minutes to pack and zero time to get held up at security. That was the first time traveling by myself that I wasn’t stopped by security.
Then on the way to the airport I quit my job at a picture framing shop. The job wasn’t fulfilling. I want to assist visual artists create and show their art. Over the past five years, I’ve done that part-time, but fear of not getting enough consistent work has held me back from pursing it. I’m over that fear too. I’m going for it!
After a week spent healing in the peaceful Colorado plains, I flew back to the San Francisco Bay Area feeling much stronger and happier. On the first day back, I ran out of my comfort zone and talked myself up to local artists. I actually enjoyed networking! I can fit the need for an organized and reliable assistant, just meeting so many talented artists made me eager to help them reach their goals.
It’s been 23 days since I’ve tweaked my back. I believe the pain stayed so long because I needed to sort out some emotional issues. I tested this out last night by facing another huge fear; a fear of rejection. I made a phone call to a voice I hadn’t heard in nine years. I didn’t die from the experience. We talked for an hour and even had some laughs.
Now I am balancing my time between personal assisting jobs, making art for me and for commissions and taking better care of myself. It’s been such a huge month that I keep reminding myself to treat myself gently.
Hears to
“Out of my comfort zone and LOVING it!”
And to
“Doing Less!”
