gaffer
n.— «For his part, Chihuly called Rubino a “gaffer,” a term for a glassblower who labors around a furnace at the instruction of an artist. Asked to assess Rubino, Chihuly said, “He was an excellent craftsman” with little vision of his own.» —“Art: Ugly fight over glass creations” by Timothy Egan in Seattle, Washington International Herald Tribune (Paris, France) June 1, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Responding to our discussion about thin places, those spots where the boundary between this world and other realities seems narrow or permeable, a listener in Kirkland, Washington, sent us some eloquent thoughts about her own experiences of that...
Following our conversation about the use of the term devil strip to denote the strip of land between sidewalk and street, listeners chimed in with other terms from their areas. In Portland, Maine, some people call it a hell strip. In Washington...