creation is messy–and expensive
The most wonderful money pit yet…and the studio is alive with new possibility. Elphaba, Dirty Martini, Leaky Pen, periwinkle, eggplant, along with white, black, various other greens and violets, comprise my new palette. So my advanced beginner beads will begin to emerge in purples and greens. And I still need a wonderful pink, but I’m not sure I can afford one.
You need gold to achieve pink glass, I hear. I’m not clear on what you you need for CIM Heffalump or Dirty Martini or Kryptonite, but I sure love the color names.
I took a class this past weekend and came home with a bulk tank adapter for my hothead, too. Endless gas — no, really, it’s a good thing!
hot stuff
I won Christmas this year!
That wasn’t my goal. My goal was to give gifts, make music, create a feast, limit expenses, and escape the dose of emotional trauma the season has brought on some years. All these things were fairly well achieved–and I couldn’t be more pleased–except for one.
T. doesn’t really play well with others sometimes. He blew off the limited expenses idea and presented me with a big scary thing dragged in from the garage after all the other packages were opened. Last year it was the torch and fuel-tank bombs I unwrapped that intimidated me; this year I couldn’t even lift the box: a kiln, for all my 1600-degree annealing, fusing, slumping, glassy needs. SO many things I need to do that I hadn’t even thought of before!
All he got was socks, almost. It’s hardly fair. I haven’t even made a bead yet that I wanted to save badly enough to anneal it. I really need to demand that he take this thing back where it came from.
But I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings. Darn. I guess I’ll have to keep it.
doing our bit
Overheard in our backyard today: “Would you shut up? It’s just an egg!”
I turned 47 last week. It was a very poultry birthday. There’s no limit to the amount of chicken stuff you can find out there in the world of things, and a lot of it ended up wrapped in pretty chicken paper. For me. Thanks, I love ya!
My real birthday present I went and fetched at Blue Moon today, a bunch of lampwork tools including a whole wrist-and-arm support, torch bracket, mille-marver setup. Glass shears, a masher, a fiber blanket. Even leather elbow rests. It’s going to be a whole different art form now that I can sit down at it. Now that it’s nearly cool enough outside to embrace the torch.
And then, I guess I lost my mind. I’ve been thinking about a coverstitch machine. More than thinking about it; in fact, I swore off spending any more time trying to get a good hem on a knit fabric until I had one. And…notice the subtle shift of verb tense there?
I really needed a coverstitch machine. Since I was in Austin anyway, I went to the only dealer I knew in town to see what they had. Accidentally I bought the Elna 434. It was on sale. It’s the same as the Janome 1000, I’m told. But it’s an Elna! So it’s cuter!
Ahem. I don’t think very many of my readers sew. Heck, I can count all my readers with the digits at hand, and most of them are looking for computer info. Suffice it to say, I’m spoiled. And I have a brand new coverstitch machine. And no chickens on it, at all.
I guess T. is getting that miter saw for his birthday after all. Parity or bust. Probably both, at this rate.
improvement
It’s getting better all the time… beads and wire wrapping, both:
The project for the rest of the week is a bunko party on Saturday. I’m the host; or rather, hostess. This is a ladies-only event. Have you guys ever wondered what we do, we of the fairer gender, shed of you, off on our own?
Did you think I’d tell you?
sunday sunday…
…so good to me. Today, I slept late, all the way until 6:55 a.m., played with the chickens, ate breakfast and made ugly beads, performed an actual workout and then attended summer church, which consists of floating down the San Marcos river.
River, me:
Then I had lunch, did chores and some internet research. Then practiced the basics of wire wrapping, a jewelry technique that has hovered on the periphery of the thousand things a long time, and recently been bumped up to the top ten or so by my friend H. Ate up all kinds of time this afternoon…
…and this is before some new supplies I ordered even arrive. Thanks a lot, H-bot, m’dear. Where am I going to put this stuff? Do I really need a wire stash on top of the bead, fabric, paper, glass stashen?
Why, yes. Yes I do.
fugly things
Fugly beads. I made some: 
It’s not easy getting over my natural fear of fwooshing gas and flying molten bits of glass. And it’s already 99 degrees on my back patio before I even fire up the torch. Nevertheless, I will someday make a beautiful bead. I will train myself not to slap at mosquitos with a glowing glass gather in progress. I will know my sweet spot. I WILL CONTROL STRINGER. BWAHAHA!
Maybe.
I am also sewing fugly t-shirts from Goodwill finds. Cooking fugly meals that never quite work out the way they should. Experimenting in fugly ways with Envirotex. A couple at my church who had been collecting donations for a garage sale so very kindly held back a carton of cigar boxes for me. They have seen (and bought) the only decoupaged boxes I’ve produced for public consumption, so I’m flattered. I told them I’d donate these new ones to the church’s fall festival, which means I should probably start now. And since the only finish I care for these days is a two-part resin, I’ve been trying out different techniques. I think I’ve worked out a way to go, but I’ll post it in a few days with some pictures.
Unfortunately, T read the product sheet, and he has now announced we can’t have the stuff in the house. Dang it! Never let anybody read any of those things. One of these ingredients is banned in Europe, he says. Artists die young, I tell him. We’ll be breathing it in the house air for days, he says.
What I need, of course, is a properly ventilated glass-and-solvent studio. I can’t run a torch inside either. And it’s too dirty in the garage or on the patio, not to mention too hot and humid, for resin. What I need is to move somewhere cooler and have a little backyard studio. What I need is about $300K just lying around, extra.
Meanwhile, I am trying to finish up projects here and there so as to concentrate the next couple of days on refining the home environment, as the folks are coming for a visit. Maybe we can fool them into thinking we always live like this—so well dusted, so uncluttered, so little chicken shit all about the patio…
lampwork
I fired up my torch today. This is important, because I was scared of it. Still am, a bit. It goes whoosh. I’m not a playing-with-fire kinda gal. But I am a glass freak, and behind any glass there’s fire, so that’s where I need to be.
I’ve known this since I made a trip to Arizona a couple of years ago and spent some time wandering around Bisbee for some reason. Providentially I stumbled upon the shop of Kate Drew-Wilkinson, featuring the most fabulous glass beads I had ever seen. It turned out to be a studio too…who knew you could sit at a desk and manipulate a few glass rods so beautifully? Who knew if I could do it?
“Do you teach classes?” I blurted out, silent me, fully intending to find a way to travel 900 miles from home as often as it took, if that’s what it took. But no, her classes were in the UK every summer, a bit too much of a stretch. Still, learning the craft has been in my mind ever since, one of the thousand things biding its time.
This past Christmas, right after I swore to acquire no more projects or materials, T. gave me a Hothead torch, some glass rods and all the beginner tools I need to get started. It looks like I’ll be able to find classes a couple of times a year within 40 miles of here. I lack only time and confidence, and I’ll find both of those.
I’m a little afraid that this is an art form that could take over my whole life. Or not afraid, exactly…I am in fact open to the possibility. Meantime, I’m not rushing into it. I’m lingering on the brink of possibility. There’s a journey ahead, a way, a path, running like a river. Flowing like glass.
