Farewell, 2012

As the year sweeps to a snowy end, there are a whole slew of phrases and issues that come to mind as I attempt to discern what I can take with me from this year moving forward into the next one. Here are three of the more glaring ones.

1. I Need To Get A Spacephone So That I Can Use My Square Card Reader - this one is pretty self-explanatory. Without the use of a card reader, I am only able to accept cash or check at a craft show. This used to be common practice, but it is rapidly becoming inconvenient. Some folks do come prepared with cash, but people who happen upon a craft sale are much less likely to have money with them that is not in card form. And seriously, who carries checks these days?

2. I Need To Do Some Serious Display Testing - At each of my shows this past year, my display has been changed up and tweaked and adjusted and pruned. A few of my craft show neighbors suggested that this behavior is fairly normal, that their own displays usually change up a bit with each show, and at the time of my shows my displays seemed to me to be pretty decent.

But I can't afford to be decent. I need to be more WELL HELLO THERE YOU PRETTY LITTLE THING...

Granted, I pretty much dove head first into this craft sale thing without much prior planning, but now that I'm out of the woods of the busy season it is time for some hours to be spent on actual display design.

3. It Is Going To Be A Long Road Pricing My Work - This is something that everyone thinks about a little bit differently. There are so many things to take into account when I am deciding on a price for my work that it is easy for me to become overwhelmed. How clean and crisp is the design? Who am I selling it to? How long did it take me to make it? How much did it cost for me to make it? Do I even want to sell it or could I do it better? What are others selling a similar item for? What kind of value do I personally place in it?

I have become aware that it will probably be some time before I am very confident in my pricing ability. For the time being I just have to do it and stick to it, see what works, and go forward from there. I am often torn between my own sense of frugality (from the perspective of the consumer) and the fear of selling myself short (from the perspective of the artist/person who needs to eat food).

This is the issue, I think, that will eventually spell out whether or not I am a savvy businessperson - I have more confidence in the other aspects of business, I am organized, and I am disciplined, but I have such trouble with pricing.

Things I need to work on aside, I have met some really spectacular people in just this one season, my first season of craft shows, and I have no doubt that there are a great many more very friendly and talented people yet to meet. It also actually astounds me for some reason that my friends and family are so responsive and excited to support me and watch me succeed. I wouldn't be where I am now without my awesome network of people, but I guess that's what friends are for! Thanks guys, and Happy New Year to all!

Handmade Sale

 So these twirly icicle-looking ornaments have been a big hit at my last two shows.

Also, these mini blown ornaments are so satisfying to make. They look great in sets.

The ever-popular mustache pendants are crying for me to make more.

I decided to bring out my two newest corset vases, which I made down in Corning last week. 

For not a huge amount of vendors, the people vending definitely made some cool stuff.

Like this corset vase! Fresh out of the oven!

Spot Coffee Handmade Holiday

 Well, the show was lightly attended, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless! I had the pleasure of vending next to The Knotty Owl, who is a talented woodworker & a lovely person. And with all the music and food and what sales there were, it was a great way to spend my weekend! Thank you to all who visited!

My last two sales of the season are coming up this weekend. The first will take place on Saturday, December 15th at Funky Junk (123 East State St.) at the Ithaca Commons in Ithaca, NY. It will be held from 10:00am until 7:00pm.

The second will be on Sunday, December 16th back in Rochester at The Owl House on Marshall St. I believe that will be from 10:00am until 4:00pm, but it may run later.

Here are some photos from Handmade Holiday by the spectacular Sara Joy Tiberio:

How I Make A Glass Ornament On The Torch

Step 1: One end of a glass rod, with a small neck pulled out a little ways from the end. This end is closed, the other end is open.

Step 2: A thinner rod of glass in a different color is melted onto the tube to make stripes.

Step 3: Using another rod of glass attached to the closed end of the tube, the striped portion is evenly heated until slightly viscous and twisted.

Step 4: The same area is evenly heated until uniformly molten (very important for a nice round, symmetrical shape) and then inflated by blowing into the other end of the glass tube, which is open.

Step 5: Using the torch to melt the necked area, the ornament is separated from the tube, a tiny relief hole is made, a loop is formed with tweezers at the top, and then the piece is annealed. Voila!

This Is Going To Be a Great Time

Instagram'd

Xmas Tea & Craft Sale Instagram'd

Christmas Tea & Craft Sale

It is time for Round Two of the annual Christmas Tea & Craft Sale at Ogden Baptist Church in Spencerport, NY! It will be held this coming weekend on Saturday, November 17th from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm. I will be vending there for the second year running, this year adding a few more items to my inventory alongside the pendants I sold last year, and it is sure to be a wonderful time! 

I have been intensely busy in recent days, working toward "Vitrified" at Spot Coffee, trying to keep all of my local businesses stocked with my pendants along with my Etsy site, which took a beating when I removed a number of pendants for my show, and moving my entire studio in the middle of it all.

I managed to get down to Corning this past week and make some fun things, including lemon reamers at the request of a friend and one "pretty little vase." Here I am paddling a bottom!

This piece didn't make it out alive unfortunately, but you make mistakes and you learn from them. So the trip was certainly productive.

I hope to see you at the Christmas Tea & Craft Sale this weekend! Or if not, there's another one at Spot Coffee coming up the weekend of December 7th and 8th, so stay tuned!

First Friday November 2012

First Friday was a resounding success! Audrey and I had so much fun showcasing our work together. She is such a talented photographer, and I'm very glad I had the opportunity to work with her! Sara T. put together a few photos she took at the show:

The work that Audrey showed was a series of photographs in which my glasswork was featured, included models and was largely shot outdoors. Artwork within artwork style! Super cool!

The work that I showed was displayed in two different formats. Inside two shadow boxes there were a number of pendants, several pairs of earrings, miniature ornaments, and one black glass tree branch necklace. Additionally, I mounted four shelves on the wall and displayed five works inside them including a woman with tree legs, a corset vase, a thin, viney black glass sculpture entrapping a figure entitled "Bramble," and two goblets - some new work and some that is a few years old.

As a result of this show I learned a lesson: Walls that are so thin that bass and live music causes them to vibrate are not good walls to mount your super-thin and fragile glasswork on. Not to worry, the only piece that broke did so several days after the opening, and it is fixable. Still a bummer, but live and learn!

A gigantic thank you to Brendon M. for making the lovely plexiglass encasements for my work, and also to Ana C. for the use of her studio while mine was in transition. I never could have done it without you guys.

Next, it's on to the holiday season, and I've got ornaments in the works along with two upcoming craft shows. I would say it's time to get busy, but I never seem to stop being busy! But I'm pretty sure that's a good thing!

Preview

A sneak peek at the beginning stages of a piece that will be on display at my show on Friday, November 2nd at Spot Coffee (the show will be up for the whole month of November).

So far it seems to me to be very autumny, if not wintry. Coming to mind are bare branches and pricker bushes that emerge cold and dark once the leaves die away. Perhaps it will be an ode to the season. Or perhaps it will be sad and macabre. We shall see!

Mark Your Calendars: First Friday, November

Newsflash! The wonderful & talented Audrey Jacobs and I got together last week and started a collaborative project combining Audrey's delicious photography skills and my very own glasswork. We got some fabulous models in on it too, and for the culmination of this project there will be a SHOW!

Spot Coffee

200 East Ave. Rochester, NY

Friday, November 2nd

2012

Mark your calendars! There will be glass, photo books, prints, various other handmade items, and also musicians!

Check out more of Audrey's beautiful & compelling work at anotheroneperceiving.blogspot.com and get excitedddd!

Blinky

In the works, I've got some Pac Man ghostie earrings coming along. The red dude is known as Blinky, and I'll have to make Inky, Pinky and Clyde as well! (They are cyan, pink, and orange respectively if you are unfamiliar with Pac Man.) Once I finish making Blinky into earrings, you betcha they'll be going up on Etsy!

I am testing out a new jump page for myself at about.me. Check it out and tell me what you think:  here.

Also, I just ordered some fancy new business cards with QR codes on them that will take you to my Etsy shop, and they cannot come soon enough!

Turtles And 'Staches

Some of my recent creations include:

You can check 'em out at Fine Specimen.

Birthday Glassblowing

Well, it has certainly been a while since my last update. I have been swamped with life. Yesterday was my birthday, and I had the pleasure of voyaging down to Corning, NY to use their hot shop. I booked a five-hour blow slot, and here are a few photos of what went down:

I didn't get any photos of the piece I was most excited about, which was a broad, shallow vessel with a swirly ribbed-pattern that will become a birdbath once I weld up a base for it. I seemed to be on a roman bottle form kick, which is the shape you see above with the rounded base and the long narrow neck, so I ended up with a number of vases as well. I try to go into my blow slots with some amount of intention, but I so seldom get to blow glass from a furnace that sometimes I just end up having fun making disparate items. Next time it might be prudent to do some production work for the holiday season though.

I'm feeling like making some pretty blown ornaments on my torch. I think that's next on the docket, after snail shell items, which I still need to hash out and make a good number of. Soon I will have enough free time to really focus, and I am so looking forward to it.

Mo' Pendants

New Colors

In the past month I have: celebrated my grandfather's 90th birthday with family from all corners of the USA; come down with the flu and beat it back into submission; gone aggressively apartment hunting and found a new place; signed up for a bicycle ride out to Montauk Point, a half share of a CSA project, and also bought tickets for the music festival that I attend each summer. Needless to say, I've been busy.

I still find time to squeeze my glass work in, though I don't always have a chance to take pretty pictures. But I ordered some shiny new glass colors, and here are some examples of them for your viewing pleasure! The ones I'm most excited about are called Penumbra (by Trautmann Art Glass) which appears in the bluish-gray flower and also the green dots, Butterscotch (by Northstar) which is the background on the light orangey spiral and the blue flower, and Double Amber Purple, which I don't believe appears in any of these. Other colors I got include Red Elvis, Double Mai Tai, Purple Urple, Bright Blue, and Apricot.

These pendants will soon be posted on Etsy. I'm itchin' to practice my reticello technique, so perhaps that will comprise the next update!

Speaking of Etsy

I just can't contain myself. I made the most adorable little snail shell earrings the other day!

And they are now for sale at Fine Specimen! Along with two other, and soon to be more, pairs of earrings.

And this pendant is also new. I really liked how the color combination turned out!

Zipper Pouch Season

As mentioned in the previous post, I have been on something of a zipper-pouch making rampage. I blame it on the awesome purse-sewing abilities of my friend, who was telling me about this wonderful fabric store she found in Colorado, from which she produced a killer eggplant print bag. As it turns out, I found a similarly awesome fabric store in Portland called Cool Cottons, which just so happened to carry the same line of vegetable-themed fabric:

The other veggies I could find included peppers and tomatoes, but I liked the onion one the best. I went a little crazy buying fat quarters and fat eighths of fabric, many of which I have since transformed into these hella cool padded zipper pouches with bright and contrast-y linings! Because I can't seem to ever get enough zipper pouches. I'm not sure why I have such a problem, but for some reason they just make me happy.

I have been unable to make a decision as to whether or not to list these items in my Etsy store. Would it be strange to have a shop that sells mostly glass pendants and earrings, but then also a large part zipper pouches? I could possibly make other sewn items, but it isn't a combination one typically sees in the same place. Would it be too weird?