Off to church

Yes, really. Don't faint. Actually, our tech guy at work, Marcus, said that if he hears of a church collapse in South Austin, he'll know why.

Katie, my husband's best friend's daughter - who is already well into adulthood, has decided to be baptized. The reason? Well, a guy of course! LOL Why she picked Easter Sunday for the event, well, I'm not sure. Anyway, she called and asked us to come, and, well, what were we to say but "yes?" There's a big bbq at the dad's house afterwards, so no torch time for me today.

Eat chocolate today - or next weekend, after all the bunnies are marked down.....haha

Dia de los Friday!

Yipppeeee!!!!! Friday at last. And, I LOVE my job - I can't imagine what Friday is like for those who don't!

This may be my favorite thing I've ever made. It's actually the second prototype (can something BE a second prototype?). I liked the face on the first one better, but this one, overall, is what I was going for. Can't wait to make another.

Everybody enjoy their day - supposed to be dreary again Sunday....

Spring, spring!

Yes, it's the first day of Spring, and it certainly looks like it in the A-town. Sun is shining, birds are singing (of course the only thing I see right now is pigeons, and they don't sing....), trees are starting to bloom (ach choo!).

Dogs are happy, because they like to lay in the sunshine. They become increasingly difficult to get indoors when it's like this - unless food is involved, of course....

Off to see the wizard...

This picture is just a simple "pleat" bead. There's been an ongoing discussion about them on Lampwork Etc in recent weeks. It's really just a "twistie" - an opaque paddle of glass in the center, with piles of transparent glass on both sides, then heated and pulled out while twisting - but the color choice makes it look like there are pleats. Cool, huh?

Anyway, I'm out for most of next week, taking a five-day class from the wizard, Loren Stump. I seriously doubt I'll end the week with being able to make elephants, though...I've heard he survives on cigarettes and Cheetos....should be an interesting week. Also, his classes go from 8am until 9pm, 11pm, midnight....while I don't have the constitution for that, I hope to at least stay in the game. There won't be any updates, probably....

The Cat that ate the....bead

The beady from yesterday is off to Cat! She emailed me about 2:30, saying "I'm sure that somebody else has responded..." - but, they hadn't! I was watching the stat counter, and it kept going up, but no emails LOL. So, I hope that Cat likes the bead and I'm sure (!) she'll send me a picture of what she does with it. I'll try to do that every couple of weeks...

Today I have a couple of thimbles to show you. A woman on Lampwork Etc. came up with the idea for a thimble mandrel, and boy! they're cute! These are actually made as thimbles, but a hole can be drilled into the top to make them into a pendant, or into a little - um, whatchmacallit - you know where you put a little bead cluster hanging out???? Tassel! Tassel, that's it! LOL

Wow! Is that a Larry Scott bead?!

No, not by any means (see the "real" one below), but I did think about Larry Scott a lot while I was making this bead.

The way this bead looks now is nothing like how it started in my head, or even the way it looked 15 minutes before finishing. At first, it had nice raised dots of Double Helix Nyx glass - a wonderful, shimmery color. Lovely - just the way I wanted it to look. Then, I decided to tart up the ends...add a little interest, ya know? Spent too much time there, and tink! A little noise that I feel more than hear - a tiny crack! Oh no! I thought it would be easy to repair, but a cracked bead with dots is never easy to repair - the dots get all out of whack, and it's almost impossible to heat the bead enough to heal the crack without melting all the dots flat. So, I melted them all in...added some more stuff...etc etc.

So, what's the connection to Larry Scott? When I took a class with him a couple of years ago, he referenced a book that mentioned that the artist's enterprise is at risk until the final moment. There are no machines to do it for you, nothing that's been calibrated to the nth degree of tolerance. To state it simply, an artist is free to fuck it up to the very last minute of work, with the very last detail. This is very true in glass - everything is perfect, but you misplace that LAST DOT. And the entire piece is ruined, or at least not your original artistic vision. On a happier note, the longer I worked on "fixing" this one, the more and more it reminded me of a Larry Scott window bead! LOL

But, my lost artist vision is your gain. This is still a very nice bead - the base glass (which now just barely peeks out) is silver rattan that has reduced to a very nice light brownish color. The tarted ends and stripes are ivory. And, the dots still glow a bit. They're a very dark sapphire blue. I used raku, which shifts to various colors, for the dots that did make it to the raised state. And, the whole bead has a lot of reaction stuff going on - just the way silver laden glasses act. So -------- the first one to email me and tell me what a fabulous almost Larry Scott bead this is gets it! No strings attached....really. I'll even pay postage (yes, even to you Aussie's!) Lemme hear from y'all.

Addendum

Almost forgot. I do have one other small blog. It's really just a blog for me - a verbal scrapbook of sorts. But, you're always welcome to check in....

Heartbeats at my Feet

It's not all fun and games

There is a definite transition between the "fun" part of a bead business and the "business" part of a bead business. And, I'm not even talking about paperwork.

Here is what was sitting on my kitchen table last night - it's two, maybe three weekend's worth of torch time:

Every single time I look at a pile of beads like this, two things go through my mind: 1) Oh, wow, preeettttyyyy!!!!!! and all mine mine mine! and 2) Oh why oh why didn't I make sets as I went.... (maybe that's three things, but who's counting?).

It's really not particularly easy to sit down with a big whole humongous pile and then to try to recreate the combination of sizes, shapes, and colors combos originally intended. Really. I have come to know over time that it's best done with a glass (or two, or.....well, you get the idea) of wine. Anyway, this is the next step:

I lovingly refer to these as "bead-ka-bobs." It's the perfect use for the old, bent mandrels. In the next step, they'll be strung on to copper wire with a few accents beads, then they'll get priced. Eventually, they'll be ready to sell.

And, should you forget, here's a close-up of the first picture (forget what, you ask? - that they're MINE ALL MINE bwahahahahaha!).

How many R 2 many?

When I start to think about posting in text-speak, I have to wonder - how many blogs are too many blogs?

When I look at my bookmarks, I have about 25 blogs marked. I only read a couple of them with some regularity - Theresa's a couple of times a week, Moon's and a couple of others occasionally. The rest a lot less frequently, if ever after the first time - that first, "oh this looks like a good blog" moment. But I'm guessing there are people whose hobby has become blog-reading. I also admit that I find a great deal of humor in that there's a test for Internet addiction where? Well, on the Internet, of course! Complete with its own Blogger and podcast links, as well as links to sign up for mail and other stuff. Does anybody else see the sick irony in this?

Normal Monday, more or less

Emily is fine, Tony is fine, and it's back to work for me. I really really was going to photograph beads for y'all yesterday, but I just ran out of energy. Had a lousy day on the torch - two vessels didn't even make it to the kiln. I don't remember the last time that happened. And then - and why oh why does this happen? - I couldn't sleep last night. Grrrr........

Liquor for breakfast, anyone?

I was tempted - trust me. Yesterday was the day from hell. Tony had to have a couple of wisdom teeth out, so he was scheduled at the dentist at 10:30 yesterday. I mean, he's a guy, I already knew the entire day would be shot, right? (No, I'm not being a bitch, I'm sorry he was in discomfort etc. etc. it's just that - well, YOU know...) Thursday when I got home - later than expected - there was diarrhea everywhere. Starting wiping butts, and discovered it was Emily's. Not terribly concerned at this point, I mean dogs tend to go through gastrointestinal upsets just like us, but she's on Zubrin, and there's always the possibility of intestinal damage from that drug class (NSAIDs). Overnight it turned bloody, so I was on my way to the vet with her yesterday morning at 7:30. I had taken the day off so I could take care of Tony, which I guess was good. Anyway, we use a vet that is clear across town (long story, but basically he's a GREAT vet) - a 40 minute drive in traffic. And remember, Tony's appointment is at 10:30....They rush us in, and I'm back home by 9:45, ready to get Tony to the vet. I mean dentist.

To make an already long story short (and I read somewhere just a couple of days ago that blogs should be short, nobody wants to read a lot of wind (so sue, me, okay?)), all's well that ends well. Emily got 3 medications, and the vet said it probably WAS just a tummy upset. And it only cost $158 LOL. And, no diarrhea since about 7:30 yesterday morning...Tony is fine, slept all day. I had actually planned on that, and had a bunch of home-stuff lined up to do, but I was too ragged out to do it.

Oh, yeah, did I have liquor for breakfast? Well, again, tempting. We found this pecan liquor that is absolutely AMAZING in coffee. But, I want to spend some time on the torch, so I refrained. Maybe I'll take a sick day for myself in the next week or two and indulge!

Time with family

Just a short drive-by today....typical of Central Texas weather, Tony and I grilled hamburgers last night - and this morning it's cold and rainy. The backyard wildlife is also starting to return - I saw our woodpecker for the first time yesterday (I've been hearing him for a week or so, just hadn't managed to spot him yet) and the cardinal mom and pop were in the back yard. So, I took the camera out to get pictures, and of course they all managed to disappear. But, I did get a few family photos - enjoy!

Beads - obsession or cure?

Although I can't go into specifics because of confidentiality and all that, we had a student come in yesterday with a quite interesting problem. A problem that prompts today's title: obsession or cure? I remember my sister-in-law, Billie. A very odd woman, to say the least. She and her husband (my husband's brother) had already been married 12 or 15 years when Tony and I got married. Ten or so years after that, we found out that Billie had had a long-time affair with a man in their very small west Texas town. Apparently everybody knew, even the husband (they eventually divorced). Anyway, Billie was obsessed with recording music (back in the days of cassette tapes, remember those?), Elvis (no last name necessary) in particular. And I'm talking OBSESSED. As in that's all she wanted to talk about. Her apartment was stacked with recordings. You'd talk to her on the phone and she'd relate that she only had (fill in the blank) number of recordings to go before she had EVERY SINGLE SONG in whoever's music catalog. But, several years after they were divorced, Billie was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And then music was all she had. No, it didn't of course cure the multiple sclerosis, but it provided her with a modicum of mental health through the roughest times.

So, beads. In many ways, beads are pretty much all I think about. I see a flower arrangement - oh, what colors of Moretti could I use to reproduce that? I see ornamental ironwork - oh wow, that would make a great scroll pattern on a bead. And all that's even before I sit down to look (drool) over the beads on Ebay, the beads on Lampwork Etc., even the beads on my desk (yes, on my desk - you don't really think I leave all my beads at home, do you?). I think I could safely say that yes, beads are my obsession. But after a rough week, all I can think about is getting to stay home for the weekend and make beads. I doodle new patterns in boring meetings. Beads get me through the rough, and sometimes tough, days, through the week. They're also my cure.

I owe I owe....

I owe I owe....how many of you start your morning that way? I even like - love, really - my job, but if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd be outta here!

I don't keep up with many blogs, just the occasional one occasionally (LOL) but one "source" I do keep up with with some regularity is Lampwork, Etc. It's basically a (duh!) lampwork artists forum, but it also has its share of bead artists and just looky-loos. The topic that's coming up with increasing frequency is the difficulty of staying gainfully employed (I owe, I owe) by making and selling beads. There are a few "names" who I know can do it with apparent ease, but, frankly, most of those that I know personally (and I'm speaking here of taking classes from them and occasional correspondence) live very (very) simple lives. At one extreme I'd say are Sage and Tom Holland. At the time I took from them - about a year ago - they were in the process of building their house. And, when I say "building their house" I mean with their own two hands. No electricity, and as I recall no running water. They would sell a bead (through word-of-mouth, because they have no website and no Internet), then turn the money around to buy lumber. The whole three days at Molly's Sage was collecting shrimp shells, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc. to take back with her to Arkansas to use to compost their substantial (as in several acres) garden. Tom was working on a way to fire up a kiln without electricity. To them, even buying glass - the primary tool of their trade - is a luxury. Kim Affleck works full time at a "real" job, and makes beads at night. She uses her weekends and vacations to travel and teach. A couple of others make fair money, but have a husband (or wife, as the case may be) who contributes substantially. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with this, but I guess this state of affairs bothers me or I wouldn't feel compelled to write about it. Yes, there are lazy "artists" just like there are lazy anybodies (I could name you several of both ilks but I won't). Whine, complain, but do nothing about it. But, there are those artists who WORK and work HARD every day but get little in return. I guess it's easy to say, "oh, well, they get to stay at home all day, they don't spend money on gas, on clothes, etc. etc." But the reality increasingly seems to be that they don't have money to spend on groceries or health insurance, either. When did America (and is it the world? - I really don't know) become a place where art, or really any kind of beauty is just plain unaffordable? When was the last time you bought fresh flowers "just because?" Last time you went to the symphony, the ballet, the opera?