Here is a clue…

I’ve also been stewing in ideas and suggestions for the next I See… Animals book about Dinosaurs. It’s still in progress so you have time to comment and enter to have the dedication written to your child (or you!) HERE

Come see my work in person, meet a group of interesting artists, pick up that last minute Valentines gift or just show up for the free drinks. If your in the Portland Metro area this will be worth the trip:

From Salty Teacup
“Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Wonderland”

February 5th thru 14th
11am to 5pm

COCKTAIL PARTY
Saturday February 6th
5-8pm
Come meet the Artists & Designers, festive attire encouraged

Featuring New Work By:
Aaron M Vandergraeff
A new collection of paintings incorporating collage & acrylics
X-Rayted – Cass & Alecia
Couture Millinery & Jewelry
Jen Bodendorfer
Recycled frames embelished with vintage bits-n-bobs
DK Graham – Kirstan Graham
Hand made glass pendants, art glass lamps & plates
Free Lauren Marsella – Lauren Marsella
Shrinky dink jewelry, handpainted recycled art wear & accessories

We will also be showing lots of new work by our other artists & designers. Valentines day is coming up so there will be lots of creative alternatives to the standard flowers, candy & I love you balloon (check out our other photo albums for a sneak peek). Have a friend with a birthday coming up, there’s something for every occasion & every style.

Free reusable cotton tote bags filled with goodies for customers…while supplies last

Loaded and ready to fire...

The studio is up and running and I am knee deep in glass. I’m just starting out in the kiln glass world and want to give myself plenty of room to explore and play without the pressure to produce. Oh I have plans to produce some interesting works, but for now my sloppy idea books and napkin sketches are taking a back-seat to pure unadulterated childlike glee. I’m putting my hands in the paints (frit in this case) and letting my inner kindergartner come out to play without threat from the school ground bully. The bully in my case is my own way of talking myself out of trying things that aren’t “for sure” going to work. I give myself permission to fail. I give myself permission to throw things together just to see what happens. And that little inner bully can just stay in the principals office.

...first peak at the fuse!

Here is what the above piles of glass turned into after coming up to a full fuse. Lessons learned: Dense white is, well, dense. So it didn’t quite flow as smoothly as hoped, but the beauty of this medium is I can add some glass and fire it again, Bullseye compatible is tested up to three full fuses so back in the kiln for the leafy one. The two abstract black and white rectangles to the right are soon to be candle holders. I had made this rather pretty light plum on white part sheet with a suttle overlay of course clear that I was itching to use up so I decided to smash one piece just to see how it would flow back into the darker base and the other I cut more orderly. I like the effect, and though you can’t see it in the picture the interesting clear drops look like permanent water bubbles sunk into the white. Its neat! The last project was my first “play date” with painting with light. or drawing in a painterly fashion with frits. I started making piles and moving them around untill the frit decided to be a bird. The first tackfuse on this piece was very light so this round I tried building up a white fill to the birds body to give it some solidity on the mostly tranparent base. It’s starting to work, but I underestimated the amount of white powder to build up an opaque look. This one is also going back in for another round, I’m thinking maybe a solid sheet to the back for contrast but we’ll see…

The idea of super heating glass to melting temperatures just gives me the most delightful gooseshivers! I enjoyed stained glass for a few years, but cold glass has NOTHING on the power trip of 1200+ degree work and after a year of various fusing classes at Bullseye I dumped a chunk of savings into my very own Bullseye Edition Paragon Pearl-22.

So now that I own a kiln… where do I start?

This is the first of a many part series where your humble narrator shall chronicle her fusing adventures. The first of which will be starting my workshop. Phase 1 involved searching for ideas on how to go about setting up an in-home studio.

Face it… I’m a glass NOOB

There isn’t much out there on this key first step, and what I did find was mostly for smaller jewelry making set ups. Below 14th has a nice easy and encouraging little tutorial to check out. Not bad, but I was looking for a bit bigger scale which led me to About.com and another nice blog about fusing. Still not exactly what I wanted until I searched through one of my new favorite glass bloggers and found Cynthia’s Studio Tour post…. very thorough and super helpful it gave me some great ideas on efficient storage and work table set-up. Unfortunately, it’s an older one and when I checked it to reference here I noticed the wonderfull pictures are no longer active.

*Sad Panda*

Oh well, now that I have my kiln and an idea of what I want to do with it. Phase 2(a) is getting it plugged in, Phase 2(b) will be designing my space and picking out stuff to go in it (look forward to my adventures in IKEA land). Stay tuned Readers…More to come!

Clifford Rainey’s Retrospective @ the Bullseye Gallery

I’m stiff, I’m sore and my tootsies are filled with blisters, but sweet mother of pearl inlay… it was worth it to tramp around the Pearl and check out the amazing glass sprucing up my home turf. Nathan Sandberg’s textural genius was well worth the stop at PSU’s Autzen. I couldn’t decide which was my favorite piece but anyone who can make Styrofoam look intriguing (at least I think that’s how he got that texture) deserves some blog space…

Seriously though… HOW does he DO IT! Thank goodness he teaches a class just about textures in kiln glass or this would haunt me forever, now I just have to wait for the next offering…

My favorite piece from my adventures in Jeff Wallin’s workshop.

The truth is, glass has never been as accessible as it is today in the Northwest. What many glassists already know is that not only is our region home to many of the most respected masters in art glass, including Dale Chihuly, but also a number of educational resources and the most respected manufacturer of art glass in the world. This overwhelming network of glass enthusiasts is an amazingly friendly and helpful bunch, and over the past year I have had the chance to delve into this addictive medium and unleash my inner artist.

Recently, I had the opportunity to take one such workshop with artist Jeff Wallin. Jeff’s work is an intimate yet obscure study of the human figure, and each mark he makes expresses his long study of life drawing with a new translation into the glass medium. The class was structured in such a way to be absolutely welcoming to anyone even without prior experience to come, create, and play with glass. During the workshop I created a nice handful of pieces. Compared to Jeff’s process these are only in stage one and would go through a number of additional treatments, so hopefully once my kiln is installed I’ll try my hand at building a few of them up.

My pick for “Not to be missed” is Nathan Sandberg‘s show ON THE MOVE, June 21st – July 7th, at Portland State University’s Autzen Gallery. Nathan is one of the super fantastical kiln-glass magic makers who teach and play in the BE R&E. I love his “sugar cube” cast frit cubicle concoctions*

*do not let him hear about that “sugar cube” descriptor…