Sunday, March 01, 2009

Genuinely Generous People of the Lampwork Community

Once in a while you come across people that are truly sharing. They will freely give of their time, effort & knowledge with absolutely no hesitation & no expectation of anything in return, apart from perhaps the joy of hearing of or seeing that ‘aha’ moment that people have after having not quite grasped a concept. Quite simply they make sharing a gift.

I’ve never thought of knowledge as something to be secreted away & kept from others. If I learn something, even if it is the hard way, I see no reason to make others learn the same way. Quite frankly if I discover a new skill, a different technique, a ground breaking piece of information or a supplier that offers a great product - then I’m so darn excited that can’t wait to tell others, in the hopes that they will get the thrill out of it that I did.

I’ll never forget a brush off & a comment that was uttered to me when I started trying to find out everything I could about lampwork a little over two years ago. Here in a country where information is either hoarded or sold, & people are somewhat precious about sharing their knowledge, skills, sources or suppliers, I was given the impression that I was just another person that wanted information for nothing, when they’d had to learn for them self. In fact nothing could be further from the truth – I would have paid anything to have been able to take a class & learn somewhere….anywhere!
Quite simply it put me off asking when I needed help (& boy did I need help at times!!), so I almost lived on the computer, searching for answers on LampworkEtc. I poured over the tutorials that people generously put up there, joined exchanges & tried to push myself to learn.

Later I discovered blogs & I marvelled at how some people were so generous in sharing their time & their knowledge….putting it out there for everyone to gain from.
To freely bestow the gift of time & knowledge shows a true generosity of spirit… this is especially impressive when it is done by busy people who make a living from their craft & take the time to specifically post information for no personal gain.

This week I am going to feature some of those people, the ones that have helped & inspired me on, & many others, in the wonderful journey from this first bowl of newbie beads…








Stay Tuned!

2 comments:

rosebud101 said...

Deb, I am amazed! We are thinking along the same lines--again! Wow!
http://rosebud101-fortheloveofbeads.blogspot.com/

Deb said...

Great minds think alike ;o)
It's all your fault Mallory - for making me ruminate about my (slow) progression in this wonderful world of glassy goodness!