33 posts tagged “glass”
Some good stuff went down this week. I took my mom out shopping for her 60th BDay. I wanted to treat her to some pretty clothes and a decadent lunch. She seemed to have a really good time. I know I did. :)
I cheated though and bought something for myself. I grabbed a few things that caught my eye so I could try them on and get Mom trying stuff on too, which she seemed hesitant to do. One of the things I picked up was a gorgeous, grey-blue, long velvet jacket. I put it on for shits and giggles, looked in the mirror and thought, "WOW! WANT!!!" I tried to be rational and thrifty and talk myself out of it, but it had to come home with me. It fit like a glove, even over my curves, and the color looks great with my red hair! It was obviously made for me.
I also picked up the glass bowl we saw made at the hot shop demonstration on Monday, and it's even prettier than I'd imagined! I have it on the diningroom table now, and I have to stop and fondle it every time I walk through the room. I'll get pictures of it eventually, if not today then when we get back.
I also got my hair cut this week, and I'm loving it! It's still below shoulder length, but quite a bit shorter than it was. I have a little bit of bangs now though, which means I haven't had to clip my hair back to keep it out of my eyes at all since getting it cut! Fabulous! It has more layers in it too, so I get a nice bit of volume and texture from my natural waves just letting it air dry, which I love! I'd get pictures, but I hate primping for the camera. There will be vacation pictures galore this week, and I'm sure I'll be in some of them. :)
So it's been a very good week. I expect next week will be even better, by far! :) No complaints here!
What a fabulous afternoon!
We went to the museum and I headed straight for the Chihuly exhibit. It was a decent size exhibit, all stuff from the museum's own collection, but most of which I hadn't seen on display before. He really is great with color and form. There were some gorgeous pieces, many of which had me wondering how they were made.
As we were leaving the exhibit, we walked past the hot shop and saw there'd be a demo in fifteen minutes. I've seen a couple demos there before but I still really wanted to see another. :) We went into the cafe to have a quick bit of refreshment, and just before the demo was supposed to start, I noticed the studio was near full. Glass walls, you see. (Pun intended.) We chugged what was left of our orange juice and snuck into a couple of seats in the back row of the studio.
It was a great demo, a one woman show, which is kind of unusual. She did a great job though, managing all of the pipes and punties all by herself while explaining a ton about glass and the blowing process. It ran almost an hour, and in that time she demonstrated some basic techniques as well as optic molds and thermal shocking for that crackled effect. By the end of the demo, she'd made a gorgeous 10" diameter amber, footed glass bowl with a scalloped edge. She'd used a special glass that gets an irredescant finish when it's flame-treated at the end of the process. I have some of that glass, but I haven't yet figured out how to work it in my torch flame to bring the metals to the surface. Craig very patiently waited while I hung around after the demo to ask a few questions, and I got dibs on the bowl she made! Assuming it survives the annealing kiln, it's reserved for me, and they only charge $50-60 for the bowls made during demos! (Procedes to benefit the museum, of course.) That's 1/3 to 1/6 what you'd pay for a similar piece sold by the artist! I can't wait to go pick it up! It'll be ready Tuesday.
After the glass pavillion, we went back to the main building. We took a quick look through the gift shop, which is a fabulous gallery filled with beautiful, original art pieces, lots of which is glass work! Then we attempted to check out the LitGraphic exhibit, but I was too wound up with too much glass on the brain. I couldn't focus on the graphic art at all, so I asked Craig if we could bail and come back to this exhibit another day when I could give it my full attention.
So we were only at the museum for a couple of hours, but it was an absolutely fabulous couple of hours, and it left me totally recharged, wound up, and filled with inspiration.
We did a little shopping while we were out, getting some rain pants to pack for Ireland so we won't get soaked if it starts to rain while we're out tromping through bogs and looking at ruins. :) We each got a few lightweight shirts to pack for the trip too, so we're pretty much ready to go now! ...This is going to be a long week. :D
*And* on top of the awesome time at the museum and the great shopping-fu, we also had a late lunch at Panera. They've brought back their mac&cheese!!! I had a small cup of that sinful yum with one of their fuji apple salads, which are so delicious.
It was a great day out, but it wore me out completely. I'm going to spend the rest of the day just chilling and waiting for bedtime, I think.
*L* I just noticed that the "Chihuly Toledo!" exhibit has been extended through February 3rd since the last time I'd checked the dates. We're still going today though. I have my heart set on a trip to the museum now. :)
The challenges of the past few weeks are now history. Mia has a reservation for boarding, we're ready for our trip to Ireland, work is caught up for the first time since I took that job years ago, our sewer and water main will be replaced while we're away, and my sister and I managed to actually surprise my mom with a 60th birthday party at my house last night. Challenges are behind me, vacation is just ahead, and my house is squeaky clean. Today I finally feel like myself for the first time in many months. I can breathe ...and just sit, without guilt or anxiety or anything hanging over my head.
We're going to go to my house of worship today, the museum! There are four totally awesome exhibits there right now that I've been really wanting to see, but something has always seemed more pressing. By the time we get back from Ireland, the "Chihuly Toledo!" exhibit will have ended. As a glass artist, I -will not- miss this exhibit, so that's really the only thing on my plan for the day so far. We may or may not check out the other exhibits too. They're all free (love our museum!!!), but the other three will also be running for a bit longer, so we'll have time to catch them on future visits.
The party last night was a smashing success. My mom was genuinely surprised. :) My sister made a gorgeous and -delicious- cake. It had Baileys in it, lots of chocolate flowers and tons of buttercream frosting....unf. Everyone had a good time. Craig talked radio with the uncles. The kids were totally enchanted with the bunny, who, surprisingly, didn't seem to mind them too much. Uncle Mats thought our potrack was brilliant (thanks, Deb & Brian!) and since we still had the other one from the set in the garage, we we able to send them home with one. Everyone talked and talked and laughed and laughed. Good times.
Drinking green tea, trying to wake my brain. I realize I haven't blogged in a while, ...well, it's been a while for me anyhow. I've thought about it a few times, but I haven't really had any complete thoughts worth writing down. Now my head is filled with lots of thought fragments and I just need to empty it and start over.
- The "summer months" (June-August) are more than half over, and we've only used our air conditioner for maybe two weeks total. I hope the mild temps keep up. I wouldn't hate summer quite as much if it was always like this.
- We've done the 4th, the Chicken Fest, and the BSAF kite games. The last summer tradition is the Fulton County Fair, and we already have our season passes and our derby tickets! So looking forward to it! *squee!*
- Redid my old budget spreadsheet recently and realized how close we are to being debt-free. Very exciting! I've been dying for some retail therapy recently, but it's so hard to give in to even small indulgences with that goal so close. I can't find anything I want bad enough these days, not with "debt-free" dangling like a carrot almost within my reach. This is *very good*, and yet mildly irritating too. I need to find a new method of "therapy". heh.
- I do need to spend a bit on an exhaust fan for my glass studio. I've been promising myself that for a year now, but procrastinating at the thought of having to wire it up and for fear of not getting it right. Time to review all my research and put *something* together. I will be buying the fan before the week is over.
That does lead me to one larger, more complete thought I've had rattling around my head this past week. As a kid, I was very uptight and nervous. Rules were important to me. Perfection was something worth striving for. A place for everything and everything in it's place. I've spent most of my life trying to untie those knots at my core. I've learned to loosen up, to roll with changes (mostly), and to accept that good enough is often just that. I've recently realized that I've likely taken things too far the other way. It's occurred to me that I've forgotten how to even want excellence. I've gone from "I won't settle for anything but perfection," to "I can't achieve perfection so why try at all?" I have to find the part of me that had the crazy ambitions, and rather than letting her take charge again, I need to introduce her to my inner engineer who knows that a lot of things are indeed impossible, but that "you can still get close enough for all practical purposes."
Bleh. A lot of this noise would be better suited for morning pages. I should get back to writing those again.
Craig and I had a lovely day yesterday, I gifted him with some art supplies ...for only him, not a bowling ball gift. Girl Scout's honor! I gave him some pastel pencils and pastel board I found at our local art store, and he tried to give me the extra sheet of super-nice Wallis pastel board he had from class, but I made him keep it. *L*
Craig gave me an awesome "I Love Buffy" t-shirt I wanted, and an ice cube tray that makes skull & cross-bone shaped ice! :D My favorite though, was the hand-made card! He drew Tux the Penguin on the front holding a heart that said "GEEKED 4 U", and inside he wrote:
[craig@root]# chown jen /dev/heart/
BEST.VALENTINE.EVER! :D *sniffle* :D
We went into town for the day. Craig wanted to catch a bandsaw demonstration at WoodCraft. It was actually really interesting. ...And I was the only female in the room. heh. Then we went to Michael's armed with a 40% off coupon in order to buy some pastels.
Let me tell you about Michael's. You can get good coupons for that store just about everywhere you look, and let that be a warning! Wow, was their art stuff marked way the hell up! Dickblick.com has a set of half sticks in 30 colors for about $30 that I want. They price the full stick set at $54. Michael's didn't have the half-stick set, but they wanted $120(!!!) for the full stick set. Even with the 40% off coupon, that would've been $72, verses getting them online for $54. You could add in shipping, rush shipping even, and they still would've been cheaper on line than with a 40% off coupon at Michael's! Do your homework before shopping at Michael's. They obviously can afford to offer those great coupons so freely because they've marked everything way the hell up! I mean, that's common sense, but every time I see it for myself, well it's kind of infuriating. I should've known better than to get my hopes up. Needless to say, we didn't buy anything there.
We stopped at Chipotle for a late lunch (MMMM! Veggie burrito!!!), and still had an hour to kill before the movie we wanted to see would start, so Craig suggested we head down the road to downtown Maumee, and check out the glass shop there. I've always wanted to check the place out, but they aren't open evenings or Sundays, which always seemed to be when we were passing through.
Prism Glassworks, Ltd. was *nirvana*! They carried a lovely selection of the Moretti rods I like to use, a large selection of frit, tools, and all sorts of odds and ends. Most of the shop is dedicated to stained glass supplies, but those are a lot bigger supplies for a hobby that's a lot easier to do at home, so that's to be expected. My stuff was in the back, but it was still all there. *happy sigh* I talked to the owner a bit, mentioning how timid I am about prepping this kiln I have and putting it to use, and she very kindly explained *everything* I need to do ...which wasn't much at all. I'm going back this week to pick up some shelf primer so I can fire that baby up soon. :D I talked to another employee there too, and she was also very nice and extremely helpful. I think I love this place. :D They will definitely be getting some of my monies this year. :D
It was movie time, and based on Myke's recommendation, we went to see Coraline in 3D. It was an enchanting movie! So much so, that I rarely heard any of the many children in the theater, In fact, there were several quiet parts in the movie when I couldn't help but marvel at how very silent the theater full of very young humans was! Everyone loved it. Only Craig and I seemed to laugh now and then though, which was weird. There were some delightfully humorous moments. *shrug* And I fear a lot of the 3D was lost on me. I noticed a few magic moments that really stood out, and a few times I could see some depth in the scenes, but for the most part, my eyes don't get the 3D effect. Still, a fantastic movie! Even the soundtrack was hauntingly beautiful. Good times.
There were a couple more stops on the way home, to pick up some supplies for projects ...and for feeding the bunnies. :) Then we spent the rest of the night watching some of the last season of Lost, which we're trying to catch up on.
It was a lovely day, but much like the rest of the week, it seems to have gone by so fast! I'm going to do whatever it takes to let time linger this week, even if it means reading accounting books to slow things down with enforced boredom. (Totally joking about that! Accounting? *shiver*) Last week flew by, but this week will be savored, even if I have to wrestle time and pin it to the floor until I'm done with it!
*L* Ok, so my subject for this entry sounds pathetically emo, but I assure you, I mean it literally. I'm talking about broken glass here. I've been going through this thing for a while now where I'm breaking a lot of glass. I mean, I've always leaned a little to the clumsy side, but this is getting ridiculous. I broke my glass candy cane when I caught it one something and it flng to the floor. One night, after the lights were out, we heard something break, and turned on the light to see an old wine glass on my dresser (decorative) that I'm sentimentally attached to had broken, and I never really was sure how. Something must of fallen on it??? One night, I fumbled the plastic bottle-brush which fell only a few inches and landed in the dish water with a soft *sploosh*, and was followed by the sound of cracking glass. I fished all of the pieces of one of my beloved emerald green antique juice glasses out of the sink and set them aside to be melted into beads at some later date. Another night I was putting the stemware into the rack above the sink, and I smacked the bottom of a wine glass into the rim of one of my lovely martini glasses, and had glass rain down on me. And, there were, of course, ornaments dropped and done for in the Great Holiday Put-Away '09.
But yesterday... *sigh* Yesterday was the ...ARGH! I was doing the laundry. I took a shirt out of the washer, shook the wrinkles out, and tossed it into the dryer. One of the sleeves caught on my jar of expensive glass rods, the reduction and special colors, and the whole jar was flung to the floor. *head in hands* Like the juice glass, it's not a huge loss really. Not all of the rods broke, and the ones that did can be melted back together,...and even some of the fine shards can be ground or heated and dropped into water to make frit. It was just an aggravating mess. This trend must stop. I love glass and have lots of pretty glass things around the house, ...all which now seem to be awaiting their untimely demise. I'm kind of scared to go near any of it. Glass shelves, stained glass, jewelry, snow globes, ...I even have a one-of-a-kind stained glass plate and chalice that used to be used for communion in a church. I'm afraid to even walk by this stuff.
Yesterday was a *busy* day for me, and long before it was over, I was exhausted and cranky. I did get a lot done though. Of the 22 tasks that I'd wanted to get done, I checked 14 off, let 4 roll over to today and rescheduled 4. It felt good to get so much done. Still, Craig was encouraging me to take it easy today, hoping I won't get as cranky. :) (Sorry, Sweetie. I'll try not to get cranky today.) I only have 16 things marked due for today (including the rolled over 4 from yesterday), and a several of them are non-active things, like writing some thank-you notes and paying the bills. So in comparison, today will be an easy day, nowhere near as exhausting at the very least.
I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. It's a decent read. I'm not a "huge" fan of his books. He has some very interesting premises, but he seems to really have to overwork them to fill up a book. Still, very interesting premises, and the point he makes in Outliers about 10,000 hours of practice bringing expertise is my favorite yet. There are a lot of creative things I love doing, but which I feel a bit guilty about making time for when there are so many "practical" type things that always need doing. He's got me thinking though, that if I make the time for the stuff I love to do now, I might just be able to turn a tidy profit from those things ten years down the line, and perhaps I'll even be able to bring in some extra income in our retirement some day, just from doing what I love to do. The thought that that could even be a possibility makes me happy. ...Plus, I'm all about finding ways to justify doing the things I love to do. :) And with that said, I think I'll go schedule myself some me time, or rather "practice time". :D
I should be making beads right now, but there's a whole lot of holding your arms in the air as steadily as possible, and I just got done hacking up a 10' section of PVC pipe with a not-very-sharp hack saw. (The coping saw worked much better until I broke it.) My arms think we can wait a little longer before making beads.
The PVC pipe is for glass storage. I got 12 sections out of that 10' pipe, and aside from the tired arms, I'm really wishing I'd bought two pipes. If I had just another 12 sections, I could completely empty out one of the vases I'm currently using for storage. Next weekend.
I still want to figure out a secure way to store the transparent colors in the window. I will figure it out eventually. Craig bought me a nice work light today, so it's not as important that I have lots of light coming in that window and I can start thinking more seriously about how I can store my glass there.
And YAY! Worklight! Now I can make beads even after dark. The overhead light in that room just doesn't cut it. Even the natural daylight doesn't always cut it. I was working pink glass on white yesterday, and once it was all red-hot, I couldn't distinguish the colors. :/
Ok, noodly arms or not, I have to go play with my torch for a bit.
Even though I have an intense aesthetic preference for smooth, round beads, today I used some tools to play with shapes, pinching, smooshing, pushing and smoothing. I used some of the newer colors I stocked. The hearts need a little work, but they're still cute.
Then I tried the "owl eye" type beads my drawing instructor described to me. They were fun to make, though I'm not very happy with my color combinations. I did one in brown, orange and yellow autumn colors, but the yellow melted enough for the brown behind it to tint it a little and it looks green. The other I did in Halloween black, orange and white, but again the black behind the white gave it a light blue tint. I'll have to try a lighter base color. Still, they were fun to make. That's my first star bead too. I want to do another one, but fill in the gaps with more layers of colors so it winds up being a disk made of staggered layers of colors. Maybe tomorrow.
We got news yesterday morning that my Aunt Jadine passed away Friday night. She and my uncle have lived in Denver my whole life, so I didn't know her as well as I would've liked to, but I knew her well enough to know that she was an awesome human being, and my heart breaks for my uncle and cousins and for my mom and everyone else who was close to her.
We got that news from my mom Saturday morning, and I asked if she wanted to cancel our plans to spend the day with her, if she wanted some quiet time instead, but she said she was still looking forward to our visit and that she needed the distraction. So we went out to breakfast, did some quick shopping at the farmers' market, and headed out to Mom's where we spent the day chatting and swimming and eating grilled meats and birthday cupcakes. Craig and I both got too much sun and feel a little sun-sick still this morning, but it still managed to be a nice day despite the sad start.
This morning I opened my eyes to see Craig standing next to me holding the box of glass I ordered. Yes, I got mail on a Sunday for my birthday! Usually the mailman brings packages around first and then walks the route delivering the lighter-weight envelopes. He came and went yesterday and never brought my glass order, so I figured I wouldn't have a chance of seeing it again until Tuesday, but Craig got up this morning and found it tucked between our front door and storm door. That was a nice way to start the day.
So far Craig baked a dutch baby for me for breakfast, and he gave me my presents. He made me a purpleheart "executive" yo-yo in it's own special homemade box - sooo cute! He also got me a really swank Delta Panthers hoodie to wear to the football games! It's black and the hood has a green plaid lining - I love it! And he got me my own weather station!!! I'm a HUGE weather geek and I can't wait to have it all set up! :D He still spoils me. One of these years he'll likely get sick of me, but I'm glad it hasn't happened yet. ;) *love*
Today will probably be a quiet day for this birthday hermit. I need to take some time to label all my new glass rods, and I definitely want to work at my torch a little. We'll probably run into town for a short bit as Craig needs to stop at WoodCraft and I want to shop around for a table/tool-stand for my kiln. We might pop over to the fair this evening too, to see the fireworks. Ok, so maybe tomorrow will be a good day for hermitting.
