R. Strong Glass

Friends - friends are the best - I’ve moved around a lot when I was younger- friends that were close really didn’t exist for me. When I was in grade school and junior high - there seemed to be so much competition for being cool- too many clicks and clacks and groups- good for those who fit in but not so good for those that didn’t fit in. What was it somebody said -if you have more than one or two good friends you’re a rich person (man ).
I had one close friend for a long time in the glass world then somethings seem to go amiss- safe to say that I felt like I had gone through a really difficult divorce for 10 years. Well I finally extricated myself from that emotional pain and am enjoying a few people that are in my life now realizing that a good friend is really a state of mind- and that also it’s considering yourself a good friend rather than looking outward. In the groups that I belong to I find a joy and a quite happiness in the times that I spend with these guys talking about absolutely real things in life. I feel very grateful for the relationships that we have now .
Friendships when I was young I was about hanging out with other guys doing the same things lots of fun and feeling connected. Now at 75 for me there’s a realization that friendships are not based on large amount of time spent together but the quality of the time that we do spend together and what we share with each other the quality of what we share. Funny when we’re young it’s about quantity -when we get older -for me it’s about quality. I’ll let you figure out where what and who- but my alter ego self is known as “ shadow man” .
I think we all have our other selves - or are we who we would like to be . Am I a figment of my former self ? Or am I becoming the real me? The latter I do suspect? Which one do you consider yourself to be . The beauty of aging is that were given the opportunity to understand life on life‘s terms and be so much more excepting of those things that I rejected in my early years.
When I was young I was trying so hard to be - i had no idea who I was- finding this out has turned into the biggest adventure I have had so far - and I’ve had a lot of so called BIG adventures.

Some of those pieces that were made in last couple of years .
Photo of Fritz Dreisbach , Tom Philabaum Henry Halem me -Randy Strong and Rob Adamson . 2014 at Tom Philabaum Gallery in Tuscon, Az.