I Mustache You For A Drink...

 

Here is some mustachioed glassware! I need to work on making my 'staches a bit more clean and distinct, but other than that I am quite pleased with how these turned out. A little bit of sharpie goes a long way (*ahem* Carolyn K, that one's right up your alley!).

 

I'm happy with the size and straightness of this mustache glass, but for some reason my bottoms are never flat enough for my satisfaction. Ah well, just another thing to keep working on.

 

Holiday Season

Merry Christmas!

 Christmas ornaments! Products of the first trip down to Corning. This was my first time making ornaments. Most of them turned out pretty alright.

 Aaand - terrariums! From our second visit to Corning. This one has three little blown out feet that have been filled with pebble substrate, and is now a tiny terrarium that can either sit on a surface or be hung. I was only able to complete five terrariums, some of which are only for hanging. Here they are all together.

 

Photos from the third trip to Corning will be posted after Christmas. ;)

Gift Tags

Check it out... I was rummaging around my apartment for things to make cute gift tags with and I dug up an old test print from my color photo class in college, which was nice and stiff photo paper with a white back - perfect for writing on - and also a few pages ripped out of an old Sears & Roebuck catalog reproduction from waaay back in the day, full of old school drawings of anything you could possibly think of. (My favorite are the bikes.) So I cut 'em up and glued 'em together, and this is what I got:

Just goes to show that you really can make awesome creations out of very little. I feel as though there may be more of these in my future...

Corning Pilgrimage #2

So we ventured back down to Corning this past Wednesday and Thursday for some more burn-a-licious molten-glass-slingin' fun. Wednesday didn't go so well, but I was pretty happy with Thursday's haul. (Photos of pieces made will appear here soon!)

It felt very normal and natural to be in the hot shop despite the fact that I haven't truly spent any large amount of time in one since the Alfred days - Blowing glass is so enjoyable! It's satisfying in a way that not many other activities are for me. I appreciate the physicality of it, and even though I can't touch the piece I'm working on with my hands, it's sort of like a puzzle or a brain teaser trying to gauge the best steps to take, reading how the glass is acting, and coaxing it to do what you want it to. And then after all your effort, you end up with something beautiful.

 

And!! I came home to discover that I had made my very first sale on Etsy.com! I've really been meaning to revamp my online shop there, since there are currently three listed items and no banner to speak of. I didn't expect to sell anything until that happened, but I suppose it helps that it is the holiday season. So far it's been a good December. :)

Corning Pilgrimage #1

For the first time in far too long, me and a friend ventured down to Corning, NY yesterday to, get this - BLOW GLASS. Whoa. Crazy, I know...

So much fun! It was especially awesome because I got to see three of my former classmates (glassmates?) from my years at Alfred. We went nonstop for five hours, which seemed to me to be the perfect amount of time, at least for small production pieces which is essentially what we were making this time around.  No photos of the finished products yet, but we will be picking up the things we made next Wednesday, when we go down again for another five-hour timeslot.

This was our first time renting time at the Studio at Corning, and everything went well. They have very nice facilities, and I feel confident that much of whatever rustiness had built up from my long absence from the hot shop has been shaken away by this "back in action" blowslot. So, hopefully some of the multitude of ideas that have been aimlessly swimming around in my head and in my sketchbook (read: tree goblets, asymmetrical terrariums, colorful cups, and mustachioed ornaments...) will come to fruition next Wednesday!

 

  

Shop Local!

Despite the fact that there has been an underwhelming amount of snow so far, it is pretty much that time of the year when people begin to shop in masses rather than small groups, and when it is the most important time for me to make sure I have my products out in the world for people to notice.

So, here is my little tidbit for your valuable holiday shopping information: if you live in the Rochester area and would like to procure one of my pendants they are available for perusing and purchasing at Archimage and, as of this past Monday, at Zak's Avenue (in the photos), at which location there are also a number of earrings for sale. Shop local!!

 

Also - Happy Thanksgiving! A small list of things that I am grateful for:

• pie
• bicycles
• sunshine
• YouTube
• the Great Lakes - both the enormous fresh water source as well as the outstanding brewery
• having a job that I do not dislike
• my family & friends

Christmas Tea & Craft Sale

This past Saturday was the Annual Christmas Tea & Craft Sale at Ogden Baptist Church. I exhibited my pendants & earrings, marking my very first craft show! I did not know exactly what to expect, but I think it went pretty well. I've never been able to convince myself to do one before, either because I didn't think I had enough product to be very successful, because of bad timing, or because I was being a wimp and didn't want to sit in one place for six hours. But! It ended up being totally worth my while.

An added bonus was the free tea, coffee, and delicious homemade hors d'oevres.

I found that the earrings did not sell nearly as well as the pendants, which were the focal point anyway, and much more impressive. I really got it together in the weeks preceding the sale, and cranked out lots of new pieces. While I'm still honing my imploding skills, I'm happy with the progress I've made since I got my little Bobcat torch.

Next year I will have to expand my variety somehow... Maybe wine stoppers, or candle holders, or ornaments? What would be awesome?

Business Cards

My business cards have arrived! And they look super clean, and feel very nice on fairly thick cardstock - I decided that it was no longer acceptable to be writing down my information on little slips of paper for people, and I really wanted something that was eye-catching and memorable for people to take. Although I only ordered 50, simply having these cards is already feeding my motivation. It is validating this seemingly minimal glasswork that I do "on the side" by highlighting some of my accomplishments on paper and adding a level of professionalism.

I designed them on a site called Moo.com, which lets you use up to 50 different images/designs in a single order of cards. I have to say, I am very pleased with the quality of the cards.

On a different note, a show is coming up! On Saturday, November 19th there will be a Christmas Tea & Craft Sale at Ogden Baptist Church in Spencerport, NY from 9am until 4pm. I will be selling my pendants there, as well as a few pairs of earrings and possibly other small decorative items. If you're in the area, you should stop by and say hello!

Reticello

Here is a part-way done photo of my second attempt at reticello (a sort of lattice design technique). My friend Doug does some mind-blowing ones, and so far mine haven't turned out anything close to what I had in mind - what I really need is to put in some hours practicing. There aren't enough hours in the day! :/

Honeycomb

Well guys, here is my second ever honeycomb attempt that I decided to twist up, and I am actually very happy with it. (The first try was about an inch tall and looks mildly cool but doesn't photograph well.) That creamy mud color started out as green - I must have done something weird with the flame, but I'm okay with how it turned out.


Monday was the first day in a while that I've gotten to torch. I didn't even make it into the studio until 11 pm, and I torched until 3 am (would've gone even later if I hadn't had work in the morning). Even though it was only four hours, I managed to get a few pieces that I'm pretty happy with.

I tried two new techniques - honeycomb and reticello. Both have the potential to look amazing, but my first modest honeycombs look far better than my first reticello, so I will save photos of reticello until I'm not embarrassed to show them. :P

This one is a bubble trap that evidently only worked on half the pendant...

And here is one of the new style flower pendants I've been working on, with pointy petals. Some pretty decent looking ones like this in various colors (white and blue, sandy brown and turquoise, purple and black, etc.) are currently inhabiting the front counter at Archimage.

Eye Candy

Sorta. :) Here's just a few pendants. I did have some newer ones but they immediately went out into the display case at Archimage for sale. I will post more photos soon! My next big production day is Monday...

And here is my fish Charles and the coral I made him. He digs it.

What Happened To May?

Welp. May flew by. I have been busy running around trying to get all my ducks in a row, and lo and behold, it is now June. Time for a recap on the fruits of my month of May -

• I have 3 batches of pendants floating around in the world waiting to be sold: in the front counter at Archimage (boutique), in the display case at Temstad (car mechanical shop), and with the Warehouse Arts crew for their five remaining shows this summer.
• Swooped down to Corning last weekend for GlassFest. Missed 2300˚, but got to watch Paul Stankard and Davide Salvadore in action, among others; caught a show with a piece by my old glass professor Angus Powers as well as one with work by an awesome MFA graduate of Alfred, Joanna Manousis. Lots of familiar faces and talented friends.
• Wandered around the Lilac Festival, which is a great place to get springboard ideas from other glass artists. Gave me a kick for my chess piece dilemma.
  
• Also in the works: a roll or two of black & white film in the SLR, an art quilt involving a fish, and some bottle cap magnets just for fun. :)

Once I get my production cranked up a few notches, I may venture into the world of Etsy. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Good idea? Bad idea?

Quick Update

So! A person I went to college with - Dan - who also, incidentally, lives in Rochester has co-founded a pretty exciting project called Warehouse Arts. They are currently in the fundraising stage, but eventually they would like to provide a space for artists of all mediums to work, teach, collaborate and display their work.

Their website is picking up steam, too, and you should check it out! I believe I will be attending a planning meeting this Sunday, so perhaps I will follow this up with exciting developments soon...!

Setup

Today I finally set up the torch I bought a year ago in my friend's basement! And her flame is beautiful! One of the pendants I made this afternoon - I think - turned out very clean, but we shall see when it comes out of the annealer. Here are some pendants for you to peruse. The ones in the boxes will be auctioned at a silent auction on April 1 to raise money for the Warehouse Arts project, a new venture which one of my friends from Alfred and some of his friends are trying to get off the ground.

Read Me

Because I'm in the midst of so many great literary-related things, I feel that I should share them with you. I went to a Zine and Craft Fair this past Saturday where there were indeed a lot of great Zines and Crafts people had put together, and now I have a hankering to bind some books out of repurposed paper and make bottle cap magnets. Not to mention make a zine. They're so straightforward and informal and I think that's great, though they might be a tad wasteful as far as making a bunch of copies and such. But still!

Books I am currently in the middle of and would so far recommend:

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
"The Universe in a Single Atom" by the Dalai Lama

Books I just received from Amazon.com:

"Ideas and Opinions" by Albert Einstein
"Concerning the Spiritual in Art" by Wassily Kandinsky

Book my friend recently lent me, which I have not yet started, but am excited to read due to the fact that this friend lends me particularly delicious books:

"Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" by Tom Robbins

Lastly - Does anyone have any periodicals they subscribe to that they really enjoy and feel they absolutely get their money's worth for? It would be nice to get a magazine or something that is just chock full of substance and not dry, but still interesting. I guess I don't have a specific genre I'm looking for, so throw me whatever you got. :) I'm gonna go read. Goodnight!

Windows

Pulling three days a week at the stained glass job on real-person-9-to-5 hours is whipping me right into shape! Tonight I have blisters and a few cuts on my fingers, and my whole right arm aches. Rending opening and hefting crates full of lead is one type of physical strain, which I actually find satisfying, but then there's also the smaller, repetetive motions of cementing or dismantling windows that you can be at for hours at a time, trying to go as fast as you can without breaking anything - and after a while you reeeally feel it in your wrists and forearms. Well, all over your upper body to be honest.

But don't get me wrong, I am actually quite enjoying this job. Lately the physical effects have just been making themselves apparent. Today I did something new in the shop - I used a soldering iron to remove rebars from a window. Not hugely glamorous or anything, but it's a good example of how every step of the process is a balancing act between being physically forceful and handling everything gently, keeping just the right threshold on the amount of pressure you use at any given time. To illustrate, the heavy soldering iron (in this case the largest one we have) needs to be held in just the right place and a specific angle against the rebar, maybe a centimeter above the surface of the lead so that it doesn't burn through the lead, yet not so high up that it doesn't do the intended job and melt the solder - and the same thing on alternating sides of the rebar until it lets go. A relatively small job, it would seem, but one slip of the iron and you're gonna break some glass. Using that type of muscle control for eight hours can really work your shoulders into knots.

So I went in on Wednesday with freshly painted nails left over from the weekend and left work with about a third of it gone, as anticipated, from dismantling a window with my hands bagged up underwater in latex gloves that were continually poked with little sharp bits so that tiny holes were created and subsequently filled in with water, which sat inside my gloves until I noticed and got new ones. Trench hands, anyone? And I didn't have blisters yesterday, but boy do I today... still, I'm happy with the progress I've been making. I feel like this job is going to make me super stained-glass-literate fast. Bring it on, windows!

Short Update

I know it's been a long time since I last posted.

I have been without a stable internet connection for a time now, and life has also been keeping me rather busy, what with two jobs and all - around the time of my last update, I got an apprentice-type job at a local stained glass studio. Exciting! So that plus my other job, plus keeping up with torching and all the other things that crop up around here, well... it ends up in me not being a very good blogger.

I have been selling pendants! I should really put up some new photos, because the last detailed photos I posted of my pendants, I feel, are no longer an accurate representation of what they look like. I've sold just over twenty so far, and it never gets old. Every time someone buys one, I get such a feeling of satisfaction.

Soon I will be venturing into, more or less, uncharted territory - working hollow!