Lara Gaasland-Tatro '05 breaks things when she wants to relax.
Gaasland-Tatro is a flintknapper, someone who practices the prehistoric craft of making tools from glass-in her case, either plate glass or glassy stones like obsidian.
By breaking chunks off of a larger piece and then shaping those chunks with a copper-tipped hand tool, she creates arrowheads and other miniature glass pieces that can be either decorative or functional. The copper tool grips the surface of the glass, allowing the flintknapper to flake pieces off with pressure rather than by chipping.
The eventual shape of each piece, Gaasland-Tatro said, is determined by "what pieces you break off.
"You start out with a fairly large piece of stone, and end up with something quite small compared to the piece you had originally," she said.
Flintknapped tools aren't just attractive; they're also useful. "It actually works quite a bit better than anything else for cutting leather-or, say, steaks," she said.
Some of Gaasland-Tatro's friends like to cook using flintknapped tools, because "when it comes to slicing, it's the best kind of tool you can have." This is because glass can hold the sharpest edge possible, down to a thickness of one molecule.
Flintknapping can pose ethical issues for people who practice it because some people try to pass their pieces off as ancient artifacts. To prevent that, Gaasland-Tatro signs all her work with a diamond engraver pen before each piece leaves her control.
Gaasland-Tatro's hobby is a kind of meditation, she said. "If I'm stressed out, I can just work on flintknapping for half an hour and feel completely calm afterwards." -Erik Gable