Three is Better Than One

 

Triple Splash

Triple the splash, triple the color, triple the number of birds that will be flocking to enjoy this colorful functional art in your garden.  This is the project I’ve been working so hard on the last two weeks.  I couldn’t just make 3 bowls, had to make 20 so I could audition each one in each holder to see which combination I liked best.  The photo above is the combination I like today ~ tomorrow may be different.

I designed the frame first, as I knew if I were to make it in time for the show, I’d have to find a welder who could produce my vision within a quick 2 week time frame!  Susan Kline  was my first choice, as she’s also a glass artist & would understand what I wanted.   The frame that she produced is my drawing exactly!  Kudos, kudos, kudos.  Susan  has been working on an 8′ gate for months & I hope at the time of this posting that gate is finally installed!

I use a local powder coater for all the supports I’ve had made.  Mark Windsor gave me two of those rings filled with hundreds of color choices.  Lucky for me, he had an actual sample of the sparkly metallic stars I was drawn to.  That choice wouldn’t have looked as beautiful as the combination bronze/black reminding me of tree bark that I ultimately decided upon.  

As soon as I knew the frame was underway, I began a series of bowls.  Colorful bowls that would stand out in a garden, pretty as flowers, and iridescent as morning dew.  Watching all the flowers bloom in my own garden this spring, I was inspired by the rainbow of color I had forgotten exsisted.  Combining color and function, I’m calling this series ‘Splash’.  

Come to the opening at Columbia Arts to see my bird bath, ‘Triple Splash’, as well as the standard single baths & flower fairies.  First Friday, June 5th from 6 to 8pm.  Also in conjunction with this show, on Saturday, June 6th from 2:30 to 4pm, award winning landscape designer Marion McNew of Mount Hood Gardens will be giving a lecture titled “The Art of Garden Making”.  She is an incredible designer & not to be missed!  I was fortunate to have her come to my garden for a consultation after being on her waiting list for close to a year!

This month’s art show is presented in partnership with the Master Gardener’s ‘Secret Garden Tour’ of seven gardens in Hood River, OR, and White Salmon, WA on Saturday, June 13, from 10 am to 4 pm.

 

Another View

Hope to see you at the opening, but if you can’t make it, the show runs through June 30th.

Help for the internet illiterate….

Recycled Glass Wall Pockets

Although this blog is about my work, my inspirations, and my studio life, the people who’ve helped me along my path are part of my journey.  Working in reverse chronological order here are just a few for now.  As you know I was recently juried into an on-line shop.  A daunting task of photographing all my available work, uploading it to my shop and typing in descriptions – hopefully juicy descriptions that will entice someone to purchase!  Then finding ‘markets’ where my work will fit and supporting those markets by putting buttons or badges here on my blog to make it easy for you to jump over to those markets (as well as my own shop!).  You can now find these colorful badges interspersed in the right column.

Melanie of  The Creators Palette not only reached out, asking me to join her market, before I had a chance to apply, but had already develeped a button code for it that members simply had to copy & paste into our blogs.  Thanks to Melody for making it so easy for us to promote that Market.  “Walls” is for everything that goes on the wall, in my case wall pockets!  For now only the pocket vases pictured above are in my shop but I’m steadily increasing the collection.

The Pacific Northwest Market didn’t have a ready made badge to use, so Sue of Nine Dragons Sculpture Art came up with one & sent me to her friend Karen Casey Smith for help installing it here.  Karen led me through the process of not only adding it to my blog, but also developing (learning) enough code to make up a badge for my shop!  Generously spending almost a full day to help the newbie – is that not the mark of a wonderful community?!

In addition to that, I’m still learning about blogging in general, so must mention two savvy blogger & glass artists Kathleen Krucoff, Reflections of a Glass Artist, and Toni Johnson, Daily Vignette (also photographer extraordinaire).  Both have held my hand over such simple things as digital photography, hyperlinks and (blush) even URL’s.  Not many would take the time to sweetly answer the most basic of internet questions!

Last for today, but certainly not least, Cynthia Morgan, Morganica is considered among my peers to be the Queen of computer, tech, & internet stuff in general!  I have picked her brain so often that I can’t remember all the questions she’s helped me through.  Cynthia by the way is a talented glassist and includes on her blog exacting descriptions for some of her processes for others to learn from.

Kudos and many thanks to these marvelous women!

New Boxes are in!

Red Yellow Blue

As promised here are the boxes that were finished, just in time for the Columbia Gorge Art Festival. I had to re-make the lids – the first time through I overfired them, making the embellishments too flat.  The frog lid was especially sad as a flattened embellishment.

Princely Green

When I teach at D&L Art Glass in Denver this July, I’ll be leading students through the process of making these wonderful boxes using powdered glass for color.  New ideas abound as I fill the Lidded Box Molds again, making the next round of boxes.

I’ll show the next round soon, but must first spend some time filling up my on-line shop and firing more glass for the upcoming Art in the Garden show!

Did you see me?

Columbia Gorge Art Festival '09

…at the 11th Annual Columbia Gorge Art Festival?  My display was a rainbow of color!  I had a huge collection of Celestials.  Wallpockets.  Glass inlaid wooden boxes.  Vessels for your flowers.  New cast glass boxes (more photos to come!).    This week will be spent stocking my on-line store with beautiful sparkly glass, as this was my last show of the season so I won’t be working quite so ‘full steam’ in the studio.

The festival is a yearly fundraiser for the Corbett Education Foundation (http://www.corbetteducationfoundation.org).  If you missed it this year, be sure to watch for it next year!  Overseen by Pam, an energetic woman and co-owner of Natural Spaces, she has a wonderful crew of volunteers, including Donna, Dee, Sue and so many others who make the artists not only feel welcome, but well taken care of.  They help us load in, help us sell & watch for us if we’re not there.  They feed us, bring us sweet treats if we need an afternoon pick up, BUY FROM US (!), then when it’s over help us load out.  I’m usually the last to leave, so the other artists might not know that after the close of the show, they also put the school back together with the aid of digital photos, exactly how they found it!  They vacuum, they put the children’s artwork back up on the walls, they carry out bags and bags of trash.  Kudos to them one and all!

My neighbor this year, Laurie Miller had a wonderful colorful display of her work that you can see at: http://lauriemillerdesigns.blogspot.com.  I have one of her fabulous boxes that I keep special jewelry findings in.

My friend Cindy Cossu at: http://mysite.verizon.net/res83mar/ always has wonderful new work there.  She’s and I have exchanged artwork over the years so I have a nice collection of her work.

I chose to do some very early Christmas shopping (doing my part to stimulate the economy!) and purchased well over the average I was told!  Some of the treasures I found were decorative paper boxes with working drawers by Mike Smith.  Um….I guess since my family might read this I’d better not go into too much detail, but for the children in my life, I found wonderful Fairy Chairs by David Palomino (http://davidpalomino.com/)  and Fairy baskets by his wife, Nancy (http://nancypalomino.com/).  Some of the other artists I purchased from:  Judee Moonbeam, Marguerite Perry, Linda Rydman, Jeanie Stein, Krista Weber, Kris Zorko.  One of my favorite artists there is Melissa Gannon, and even though I wasn’t able to purchase from her this time, I want you to see the incredible work she does: http://melissagannon.com.  As soon as I learn how to insert hyperlinks, I’ll edit so you can click on their names to see their work!  For now you’ll have to see them the old fashioned way by ‘Googling’.

Thanks again to Pam & crew for another wonderful show.  See you next year!

1000 Markets

I’m excited to announce I’ve just been juried into 1000 Markets!

Shades of Purple

This bowl has been blogged about already, but I thought I’d share it again today because it’s included in my new 1000 Markets shop.  This is the first time I’ve participated in an on-line market so have a bit of a learning curve in front of me.  When you visit, please bear with me while I set up shop and begin adding inventory.  I accidentally found this site a couple months ago while learning about blogging in general and immediately liked it enough to bookmark it for further exploration.  A couple days later I couldn’t get it off my mind, so went back and started the process of ‘opening’ my own shop!

1000 Markets is a community of incredible artists, working in a huge range of media, as you’ll see.  ‘We’ also join forces under the umbrella of ‘markets’ to make shopping easier if you’re looking for specific items.  A network of shops not unlike a weekend art fair but instead of a transient fair, you can shop anytime from the comfort of home!  The same day my shop was approved, I received an invitation to join a specific market, Walls – decorate your personal space!

I’ve opened my shop with a few bowls from my Celestial Series, the recycled wall pockets and a few other things that you may have seen here, like the hearts in my Valentine’s day post: Happy Valentine’s Day.  I’m working on adding  jewelry, art glass wall pockets, and more sizes of celestial bowls.  If you’ve seen me at an art show or been to my studio sale, you know I have a long journey ahead!

With the Columbia Gorge Art Festival this weekend and work for the Art in the Garden show at Columbia Art Gallery due at the end of this month, it will be next week before I can start adding new items, so please check back often to see what’s new!  By the way, you can leave a note for me on my 1000 Markets blog to let me know how you like it, or just to say ‘hi’!  You can even ‘recommend me to a friend’!

Back to Boxes

 

Cast Glass Box with Lid

My shipment of new box molds should be arriving any day now. I have the kidney shape that Craig at Colour de Verre (http://www.colourdeverre.com/index.php?cat=4) gave me and I’ve made a couple of them.  The box pictured here is a pink so dark that it almost appears black.  The lid embellishment is CdV’s Lotus Flower mold.  I have a new box in the kiln using clear frit with purple powder which will give it a ‘veined’ appearance & can’t wait to see how it turns out.  

I LOVE these lidded glass boxes!  I’ve tried making various glass boxes in my kiln to no avail for years, so am excited and happy to find a reusable casting mold that works.  The other shapes are round, elliptical, and rectangle.  The lids can be embellished with a cast accent, using another CdV mold or my own original mold, then tack fusing it to the lid.  

Frit Cast Glass Box with Embellished Lid

Don’t forget the auction in my previous post!  You have until this Friday, May 8th at midnight to bid on the puzzle vase.  I’m so thrilled with the response at this point that I’m throwing in an extra surprise for the lucky high bidding winner as a thank you!

Additional Help for Helping Hands?

 

Puzzle Vase Up For Bid

I’ve been thinking all weekend about the upcoming Helping Hands Against Violence art auction & how could I be of more help. I wondered if I posted an item here for bid if I’d be able to raise additional funds to benefit HHAV. I’m going to try it to see what happens.

This vase from the same series listed in my last post (Puzzles) is made from recycled bits and pieces of iridescent clear glass. I darkened the photo to get better contrast, allowing you to see more of the detail. The vase is three sided, which is difficult to achieve in a standard kilnformed vase form. It stands 4.25″ tall and is 7″ across the widest parts.  It retails for $65.00.

Care to place a bid?  You can do so in the comment section below.  I’ll pay shipping anywhere in the US.  If you are in the Columbia Gorge I’ll personally deliver.  Crossing my fingers that one of you will want this piece enough to step up & place a bid!  And that someone else might also want it enough to place another bid.  Maybe even another one after that!  Auction will have to close on May 18th, (edit:  sorry, it has to close on the day of the auction, midnight) May 8th, this Friday night.  Thanks for your interest in Helping Hands Against Violence!

Shattered Lives, Shattered Glass…

Puzzle Bowl

 

I was asked to donate to an upcoming art auction benefitting Helping Hands Against Violence.  I’m all for stopping violence of any sort, especially against helpless children. Domestic violence is more rampant than you might think and according to reports is on the rise.  I’m amazed at how many women I know who have experienced a violent act.  My friend, Pam took an informal survey to discover 80% of her friends had been raped or molested at some point in their lives.   

This piece was selected as a symbol of how broken or discarded lives, just like glass can be put back together again.  It’s from my ‘puzzle’ series in which I jigsaw – fit discarded bits and pieces of iridescent clear glass together into a shape, then fuse it all back together.  For this bowl, I had a handful of clear frit also leftover, so tack fused it to the bottom of the bowl representing ‘diamonds in the rough’.   Similar to those who’ve been through the trenches of violence….diamonds emerging and ready to sparkle.  It then went back into the kiln for a third time to shape it through a drop ring into the bowl form.       

If you’re in Hood River next Friday night, the benefit auction is May 8th from 5:30 until 8:30 at Ground Espresso Bar & Cafe at 12 Oak St.  Only $8.00 to get in includes a drink and hors d’oeuvres plus the opportunity to bid on an array of artwork by local artists.   Please bid on my piece!  Bid on your favorite piece!  Bid high and bid often.  You’ll receive a beautiful piece and your financial help will benefit a worthy cause.