Glow In The Dark

Perhaps I was inspired by the bright-colors-and-lights bike ride I went on last night when I decided that tonight I would finally experiment with the glow-in-the-dark glass powder I ordered. (It is not cheap, but how cool is glow in the dark glass?) I hope these puppies turn out! There was a cautionary note packed with the powder about lots of little air bubbles forming and causing thermal shock problems, and the end product potentially cracking, but I'm pretty confident that I used the stuff correctly.

So here I am starting out making a pendant. (I actually have process photos for a change!) At this point I think I've flattened the end of the clear rod, put a colored glass dot design on the flattened surface, and begun imploding the color. (Imploding basically means melting the glass at an angle and allowing gravity to pull the clear glass over and around the colored glass, so that the colors end up inside of the clear glass.)

Here's pendant #1 in mid-implosion. I wasn't sure if the glow-in-the-dark powder would come out opaque or transparent, so for this first one I decided to put a colored dot on each of the glow dots so that the colored dot would ultimately end up inside the glow glass. Not sure how that will turn out, but I'll find out in the morning after the kiln has come down.
And for pendant #2 (this is before imploding) I made the central dot with glow glass, surrounded it with blue dots, surrounded those with glow dots, and made a final (somewhat sloppy) ring with the blue. (It will look blue when it has cooled.)

And here is that same pendant #2 after I've imploded it, put a backing color on, and puntied it onto another glass rod. (Sorry about the poor quality photos.) The final step is to put a loop on top to make it into a pendant.

First Friday at Collier Craft Studio

So the photos from the gallery opening back on August 1st didn't turn out so well, but that's okay because improvements were made to the display and content of my work between August 1st and First Friday, September 3rd, 2010. So here is some documentation! Thanks to my wonderful cousin for volunteering her camera to my cause! (Updating this would be a lot easier if I actually had a functioning digital camera.)

Collier Craft gallery is set up in a fairly unconventional manner, with less dramatic, museum-style elements and more of a craft show feel, with work leaned, layered, and densely arranged. It makes for a pretty compelling atmosphere, one in which you want to really look everything over in case you missed something glorious.


Everything is for sale!



There was even live music!

I give Collier Craft gold stars. While the fluorescent lighting leaves something to be desired, there's not much to be done about it since the space is used by a bank during tax season.

Here's me and Lindsey, the lovely Miss In Charge, Visionary and Gallery Organizer Extraordinaire. (She's great!)

Implosion

I finally have some pendants that are ready to be displayed for sale! I got a hold of some cords to string each of the pendants on, some little boxes to house them, designed a little insert for them, which I scanned and touched up and saved to a thumb drive, and finally went to Kinkos today and had them printed on fancy card stock. I cut them all out, made slots for the cord, et voila!

Also currently happening is an exhibition at a new studio called Collier Craft in East Rochester. I have four-ish pieces on display as well as a number of pairs of earrings. The photos of the opening didn't actually turn out so well, but one of these days I'll give you a visual of the exhibition. It's pretty cool! My first show since my senior show at Alfred. It will be open until January 1st if anyone would like to check it out.

Pendants

Here are some of the fruits of my labor! They do look better in person, when you can really see all the colors and layers and depth to them. Perhaps I'll photograph the actual process of making them sometime.

Back in Boro

Here I am after making three borosilicate pendants after a hiatus of over a year. If you can't tell by my expression, clearly I am psyched. They aren't fantastic, but I'M BACK IN BORO! And I will continue to be until further notice. :)

A year ago yesterday, I graduated from Alfred University. I didn't hope, then, to still be in Rochester now, but through much effort things have not stagnated as much as I was afraid they would if I remained here for too long. Still... I'd prefer to be on my way sooner rather than later. I'm working two jobs now, and even still making barely enough to live on, let alone to sock away into a "Get The Heck Outta Here" fund.

BUT. Despite my recent lack of involvement in the world of glass art, I still have my toe in the water that is glassworking - Firstly, my friend Sandy let me set up my torch at her house (she's got two already, plus two annealers, so I've got a buddy to work with). I would like to return to flameworking borosilicate pendants sometime very soon, but for now we've just been cranking out beads to make into jewelry and sell. So far I've made 36 pairs of earrings for one particular event, which will be both my and Sandy's maiden voyage into the craft fair-type event circuit. I will post another update about this after the event concludes.

Secondly, I have a commission that is begging for my attention, and I have to admit, I'm a little nervous. I wouldn't want to mess it up on the first try, which is an issue because I've never just waltzed into a hot shop and produced exactly what I intended to produce (well, maybe vaguely with vessels a couple times, but never exactly!). Usually it takes me at least a few tries, if not a few visits to the hot shop. So. I think I just need to suck it up, plan exactly what steps I'm going to take (which won't be foolproof, since, for example, I'll need to use a garage - a place to keep glass warm while you work on something else, usually another component to the piece in the garage - and I've seen and had many experiences with things cracking in the garage), assemble a team, and go for it.

I'll post photos of both these things as they progress. But for now, it's Lilac Festival week in Rochester, so here are some pretty springy things.

Notice

Hello readers,

I wanted to let you know that the reason I have not been updating lately is because I recently moved, and we have not yet obtained an internet connection. Once I have internet again I will resume updating the blog.

Thanks,
Ruth

Productive Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog Day! I've been having a super productive couple of days - Yesterday I mailed in my health insurance application, picked up the first of possibly many applications for a second job, and did a load of laundry, and today I went through all my clothes to see what was in good enough shape to take to a consignment shop, did two more loads of laundry that included my bed sheets, and cleaned up my closet a bit, in the process of which I found this awesome old trunk that I assume was my dad's when he was a kid because it had a bunch of "Boys Life" magazines and really old Tarzan books and books about outdoorsy stuff inside it:


I took all the stuff out of it and put it in bags (which still reside in my closet...) and it needed a good wipe down with a wet paper towel, so I did that and also put a bunch of incense sticks inside it in hopes of getting rid of the intensely musty odor that greets you when you open it up.

The funny thing is, I've been craving a trunk like this lately. Not that I would have bought one, because to be honest I really don't have room for one! But I was window shopping around Craigslist just to get some sort of satisfaction. I love old trunks!

I have to go to work in a little while, so I'm going to sign off now and see if I can't get anything else done before then.

Onward!

Unfortunately, I don't have anything super exciting to tell you in my first blog post of 2010. That's the reason I haven't updated since the last day of December - I was waiting until I had something at least moderately cool to gab about, but my artistic life as of 2010 is exceptionally dull so far. I am well aware that I have no one to blame but myself for my lack of action, but in the words of Oscar Wilde, "It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating." I know my job is only part time, but it sure seems to eat up a lot more of my day than the hours I get paid for...

Anyway, I suppose I could tell you about one of my Christmas gifts. One of my cousins got me this book for Christmas:


I cannot tell you how ecstatic I was upon receiving it. It is not typeset - it is written by hand, and it has tons of hand-drawn images and a sheer buttload of information ranging from the bare basics all the way up to reticello and mold-blowing. After you get through the 270 pages of the main part of the book, there are then sections on tool care, health and safety, a glossary (including the term "glass bug," haha), an index, a section for your own notes, a directory of sources, suppliers, organizations, schools and book dealers, and even a "scrapbook" section which features a bunch of quickie how-to drawings of things like dragon-stem goblets, piggy banks, and "good-for-life" homebrew bottles. Awesommmmme book... It has crossed my mind that this would have been a really good book to have had as a textbook back in college. Oh well, it's mine now! Bahaha. (Thanks Liz!) Onward!