The End of One Era and the Beginning Of Another

Today marked the beginning of the end of Siyeh Studio Atlanta. I haven't finished moving the contents of the studio to Austin yet--I still have all the sheet glass, half sheets and 10X10's of fusible that haven't sold, all the sheets of glass for stained glass left, and other odds and sods left. I also haven't put it on the market because I still have stuff in it, and Brian is using it for his torch-work studio. In spite of the fact that it is not on the market, I accepted an offer on it today with a closing date of asap and definitely within 30 days.

While it makes sense to sell it, my feelings are bittersweet about the final end of 2480 Memorial Drive as my studio. When I think of it, I think of our carpenter Dan building everything from the kiln room to the hotshop to the shed to the chicken coop to the second hot shop/ceramic studio--which we never even got to use! I remember the good times in the hotshop, the sleigh rides, the date nights, the classes and the studio elves. Sure there was a lot of tension and stress with running a retail business, a hotshop, my own production glass business, and managing date nights--and I have to say I won't miss the retail, the hotshop or the date nights--but in tonight's memory (rose-tinged as it is) I feel nostalgia with a twinge of sadness. I also dread the speed up in tempo that selling the studio will require of me.

It looks like a trip to Atlanta is in my near future. It would make sense to do one more sale day for glass and fixtures, and then pack the rest up and haul it back to Texas, but time is already tight and it's going to take me a lot of work to pack everything--the architectural glass alone is going to be a ginormous pain in the patooty. So for those in Atlanta either interested in glass or in seeing me, how does the week of February 7-13 look?

The studio in Austin has big news from today too: the solar was turned on and is functional! The solar company had to turn it back off again and remove their test meter as we are now waiting for Austin Energy's inspection and new meter installation, but I am hopeful that in just over a week, Siyeh Studio will be a solar glass studio.