In Without Knocking to the First Saloon I See

Coffee in the Washington DC mug, "The Fields of the Pelenor" by Howard Shore on iTunes. Yep, more Lord of the Rings. A slight sequitur: Viggo Mortensen should have won the academy award for Eastern Promises. What a great scene he did fighting the assassin naked in the baths--and the rest of the movie was really good too. The mug is for Barbara Muth. I can't remember if I have yet written this down, but in case not... When I was writing the acknowledgements for the book I was a bit rushed, and I should have been keeping written track of everyone I wanted to thank from the beginning. But I didn't, and I forgot to include a few at the last minute. The most prominent of the not-mentioned was Barbara. She helped with project ideas (notably the Harlequin candle trays) when the publisher wanted to switch things around. She was also a great sounding board and early encourager in the process--as well as just fun to be around. So thanks, Barbara. And thanks again for the mug.

"The End of All Things"--a very Wagnerian, ride-the-Valkyries-off-to-Valhalla kind of piece from The Lord of the Rings--just came on iTunes reminding me of the day ahead. Today I slog through the last big pieces for the new designs. I write "slog" because it has been tough matching the new metal work to the glass. I need new colorways or reworks of old colorways to best show off the new metal, and I am coming up dry.

The new spring greens with yellow, chartreuse and the new Bullseye pea green with a bit of black (a bit too much black) were uninteresting. Feh. The blue, turquoise and orange/amber inspired by the copper seahorses in our powder room were either boring or just odd. Only the rework of "Conundrum" (shown in Sunday's post below) turned out well. Yesterday I reworked "Water" for the new koi pieces and added some black to "Flame" for the new poppy pieces. As soon as I'm done posting I'm going to go see how they turned out. Wish me luck. I will either do some more tweaking of "Water" and "Flame" for today's pieces or or repeat yesterday's formulae.

Tomorrow I have to take all the new pieces up to Greenville to Elliott Metal Works from whence they will be shipped off to ACRE in Vegas... and I still don't have my display done! I finish with "In Without Knocking" by Mission Mountain WoodBand... I'll be raisin' hell and drinking whiskey down later. Maybe next week in Disney World.