It's Been a Year or Please Universe, Don't Splat Me

I'll be honest, the last year has been pretty rough. And the previous sentence probably should have had a colon instead of a comma.. or maybe a spleen. This time last year I had just missed my first book deadline, we were getting ready to make the annual foray to Montana, and everyone was stressed. And while there absolutely have been some high moments and downtime in the year, they were subsumed by the overwhelming difficulty of the year for all of us. Now, though, it looks like we've all turned a corner and are looking up and forward to what lies ahead.

Dave took a new job yesterday and starts on June 10. He'll still be headquartered in Austin, and he'll have to spend a couple of months there initially, but then it will be back to working from home. I am done with the book (mostly) and I am unable to convey the enormity of the weight of the load that its passing takes off my mind and soul. Jessie is leaving elementary school and the Waldorf school behind for an adventure in homeschooled middle school--complete with archery, fencing, digital photography, weekly museum trips, sewing, French, programming, yoga (and of course language arts, history, geography, art, music--cello and piano--and math). Mom is over the worst of her hip replacement and broken leg recovery--though it's still not easy for her. In all, it's going to be a better year for everyone if the universe will just leave me alone for daring to say everything's getting better...

Kiln-Forming Destination? Priceless.

I have just over an hour before my kiln-forming 3 starts and I am still in what passes for my jammies sipping the first coffee of the day from the Chicago skyline mug. I can either read a bit more Discount Armageddon, or I can post. Much as I am loving the book posting wins.

I spent last summer in Montana on Flathead Lake. My mom--who has lived with us since my dad died--still has her house there, and we are all comfortably settling into a routine of nine months here in Atlanta and three months there. Last summer I was mostly working on the book, and in support of that effort I set-up a small studio in the garage at the house.

My long-term plans are to set-up a a larger studio on the family lake property. Right now there is a small cabin built by my grandfather and a large metal building erected by my father on the land, and some day we hope to build a larger summer home there. Even though the house is not built, because a metal building the size of a two-car garage equipped with two big roll-up doors and one regular door is already in place, there is nothing stopping me from setting up the studio now. And if I have a studio, I can teach. Teaching is on my mind right now as I am enjoying it so much here, and the opportunity of sharing what I love to do AND my favorite place on earth is too compelling to pass up!


Imagine a week of studying kiln-forming techniques interspersed with afternoons swimming in the lake, shopping at the galleries in Big Fork, dining at the Smokehouse surrounded by cavorting bunnies, a drive through the National Bison Range, and a day trip to Glacier National Park. I think I may be onto something!

Out the Door

It's been a good couple of days in the studio. I guess I had more work than I realized that had to be fired as I managed to fill my three biggest kilns and still had enough left over to send home with Dee to fire in her two bigger kilns! I was lucky she worked yesterday and today and offered to fire for me as otherwise I wouldn't have been able to ship everything that needs to go out. I'm even a bit ahead on firing right now as I have done most of the order that is scheduled to ship next Wednesday.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's final class in the kiln-forming 1-2-3 series. I taught it a bit differently this time as I had six very focused, enthusiastic students who were there for all three sessions and enabled me to up my game. I plan to continue the format for the next session and hope it goes as well. Basically the first week is about the different forms glass comes in (sheet, frit, rod, stringer, powder), how these forms can affect your perception of the color (transparent frit looks lighter in color as the size of the pieces gets smaller due to the way the light reflects and refracts off of them), bubbles, and viscosity and flow with the addition of heat and gravity. I meant to teach cutting glass in the second week along with color, but color is such a big topic--how combining results in individual points as opposed to a blended color, strikers, reactive glass, opal vs. transparent and their respective effects on depth perception, etc.--that I never got to it. We're going to start with cutting this week, and then move into more discussion of the direction of flow and how to affect the movement of the glass in the kiln by how the glass is placed in the piece (layering and stacking). We'll finish with an introduction to the kiln and the segments in various firing schedules.

The other big thing I started with this class is beginning each class with an analysis of the pieces the students made in the previous class (they do an 8" square based on the subjects discussed for each class) and how they fit or diverged from the students' expectations based on what they had learned. This analysis takes about 20 minutes, but they all seem to get a lot out of talking about what they did and looking at what others did. It also helps me with what I need to emphasize in the class. FOr example, it's been so long since I started fusing glass that it never even occurred to me that I needed to point out in the first class that the glass isn't going to flow a lot from side to side if you put it down so that you have a uniform piece about 1/4" thick. The students thought the pieces would flow a lot more on the inside of their work than they did.

Now it's time to head to jewelry class so I guess I had better finish. Tomorrow's post: Destination Glass in Montana! Come spend a week on the lake in Montana doing an intensive glass seminar with a visit to Glacier National Park, and art shopping in Big Fork thrown in!

A Quick Post and On With the Day

I am tired to my bones this morning. Last night I was in the studio until after 11:30 getting two big loads into Bertha and Bettina. Then this morning up and running to get J to school while Dan the carpenter finishes the installation of wood flooring in the upstairs of the house. The cleaning people are due to arrive within the hour, and everything is a mess. Anyone who has cleaning people knows that you have to clean before they clean (actually straighten in order for them to clean) and I am behind. Thank you Baxter (Psycho Spaniel) for pulling all the used Kleenex and toilet paper out of all the wastebaskets and shredding it all over the house during the night.

On the plus side, the chicken sheep and goat are out, the rabbits are in, and all the animals (including the baby chicks in the guest bedroom) are fed and watered. It's also shaping up to be a beautiful day in Atlanta--looks like it won't rain today. Three more kiln loads in today, and I'll even be caught up on production--just in time to go into a full weekend teaching. I have kiln-forming 3 on Saturday and a new kiln-forming 1 class Sunday, and both are full. I hope this new batch of students is as enthused as the last group and signs up for the rest of the series (taught over the next two weekends). These are my last two intro series before heading to Montana.

Yep, it's time again to escape what will be the heat in Atlanta for the cooler summer temps of the Montana mountains (and lake). We look to go the first of June, and I haven't even begun to set a final date and make the last arrangements with the house sitter. In retrospect, I think it's the cooler-than-usual spring temps that have delayed preparations this year. Usually it's so hot by now that we are in a hurry to flee. But this year with all the late rain and cold temps, it's just now getting into nice weather--and mostly pollen-free nice weather.

Okay, time to get my butt in gear. More on classes tomorrow.

The Beat Goes On

I am sore, I am tired, and it's only 10:03 am. Today the carpet in the upstairs is coming up and over the next three days it will be replaced by hardwood floors. This is a difficult project as all our bedrooms are up there, but it is somewhat simplified by Mom still living in the office post surgery. This weekend, if all goes well, she'll move back upstairs. J is not down with the new floors even though her room was the most peed in first by the cat (may she rest in peace) and now by the two dogs (who, if they continue their bad habits once the carpet is gone, will also rest in peace... no I wouldn't, but it's awfully tempting!).

The real work of the day for me is to figure out what happened to my manuscript after it left my hands and before it arrived in my editor's. When the copy-editor compiled it, it looks like an entire section was dropped. Now I need to see what else might have changed. I am also going to have to redo some of the projects to get more aesthetically pleasing finished pieces to photograph for the beauty shots. One of the major issues my publisher has is that the glass clay projects look more like clay than like glass--unsurprising as they are made with glass powder and (like pate de verre) will never have the shiny, transparent perfection of, say, cast glass. To make this technique more appealing I need to make it look more glass-like. Maybe the solution is to combine glass clay elements with sheet glass either as windows through the clay or as the support for twining clay pieces. Whatever I do, I need to do it quickly.

It's been a really great spring in the studio with a lot of people interested in the beginning kiln-forming series of classes (kiln-forming 1-2-3). I taught part one last Saturday, and this Saturday I teach part two and next weekend part three. Part one was full, and I only have one spot left in each of two and three. Open studio has also been hopping with students from previous classes coming in and working on their own projects. Everyone is doing something different, and they are all interested in what others are working on and in sharing their own knowledge. This is why I opened my studio in the first place. Now we just need to keep the momentum going.

We're also just about done with our show orders from the Buyer's Market. Once I have them behind me it'll be time to get the new Siyeh Studio website done. That's my big project for this summer in Montana--that and creating glass tiles based on Gaudi's floor tiles and sidewalk tiles from Barcelona. I brought back two different samples of the tile--one in plaster and a larger one in concrete--ten years ago and I am finally in a place where I can start to think about where I want to go with them.

The concrete one has a more subtle, finer detail than the plaster one--for one thing it is not just in two heights of relief as the nautilus shell section undulates in waves--and the motif is also a reverse of the concrete one with the concrete being rendered primarily in the negative. The plaster one has a positive (raised) motif. Both can be found as sidewalks and floor tiles in Barcelona. I love the concrete one, but it is a bit big for glass floor tiles for a bathroom.

Springtime, Sheep, Stitches, Suspicious Chickens, and the Studio

Coffee with ultra-pasteurized, fat-free half and half and Italian Sweet Cream Coffee Mate in the Denver skyline mug... I'm baaaaack! (Emphasis on the baaaa). Springtime in Atlanta--except for a few blissful days at the beginning--means lots and lots of pollen so I am writing from the comfort of the couch instead of the front porch even though it is a beautiful day. The cleaning people are also actually vacuuming the porch as I write as there is so much pollen on it. We even had it pressure-washed after the majority of the pollen fell and it was still covered in pollen this morning. Hello Allegra.

Last Sunday we doubled the size of our flock--though the new additions currently live in Mom's bedroom upstairs (she's still in the main floor office/bedroom recovering from her surgery). They are only a bit over a week or two old so they will be in a plastic bin with a heat lamp for the next few weeks. We have two Polish Top Hats, two Salmon Favorelles, two Blue Cochins (the same breed as Sadie and Half Moon), and two Mottled Houdans.



I'm going to start this next set off with a story about the North Atlanta/Southern Decatur urban farm industry. (Choctaw Bingo anyone? I am clearly counting down the minutes till I see James McMurtry live tonight--But back to the chickens). My right arm is very sore today. The night before last I was in the East Lake Community Learning Garden and Urban Farm (two blocks from our house and my studio) helping round up their sheep when I caught my foot on a nasty cut-off stump and took a major fall. I was lucky I didn't skewer my eyeball out on another pokey bit of wood (it hit me in the forehead instead), but not so lucky that the stumpy thing I tripped over didn't gash right through the meaty part of the ball of my foot. I was wearing my hiking Keenes which are closed-toed and heavily supportive while at the same time are still sandals with openings in the sides for air circulation--hence the gash. I was stunned enough by the fall that I didn't realize I had cut my foot until a few minutes later when (squeamish people stop reading here and skip ahead a bit) I felt the blood pooling in the shoe and squelched when I walked. I was focused on not letting the sheep get by me, you see. Of course I utterly failed to prohibit the getting-pastness when I fell, and they blithely and nimbly zoomed right by as I lay dazed in the muck.

When I got home I was already ate for dinner and the wait at the ER would have been horrendous so I chose not to go in for professional cleaning and stitches, and I cleaned out the cut with hydrogen peroxide, slathered it in Neosporin, covered it with gauze, and wrapped it up tight. It looked like it had already started to close and seal up so I figured I didn't need stitches. Unfortunately the next morning when I went to change the bandage, the wound gaped open and gushed blood. I showered, recleaned and bandaged it, mopped the floor, and headed off to urgent care. The very nice doctore there told me the stitches probably wouldn't hold because it had already been 14 hours since I cut it, but he jabbed me with a few needles and sewed up the cut before giving me a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers. Then the nurse covered the bandage with a bright lime-green stretchy wrap and I hobbled out to the car and home.

So, away from the blood and gore part of the story, why were we trying to catch the sheep? Because we were bringing them to our house for a play date with the bunnies and chickens. Really. Remember as I report this that we live in urban Atlanta--not even in the suburbs. The Garden is two blocks from our house. Unfortunately, over the past week the lamb (one of the three sheep) and three of the five goats were killed by one or more dogs and maybe coyotes in a series of nighttime attacks. The first night three of the goats were killed, and, as their bodies were left intact, it was surmised that it was an attack by dogs--coyotes would not leave the meat. But the next attack was either a coyote (fur left on the fence supports this hypothesis) or a hungry dog as the lamb was killed and partially eaten. Did I say we were away from the blood and gore part of the story? Apparently I lied. So to obviate any more deaths, the parent sheep (I call them George and Amelia, the Garden staff calls them Edmund and Irma, and Dave calls them Kebab and Biryani) were invited to spend some time in our yard, safely penned at night with the bunnies and free to range with the chickens during the day. When the last goat--who thinks she's a sheep anyway and was probably spared in the first attack because she hung with them and they protected her--is released from the vet's today, she will join them here. Welcome to the Siyeh Studio Urban Farm.


But what about the chickens and bunnies, how do they feel about the newcomers, you ask. Well, the bunnies couldn't care less--they just dodge the sheep's feet and don't seem bothered at all. The chickens, on the other hand, are highly suspicious of the new ruminants in their midst. So suspicious, in fact, that said ruminants were not released from the play yard to roam free today*. Yesterday they roamed, and whenever they got spooked (like when we tried to get them back in with the bunnies) they would charge madly through the yard scattering chickens in their wake. Feathers were--to put it mildly--ruffled. The day ended when Dee (another Dee, not our studio elf Dee)--their primary caretaker--arrived and found Pearl (our pearl leghorn) in the middle of Memorial Drive during rush hour after she had been spooked over the fence by the sheep. We were (mostly Pearl was) VERY lucky no one hit her as she was in the middle of three lanes on a very fast, busy thoroughfare.

That brings the current animal count at Siyeh Studio/Casa Griffith to two sheep, one goat, 15 chickens, two dogs, a cockatiel, four rabbits, and five fish. Whew! Hope they get the shelter built at the community gardens soon...

Now this last little paragraph is about Glass. It's springtime which means we are running classes (something we don't do much int he summer as I am in Montana for most of it). Saturday I have a full class (the first of the Kiln-forming 1-2-3 series), we are still in full production from a stunningly successful Buyer's Market show in February, and date nights in the hotshop go on. Open Studio has been hopping with two very focused students preparing new work--one for a show and one for fun. In short, life at the studio is just STUPENDOUS (a last tip of my hat to the alliteration of the day).

*The ruminants apparently roam having been released when the goat arrived. Dave and I are heading out to see them now. Awww, isn't that goat adorable? She's so little!! It must be the perspective of this photo that makes her look bigger. In person, she's tiny-lamb-sized.

Back to Real Life

I hear the coffee brewing, and I am already showered and dressed for the day. In ten minutes I will take the J to school and then swing by the feed store to pick up a metric ton of chicken food. I don't actually know what a metric ton is (it wasn't a quantity with which I had to familiarize myself in the writing of the book) but, surely, the bags and bags and bags I am off to buy qualify.

It's good to back to a normal life (note that normal does not equal either quiet or restful). Orders to fill, a newsletter to write, glass to inventory... Oh yes, and a few more pesky book details to wrap up/projects to fire. The tjantings were fun yesterday, but the initial results were disappointing. Not surprisingly, if something is an advanced technique/breaking new ground it probably won't work out the first time (or everyone would be doing it).

Transitions back into normal life are hard, and I'm actually kind of glad mine is happening at an already chaotic time of the year as the transition has a bit less impact. The past year has been filled with new things--most of them in glass. It has left me with nightly vibrant, active dreams and a restless need to play (mad scientist) every day. But I'm not a mad scientist. Right now I'm a Mom and a chicken feeder--time for posting is up.

The Mad Scientist Has Risen!

Got the hotplate heating a bowl of water for a little double-boiler action and melting beeswax this afternoon in the studio. Also got out my tjantings (shown right) to do some drawing on glass with them. It's really too bad the book is (mostly) done and in the hands of the copy editor as I have visions of creating batik in glass dancing in my head and wouldn't mind adding a section on it. I just know it's possible... In the meantime the tjantings and beeswax are useful for another technique that *does* show up in the book so I'm not frittering my day away on FUN (heaven forbid).

So, done. Wow. I want to revel on that idea for awhile before I have to add the caveat of the first draft is 98% done (I remember writing  finish later in a few places that I am pretty sure the copy editor is going to notice). The photography is also mostly done with just the beauty shots (finished project photos) and a couple of projects I am still futzing with (screen printing and the fused box) left to do. It seems like every time on those two I get to the "this is it, this is how I'm going to do it and write it up" stage, I tweak the process or the materials or SOMETHING a bit and have to work the changes into both the manuscript and the photos.

Today is mostly over in terms of studio work. Managed to ship orders today, and I'll fire another order that needs to ship asap. I think I'll put another glass clay vessel in the kiln (I'm still tweaking the firing schedule on that project, but the clay itself is incredible), go get chicken food, take the child to cello, and prepare for a night of putting photos with text and more editing.

Decided on Saturday to go ahead and do the artist studio show (the Siyeh Sleigh Ride) this year and spent yesterday putting together the email announcement and the web page for it. Tomorrow I will send out the end of the year newsletter and I am going to offer some sweet glass, kiln, and class deals.

Life is good. Off to (live every day as if my hair is on) fire.

One Week--And I Don't Mean the Barenaked Ladies Song

Huckleberry coffee (with Italian Sweet Cream creamer--of course) in the Alaska skyline mug. There is a poetic symmetry there that hums for me this morning. I'll say one thing for the book project--it's kept me too busy to miss fall in Montana! And today begins the countdown of the last week on the manuscript. There are no more time increments--other than days, hours and minutes... and aren't they scary!--into which to break my remaining work. (It's unfortunate when the correct grammatical construction sounds awkward. *sigh*)

As can be gleaned from the preceding almost-paragraph, my mind flits and flies in all different directions simultaneously these days--much more so than usual. I highly disrecommend writing a non-linear book for anyone with the slightest bit of ADD as the activity will just exacerbate the condition excruciatingly.

Today was supposed to be the day when I started organizing all of my my musings and dictations into a coherent manuscript. I was supposed to have all the techniques and projects finished and documented. Instead, I have about half a dozen of them in various states of doneness and a brain full of marbles. But, since whining about it never got anything done, I am going to ruck my big girl panties up, and Get On With It! Off to play with glass clay...

Nine Days, Eight Chickens

Huckleberry coffee in the Chicago skyline mug, the hum of the studio fans and the traffic outside for my morning music. Today is the first of the single-digit days in the countdown to the deadline for the completion of my manuscript. I am exhausted. My mother (my scribe) is exhausted. Dee (the book minion and one of the studio elves) is exhausted. Exhaustion is rampant. And yet, I, at least, am also exhilarated. Barring unforeseen catastrophe, and with all requisite knocking on wood, I will finish on time. I have 191 pages of text out of 240, and we have been cranking out 6-12 pages a day for the past week or so.

But hubris is ever the nemesis. I no sooner wrote the above paragraph than I discovered Baxter had been left in the backyard. With the chickens. And then there were eight. We mourn Willow, and I dread telling Jessie when she gets home. It took time, a shovel and a pick-ax--and I still didn't get very deep--but Willow is laid to rest in the bamboo with a very large rock over her grave. And wasn't I the one who was contemplating eating our girls at some point when they grew old? Guess that's right out when I am this undone by the end of one. And Baxter. Now that he's killed one, he can never be let out into the yard with them again. I'll need to find time this weekend to fix the front yard gates so they both close easily and he can be let out there.


Now I need to gather myself back together and get on with work. Oh this is hard.