Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Heart of Lightness
I keep saying I want to keep the ice candles on the hobby side of the hobby-obsession border, but I’m not sure I’m succeeding. The weather here has been perfect – from the idiosyncratic perspective of the ice candler at least: rarely above freezing and no snow. I’ve now got a family of five candles out in the yard, although to be honest they look a little Easter Islandish, so it’s maybe an archaic and silently dysfunctional family.
This one, which I particularly like, is a block that I let freeze solid inadvertently. I had to create a candle cavity with a drill and boiling water. This is a little more artificial intervention than I generally like, but you have to do what you have to do sometimes.
The cavity turned out to have an elegant and very functional shape: narrow neck – so narrow I have to use a flexible grabber tool to lower the candle in – but a candle chamber that spreads out to the sides of the block. This form provides a lot more shelter from the wind than most, and last night I was able to burn two tea lights in it at once, and they ordinarily are so feeble they blow out at the slightest puff of wind.
This one, which I particularly like, is a block that I let freeze solid inadvertently. I had to create a candle cavity with a drill and boiling water. This is a little more artificial intervention than I generally like, but you have to do what you have to do sometimes. The cavity turned out to have an elegant and very functional shape: narrow neck – so narrow I have to use a flexible grabber tool to lower the candle in – but a candle chamber that spreads out to the sides of the block. This form provides a lot more shelter from the wind than most, and last night I was able to burn two tea lights in it at once, and they ordinarily are so feeble they blow out at the slightest puff of wind.
