i heart spring.

Tatum, of Goldsboro, N.C., looks mildly disappointed after she misses the hole for the seventh time at All-Stars Family Fun Center on the first day of spring. (Taken as a feature picture for my photojournalism class)

I love spring; the colors, the temperatures, the smells (except for the Bradford pears), the stormy skies, and the Cadbury mini eggs. But, I LOATHE the pollen...just sayin'. The pollen is at its highest density in North Carolina since 2003. With 90-degree temperatures in April and a think yellow haze in the atmosphere, I feel like I live in Los Angeles. Tatum's face is how I feel about the pollen right now. Thankfully I have Flonase, Singular & Claritin on my side!

He plays with fire for a living.

This year, I spent St. Patrick's Day at Locally Grown Art in Pittsboro, N.C. with Jonathan Davis. At 28, he's been making art from glass blowing and fire torching for eight years.

Jonathan blows a bubble of glass in front of his torch. This is the beginning of a wine glass bowl.

Here, Jonathan shapes the bowl with an iron tool. His blow torch gets up to 4,000 degrees, however, the studio was pretty cold because of his awesome ventilation system.

This picture makes me want to play with fire all day long. Here he spins the bowl to even out the imperfections in the glass.

Jonathan clamps of excess glass from a marble he made during my visit. This, unlike the wine glass bowl is solid glass.

Jonathan polishes the marble in a graphite tool that has a dimple for the marble to sit in.

The purple, carolina blue and orange marble at last! It was still a little hot to touch and could have shattered during the cooling process, but it survived!