Wee Free Glass Artist

Diet coke in the can, "Wild Boys" by Duran Duran fading into "Right Now" by Van Halen on the iPod. The day progresses as does studio arrangement and glass production. Yesterday while I was working, UPS was taking the day off. Even the post office was open yesterday, but UPS was CLOSED so the two orders I had ready to ship did not go.

Today I already have the small kiln firing and I'm preparing to do the birdbath (again) (for GPQ) in the medium kiln. I enjoy writing, but I've had a hard time swallowing that particular frog. I think my biggest obstacle is doing the photo shoot all by myself in addition to the design and the writing. The writing is the easy part--I also need to do a quasi-professional job photographing all the steps and the finished piece.

Big Bertha is set up for a slump load of the little rectangular sushi (chocolate) (tapas) plates. Those plates are the only production pieces I do where one piece of fused glass is cut into multiple pieces--five, to be exact. For everything else one fused piece equals one finished piece and I don't grind and polish the edges prior to slumping. These little plates are extremely labor-intensive as I lap-grind the edges with two different diamond grit sizes before slumping. I'm firing 30 of them today so I'll be spending quite a bit of time at the grinder this afternoon--and it's already almost 1:00.

So much for time to make wee folk dolls today. I am planning a set based on Terry Pratchett's book "The Wee Free Men" to give to Jessie for Christmas. I am reading the book to her now as her chapter book before bed, and she spends much time running around the house shouting "Crivens!", "Waily, waily, waily!" and "Wee little burdie" in her best Scottish accent. Never having been to Scotland or having conversed with a Scottish person, her versions are a hoot.

Okay, back to glass. It's the weekend, but there is work to be done.