Glacial Errata, No. 26

One

A few weeks ago, I was passing by a jewelry store supply store in downtown LA, and I saw this in the window and knew immediately I had to have it. It’s a scale calibration weight—it weighs exactly 500 grams, and it feels incredible to hold in your hand. The weight, the size, the texture of the milled steel. It’s truly one of the best $30 I’ve spent in quite some time.

Two

Another object whose size, shape, weight and feel brings me no end of delight is this copper sphere. I backed some Kickstarter a dozen years ago to get it, and my ex-wife thought I was being really ridiculous at the time. But it’s on my desk, so I look at it every day, and it never fails to delight me. It probably needs a polish soon.

Three

I bought this in a flea market in Istanbul in 2010 and, to this day, I have no idea what this is or what it’s used for. The best I’ve ever been able to guess is that it somehow has something to do with candles? I don’t know. If you have better ideas, I’m all ears.

Four

Last summer when I was in Svalbard, one of the other artists on the Arctic Circle residency with me was the extremely talented Anna Moore, whose work is an endless source of fascination for me (she also has a great monthly newsletter that I recommend). As it happens father, Jim Moore, is one of the last people in the world to make tools for glassblowers, and while I will probably never in my life blow glass, nor blow glass to such a degree that I need to acquire my own tools, I wanted something from his store just to have on my shelf. I picked this tool for embossing labyrinths on your glass objects.

Five

Another mysterious object. I don’t remember where I picked this up from, but I saw one exactly like it in Lisbon last December, and sometimes I regret not buying this one a friend.