Crabby, Crabby, Crabby!

Jessie feeding the little girls

Oh I am so crabby! I have been trying all day to slog through tasks and I am getting almost nowhere. Most of my woes are computer/software-related as today is a computer day for the glass studio. As my husband just pithily stated for himself "I am utterly uninterested in an OS upgrade at this time". Ditto.

Char and Jasmine--BFF

It's a good thing I have studio chickens and bunnies with whom to commune and who give me peace and joy. The chicken coop, bunny hutch and attached chicken/bunny run is in the back of the studio and J and I spend a lot of time there just hanging out. I never thought I'd find myself just standing in the run hanging with the chickens (really), but they are so soothing! No matter how bad the day might be, the chickens can always make it better. Some days I just don't want to leave the run. If I go missing Dave should check to see if I have put a cot in the coop... though that might be taking urban chicken keeping just a little bit far.

Jessie and Sadie (Half Moon?)

But I digressed long enough--back to software. I am looking at an expensive editing upgrade (it looks like it's finally time to pull the Adobe Creative Suite--i.e., Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., trigger), and I am going around and around today trying to figure out optimum configurations of software compatibility and money. ARGH!!! Welcome to the glass studio on Tuesday. Have I started my Niche piece? No. Have I finalized my booth size and location for the February BMAC? No. I flail. Oh yes, and I detox... again.

The new girls, Sadie and Half Moon

It's the end-of-summer detox through Kashi Yoga and I am so stressed and off-balance from the last six months that I decided to take a wee pause and immerse myself in the detox. Well I'm immersed alright. I'm caffeine-deprived, sugar-deprived, alcohol-deprived and seriously craving donuts!! This is the toughest detox I've done since the first one. (I'm sure Judy is going to hide under her bead after reading this post and not come in tomorrow.)

The Villager, Auburn

Speaking of tomorrow, Dee is coming down to help me put the final touches on the book outline which heads to the publisher for review and approval Thursday. I am *finally* moving ahead with this project after ten months of inactivity! Well, inactivity on it at least. And now that I think a bit more, I might be right to be scared right now as last year when I thought I'd finally have the margin to do the book, everything went to hell in a handbasket. I WILL slow down, I WILL slow down, I WILL slow down, I WILL slow down, (Brenda "the Train" Griffith).

The rolling of the Toomer Oaks

Last weekend Todd and I spent a couple of days at Ingrid Brown's The Villager gallery in Auburn, Alabama. It was an Auburn football weekend, and it is very difficult to convey to someone who has not lived through it exactly what that means. It means that over 87,000 people were in the stadium watching the game. Thousands of them (quite literally) came through the gallery while we were there. It had the same feel as the One of a Kind Show and Sale in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago with throngs of people packing the aisles all the times for two days--except during the game.

We had a lot of fun (and sold a lot of work) and are looking forward to going back next year. We were also fortunate enough to see the "rolling" of the live oaks kitty corner from Toomer's Drugstore when Auburn won. Those trees have a long history (with a recent sad entry), and it was interesting to see the sea of toilet paper covering them. The toilet paper (interesting note) is now hand cleaned off since the poisoning.

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Now since it's really Wednesday and Dee has come and gone, I best get on to today's post!

Roll-Ups In the Fall

Some may shout with glee when spring has sprung, but for me there is no greater joy to be found than that of the first cold day of impending fall. Today we (Tadashi, Amy Dee and I) did Pop Art roll-ups in the hotshop to send to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for the grand opening of their renovated flagship store in the contemporary wing. It was a *very* challenging day and I'm afraid Tadashi was tested almost to his limits.

Challenges (opportunities!) began with the very first piece when I overheated the collar and covered the hole on the blow pipe with glass. With roll-ups you do a lot of work before ever starting to blow the piece out so it was a long time later before we discovered the piece wouldn't expand properly. Others might have given up and chucked the piece--it was a practice slab after all--not predestined for a specific gallery. But Tadashi is a consummate professional. He puntied the piece up, made another collar on a new blow pipe, sealed it to the opening where the old blow pipe had been and continued to blow it out. However no sooner had we recovered from that disaster when, during a re-heat, I jumped the yolk off the rails in front of the glory hole and bumped the piece into the top of the glory hole doors (covering it with schmutz) while trying to get it out. Tadashi, calm and unflappable, used a Dremel with a diamond bit to clean the schmutz off, and we continued on again. It took an hour 45 to complete that one roll-up--and it was the practice piece for the order!

Amy and Dee showed up to help before the first piece was finished and marveled at the quality (and quantity) of the save. But even with their help and the cool weather, the rest of the pieces didn't flow as smoothly as they might have. I'm not going to actually write up the entire litany of our woes in this post, but just know that there was much woe, and Tadashi pulled out a perfect save on each and every piece. We finished another three roll-ups before 5:00, and we were pretty wiped. Amy brought over a Giordano's pizza (carried back frozen ready-to-bake from Chicago) and cooked it in our oven for lunch and it helped maintain our energy, but there is no doubt that a couple of months of no roll-ups took their toll on everyone.

After Amy and Dee left, I finished getting in my last kiln load of the day and Tadashi started on midnight blue and orange twist paperweights for me to take to Auburn tomorrow for the weekend in the gallery Todd and I are doing at The Villager. I am both looking forward to the trip and wishing I had another three days in the studio. The deadline for Niche Award submissions looms and I still have my piece to do (3-D dry screen printing in glass--oooooh!). I also have a conference with my editor at Lark on Monday about book deux, and she would like to see the outline in advance... Tomorrow is another week!

Oh Let's Blog!

It's the end of the day on Monday--not my usual blogging time. The dinner has been had, the Sprout has been put to bed, and the Benedictine is being sipped. Sister Hazel sings that It's All For You leading into Marc Broussard telling me it's "Where You Are". It was a Monday almost OFF. Not quite all--I answered some email, did some planning, and made some calls--but I did keep it low key. Tomorrow Dave heads off to Austin again and I have three days of heads down work. First thing I need to do is update the answering machine with the new days and hours.

But today's post is not about tomorrow's minutiae. Today's post is about the chicks! And the buns! You've probably heard about chicks in the city. Well, I have chicks in the studio--chickens, that is. We have a small flock--seven hens: Willow, Creamy, Tuxedo, Cookies & Cream, Sundust, Nightshadow, and Pearl--and they now live in the back of the studio yard with Jessie's two bunnies. The bunnies are Jasmine and Char--1129 Charcoal Grey (she is a Bullseye bunny, after all). J wouldn't let me retroactively name Jasmine to 1429 Silver Grey--more's the pity. Dan, our wonderful carpenter built us a Bullseye play yard and coop (got to love all those empty glass crates) in the studio yard and now all we have to do is wait for the eggs... till December or so. They're young chicks. The rest of their pictures can be found on our Facebook page here.

So why did we get chickens for the studio? I'm not really sure, but it made sense at the time--and we like eggs. And our backyard was full. It's really all of a piece as Jessie runs over to the yard and lets them out of the coop every morning and feeds and waters them (she'll also be on egg collection when there are eggs to collect), and then puts them back in at night. The bunnies and chicks living together are purely the fault of the Hencam lady...

Late, Late, Late!

It seems like just yesterday I wrote I'd be posting every day again... Life, it's what's happening! This morning I sit in Kavarna poised to move full-time into a new studio direction. How exactly I will implement this new vision is still being fleshed out. Certainly the cut-back in the open hours of the studio will be a part of it, but at the same time I am looking to increase the accessibility and value of the studio for our customers. Right now we are open a lot of days a week for walk-in traffic in a non-walk-in-friendly location and have a decent-ish web presence. I need to turn that around. Bullseye has begun two new programs for education and affiliation that look like a perfect match for where I would like to be--more virtual and virtually full-time without killing myself by trying to be *really* full-time. I have said for years that I need a couple of clones of myself. Well what better way to clone oneself than through the web?

Of course as soon as I come up with a plan, Loki (the trickster), tries to throw a monkey wrench in it. I taught yesterday and two of the students really loved kiln forming and want to take more classes. I, of course, said yes there are more classes they can take, and they can also come in for open studio... Then I remembered I am cutting back on teaching and open studio this fall and felt awkward. Today I have a family group of 7-10 people coming in to do a little glass blowing with Tadashi and a little kiln-forming with me and I am a bit grumpy because I don't have an uninterrupted day (again) to spend with my family. Balance. It's all about balance.

Now I need to get this post out, have breakfast, and get to the studio to finish preparing for the group. Tomorrow's post Studio Chicks and Buns!

Coming of Age

They say (the ubiquitous "they", arbiters of life) not to make any major decisions for six months after the death of a loved one. We are now homing in on six months after my father's death, my mother moving in with us, and a major tilt of my world axis. Even before then, however, I was straining for a path, balance, satisfaction--searching for that 'click' that happens when you know you're where you're supposed to be and doing what you're meant to do. I've come close before, but the deep, resonating 'click' has eluded me. Now, after a decade of mostly reacting, jumping first and looking later, talking about building my business and slowing down with the same breath, I sit in a calm, centered place (sadly not Montana), and I see what I need to do. And I feel peace and the rumbling purr of a choice well-made and in the right direction. What can I say? I'm a late bloomer (or 50--it's the new 40!).

So here are the personal facts (note how all of them begin with "I"... get it? Personal?):

• I like people in small doses.
  
• I do not like the obligation of five or six days a week of retail, phones, lessons, date nights, classes, and people trampling around in my artistic space.
  
• I really don't like being identified to said people as "our kiln-forming instructor" (talented or otherwise) instead of The Studio Owner, Empress Of All She Surveys (I only have my tongue a little in my cheek there--even Artist Extraordinaire, or Author of the best-selling (on Amazon anyway) "A Beginner's Guide to Kiln-Formed Glass" would be better than what I currently get.)
• I like my production work and have not had any time or spare energy to develop more of it in the past two years.
• I would like to grow in other artistic directions, e.g., the 3-D printing technique I learned from Steve Royston Brown prior to BECon this year, casting (introduced to me by Linda Ethier in a pre-BECon workshop *two years ago*), silkscreening glass on glass, pottery (glaze is glass, after all, and I am fascinated with integrating glass and clay), etc.
• I need family time that happens naturally and doesn't feel stolen. If I have to wrench myself away and suffer great guilt when I stop working before 9:00 pm, I had damn well really be raking in the Big Bucks so that I have something to show for all my hard work in my old(er) age and wow is this one not happening!

Okay. Enough whinging about poor, pitiful me (I was going to say whining, but I really like the Aussie term). Now let's look at how I run the studio from the cold, analytical space of business and finance:

• The most profitable activity in the studio is my production work.
• Classes (as I have set them up) are profitable if there is only one person eating the tuition pie, i.e., if I want to do all the teaching (and if each class has at least four people in it). Otherwise classes require more time, effort, salary, and materials (money) than they bring in (a net loss). Classes that are profitable (i.e., cost more and last longer--check out the Bullseye Resource Center class lists) do not fill here. I don't know if they fill for Brad Walker, Judith Conway, Paul Tarlow, Kari Minnick, or any of the other studio owners whose businesses I admire, and who seem to be able to pull off all the marketing and community-building required for a good retail business.
• Date Night is fun, a great concept, and a good way for someone working for me to make a living. It's another net loss for me as it is just not priced (or price-able) to share the income pie (especially when the personal cost of my space and peace enters into it).

Other factors in my decision-making process are the wishes and needs of the people who work for me. Not only do I no longer want to go full speed ahead, they do not want to either. One of them has also moved a significant distance from the studio so a daily commute for a couple of hours of work is out of the question--he needs scheduled, full days.

So it's time to give up on the Kevin Costner model of retail (if you build it, they will come), and move to something a little more 21st virtual century, and, dang it, something a little less at everyone else's whim and convenience (I'm whinging again, aren't I...). My proof on the evidence for the wisdom of the decision comes from last year's Date Night data. Last August was our busiest month ever (!), or so we thought.

However, last August we only offered 11 date slots a week. We were pretty much booked in advance all the time. I thought if we expanded our offering we would book the expansion too because we were booked so far out. Turns out that 14-18 hours a week is about the time Atlanta wants to spend on Date Night at the Glass Studio no matter how many times are available. The extra times just seem to make them feel more sanguine about getting in whenever they want so we get a lot more last-minute bookings than we used to--unsettling for the staff who don't know till the last minute if they will be working or not.

As far as the retail part goes, if I were in a shopping center or other retail area, I would feel much more obliged to be open at least five days a week. But I'm not: I'm in a 1920's Craftsman bungalow that was originally purchased to be my personal studio--not a retail/teaching space. I'm happy to run over to the studio anytime someone wants to buy something (it's not like it's a huge commute). I just don't feel the need to be responsible for being there working set hours each day (nor is it cost-effective to pay someone else to sit there twiddling her thumbs waiting for customers to show up all day every day). I am not--nor do I wish to be--the WalMart of glass open whenever οἱ πολλοί feel like shopping.

Finally, my extended time in Montana this summer shoved my face in the benefits of being able to focus on one thing at a time instead of running around flapping like a headless chicken. And I liked it. Now that I have finally come up for air for the first time since January, I am ready to winnow, to pare down, to divest, to find serenity, joy, calm and my groove again. And my decision 'clicks' down to my toes.

The result: I am changing the studio hours for fall to Thursday - Saturday, 10-5. I am offering regular beginning kiln-forming classes one weekday and one weekend day every three weeks. Glassblowing--both lessons and Date Nights--will be offered Thursday - Saturday (still tentative on those days, but it will be only three days) until the slots are regularly filled and then expansion will be done one day at a time, staff permitting. These changes take effect September 7. I feel better already.

Posting!

I just finished a really long post about New Directions for the studio (doesn't it seem like there are always new directions for me and my studio?). But, before releasing it to the world at large, I need to go over it all with the staff. I am also working on a newsletter--the first since April, a fall class list, the outline for the new book, marketing materials for the production work, on-line processes for managing registration and payment for classes, materials, etc., and the Siyeh Studio (professional work) website.

After a year of no time or air to breathe, it feels good to blog again, and I plan to keep it up. Come back tomorrow! In the meantime, here's a shot on the way to Iceberg Lake this summer...

Let the Travel Begin!

Getting ready to head out for Missoula in a few minutes to catch a plane to Atlanta this afternoon so I can pack for Baltimore tomorrow and drive up there Friday. Set-up for the summer Buyer's Market is Saturday--I have no idea how we're going to do the booth in an endcap, and the retail day is Sunday--first one ever and I also have no idea what I'm going to sell so no pricing done either. Wheeee!

Pictured at right is one of the new vases Tadashi designed as a Siyeh Studio production piece. Between these vases and the new roll-ups, we have quite a bit of new work for the show--sadly no kilnformed work by me. I have neither a new shape nor a new colorway. What can I say? It's been a busy spring/summer.

Okay, time to hug everyone good-bye, and wade through security. It'll be my first time with carry-on only in quite some time. Glad I remembered the quart ziploc bag...

Montana Has a Different Pace

Sipping coffee, listening to Harry Belafonte, and posting while a cool breeze blows through the house. Obviously I'm in Montana as cool breezes are but a memory in Atlanta right now. But here in Polson, it's 11:00 am and only about 68 degrees out. It's already been a full morning. I harvested Mom's rhubarb for the first time this year, washed it, cut it up, bagged it in eight pie-sized portions (four cups each), and popped it all into the freezer.

I got a great recipe for limoncello from Cynthia's friend Jerry while in Portland, and the knowledge of it is causing me to ponder the possibility of rhubacello... Yep. Found a recipe (or at least a rhubarb liqueur recipe--I'll use Everclear 190 as the base--and one for quince (which I grow in my garden in Atlanta). Oooh, lilikoi (passionfruit) liqueur! I may have a new hobby... When in Montana, thoughts turn from glass. Time to get back to thoughts of glass as I have a new booth for the Buyer's Market show at the end of the week to design (as Todd keeps reminding me), and a complete website to design and implement. My Siyeh Studio site was hacked last year, I took it down, and I still haven't put it back up. Need to do that so my wholesale customers can find me. They aren't so interested in Date Night, doncha know.

While I have been in Montana, the studio has been running without me--including full kiln-loads everyday (Dave is my studio boy), and orders shipping (I just hope to get through the summer without breaking Judy, my studio elf). Today they unloaded and loaded Bettina and fired her up without even calling me for the final programming instructions!

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The day is over. I trimmed the herbs back, pruned the front shrubs, looked up how to patch the holes in the shower surround, and bought lots and lots of Ziploc bags. Oh yes, and I ordered cookbooks. No web work was done, no booth layout. Tomorrow is another day...

Dear UPS Claims

As I indicated in the message I left Monday, I am not at the studio number for the next week. I am in Montana and need to be called on my cell phone (XXX-XXX-XXXX) with any questions. You can also use the following land line number (XXX-XXX-XXXX). Alternatively, email (to the return address on this letter) also works for any questions you might have as to how it was packed (bubble wrap, 2" clearance on all sides, Styrofoam peanuts packed tight around all the bubble wrap--makes the amount of crushing even more impressive), or what the claim amount was (one piece--which was valued at $155--out of the box--which was valued at $940--out of the shipment--which was valued at $1,703).

I left two messages with your agent asking her to please call me to clear up conflicting voicemail, email, carrier, and postal mail communication I received about this claim. I never received a call back. I was told the claim had been denied (postal mail). I was told you needed more information (voicemail). My carrier tried twice (the first time I wasn't there) to pick up the package for inspection from me when I had clearly stated that it was (quite logically) at the receiver's. I was asked to send photos of the damage--supposedly after it was inspected--when I got the package back. This was all very confusing, and, quite honestly, I felt like you hoped I would just give up and go away if you made it confusing enough.

So let's cut to the chase:
I am a glass artist. My clients are galleries and stores across the country. I ship with UPS almost daily when I am in production (most of the year). My breakage rate is extremely low. I have watched a carrier drop one of my boxes from the top of his dolly to the ground when he was loading it onto the truck (all glass contents, nothing broken). I pack my work for rough handling.

And, yet, those times when I do have a claim, it is invariably, immediately denied and I have to go through a long song and dance (just like I'm doing now) to get it approved. I have shipped over $49,000 in work with UPS so far this year (since January 1). This is the only claim I have had in that time period. The claim is for $155 + shipping to replace the one piece broken in the shipment. It is not for the $960 listed on the claim status page on my UPS online. I would appreciate any further questions to me regarding this claim be directed to the contact points listed above, and, frankly, I would appreciate the claim being paid asap so I don't have to spend any more time (which is money) on it. Thank you.

Why I Like Production Work

The past few days have been filled with firings of production work for orders and examples of production work for the upcoming Buyer's Market of American Craft show in Baltimore. As I sweltered in my 82 degree, humid studio Saturday afternoon and evening, I realized anew how much I like doing my current work. Yes, it is production work--which means that I might make anywhere from one to 40 of the same piece at the same time--but it is so much fun to make each and every one that I can't even think of it as making "the same thing" over and over. Color-blending frit rules. Then there is the beauty in the layout of the many as well as the beauty of the one. It's almost like quilting with glass.

When I crank the iPod up and rock out my 80's music, I like to focus on the larger patterns of the layout on my work table that will be lost as soon as the pieces are moved to the kiln. For example, the layouts shown are of 24 6" square plates in the "Fresh" colorway. I laid up 12 pieces at a time and got lost in the flow of the frit across piece boundaries. Notice the direction of the color in the squares in the first set above (photos taken after layers four and six) and the layout of the squares in the second set (also after layers four and six). I try to use the same pattern whenever I lay up a large number of square pieces, to minimize errors from exuberant but careless frit flinging, and in the second lay up I accidentally flipped one of the squares 180 degrees. The difference was obvious--and fascinated me--after the fourth layer, but it was much tougher to spot after the sixth.

Can you see how I would get lost in the patterns? Every piece is the same, and every piece is different. Each layer of frit and color brings a new pattern, a new watercolor painting for me to admire before I move each piece to the kiln for the glass to be transformed in texture, color, transparency by the heat. These 24 pieces are part of the current order from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I fused 78 pieces for them since I got back from Portland last Tuesday night.

Notice I said "fused". I am on my way to Montana today after only five days in the studio. I had over 160 pieces to make between my return from Portland and leaving for the BMAC next week and even firing full loads in every kiln every day, there was no way to get them all done. The only way to meet all the deadlines was to outsource some of the work. Clearly it wouldn't be efficient to both fuse and slump some pieces, but it worked out quite well for me to do all the fusing and then have someone step in to help with the slumping.

Lucky for me I have A Village--in this case, my long-suffering husband and Judy are stepping in to slump everything for me. It will take them five or six days to get it all done (and require meticulous instructions and firing schedules from me to make it work), but I have faith that they will rise to the occasion and I will come back from Montana next Wednesday to all orders shipped, and all my new work for the BMAC done and ready to load up Thursday (I leave for Baltimore Friday... WHEEEEE!!!!!) After 16 years, am I making a glass artist of my spouse, or does he just feel really, really sorry for how overwhelmed I am right now??

I took this final picture a couple of weeks ago when I had an order for four large award pieces and 58 earring trees in cobalt blue and lime green. I didn't have the cobalt/lime glass already made so I had to run up a few sheets to smash. The picture is of the four awards--16" X 24" each--and the six 4" X 20" strips of cobalt and blue. Bertha was full, full, full that day!

Life Changes

Today we got our first twinge of empty nest/how-fast-she's-growing-up syndrome as we packed Mom, Jessie, Baxter, Jig (the dogs) and Bailey (Mom's bird) into the car and sent them off to Montana. Even though I am flying out on Monday to meet them in Missoula and do the final driving lap with them, it was still an emotional parting. I think one thing that made it so big was I decided at 8:45 last night to see if I could activate J's iPhone and turn it from an iPod to a real phone. We weren't going to let her have a phone until she was 20--or at least 12--because we didn't see the need. But my Mom is trying hard to be the last person left on the planet without a cell phone and we really didn't want them driving 2200 miles without one. How life has changed in the past 20 years. I (as did everyone else) thought nothing of heading across country on my own in a less-than-reliable car with not even a phone card--much less a cell phone.

So now J has a phone, and it's as much so she can call us whenever she wants to as it is for safety. Maybe more. We just had our first chat (she called from Nashville) and I miss her so!!! The saga of the phone was quite funny. Turns out once a SIM card in a phone has been used it can never be provisioned again. As J has a used iPhone the card was no longer viable. No problem, you can buy a SIM card at CVS or WalMart. So while I am setting everything up with AT&T on the phone, Dave heads to WalMart (and we pause the Princess Bride--we had all been watching it for the 9000th time). Unfortunately when he gets back he tells me that they didn't have any SIM cards so he had to buy a disposable phone instead. But we live in the days of Miracles and Wonder, and the AT&T rep walks me through taking the SIM card from the disposable and putting it into J's iPhone. Voila--a new phone for $9.99 and no contract added to our family plan! It was pretty smooth and amazing.

We finished the Princess Bride (all but Mom who had given up and gone to bed in the middle of the tech storm) and fell into bed for a short five hours sleep before getting up to have a last family breakfast and send the travelers off. The last photos of the evening are of Dave and the J in their new BECon wear (J had to stand on the coffee table so I could get them both in the pic with my iPhone).

Home

Just set the time zone on the laptop from Pacific back to Eastern. It's no longer 3:13 am, it's 6:13 am... Really? Is that how it works? Apparently will ye, nill ye (or willy-nilly, if you prefer), crossing the country does require a reset of one's internal clock. I'm blathering. No time to blather. Order organization and processing up the wazoo today--not to mention a dentist appointment and all the usual first-day-back stuff to wade through.

The posts over the past three days have been more eloquent than usual--a direct influence of being away from home, on the west coast, and staying with Morganica (the most eloquent individual I know). Now I'm home and pragmatism rules again. For the past 12 days I wore nice clothes, make-up and jewelry every day. I thought differently, moved differently, and wrote differently. Today it's back to grungy stained t-shirts, no make-up, and a harried demeanor. Is that fair, I ask you? I want to stay the casual, well-dressed if not well-pressed artist/studio owner/writer I was in Portland. Ah well. Guess I'll go clean the cat box instead.

Good-bye Portland

I sit in Rogue Ales Public House in the Portland airport waiting for my flight. I have a big glass of Rogue Irish lager to my right (for which I am getting surreptitious scandalized glances from a woman at the next table... or is it envy as she sips her diet Coke?) and a cup of Harry's beer cheese soup to my left. Yes, it's only 10:30 am here, but it's 1:30 pm in Atlanta and I am preparing. Bullseye Breakfast of Artisans!

I have loved my time here. In part it was due to the innate beauty and grace of Portland herself and the Oregonians (both native and adopted) who inhabit her, in part it was because of the reason for my visit--Steve Brown's workshop and BECon, but the main reason I had *such* a lovely time was getting to stay with Cynthia Morgan. I swear we are twins separated at birth! Now I need to figure out a way to get her out to Atlanta to play around in my studio.

In a few minutes I will get on the plane with my little canvas bag chock full of Made In Oregon souvenirs (and two jars of homemade pickled beets from the farmer's market tucked into my suitcase) and head back to the heat and the bustle that is Siyeh Studio. I will miss the peace, quiet and reflective time I have had here. And I'll really miss my twin.

Art For Me!

Marietta Old Vine Red Lot Number 54 and Van Morrison's "Wild Night" on the radio playing through the restaurant--the restaurant being Tomaselli's Pastry Mill and Cafe in Elkton, OR across the street from the Elkton Cash Market and kitty-corner from the Brandborg Winery. My pizza has a chipotle-peanut butter BBQ sauced chicken, red and green peppers, and jalapenos on it... Can you say SPICY? It also has an amazing crust.

I promised a post on my upcoming artistic endeavors, and it's time to deliver. The summer looms (I whine my perennial "where did the spring go" lament) and I am staring down the barrel of orders, the BMAC, shuttling back and forth to Montana to help my Mom prepare her house for sale, and, oh yes, adding new work to my studio practice (yep, I've whole-spleenedly embraced that phrase)...

I have been trying to set-up regular casting in the studio since I got back from the last BECon and Linda Ethier's wonderful casting workshop. I have not succeeded. I have passionately talked a good game and enthusiastically encouraged other artists to provide me with their work (or rather, wax models of their work as they normally carve stone or sculpt clay to cast in pewter or bronze) which I would then render in glass. But who has had time? Not me. I am hoping that my upcoming visit to Hugh McKay's Cast Glass Forms foundry with Cynthia with rekindle the zest and sharpen my laser focus on casting.

Even more compelling to me right now than casting, however, is to continue my explorations of creating 3-D glass forms from glass powder cradled in clay powder and laid down on the kiln shelf through a series of screens--the lo-tech 3-D printing I learned in Steve Brown's workshop. Think of it as dry silkscreen printing over and over in the same spot until it's really, really thick. This is work I could easily do with a bag of clay powder, a kiln shelf, some mullite dams, a bunch of glass powders and a kiln. Oh yes and some screens (which I have from my class) sieves, sifters and brushes. It seems like a lot, but unlike lost wax casting, it's a very clean process with none of the messy boiling, spitting water from a wallpaper steamer melting out wax from a mold. A table, a box of dust masks, a little hand broom and dustpan and I'm good to go!

So how am I going to accomplish new work this post-BECon when I failed so ignominiously before? Heh. I am going to run away. I mentioned previously that I am going to Montana a bit this summer. The truth is that I am spending the bulk of the summer there, and there isn't a glass studio. Yet. I am looking forward to beginning one this year. For the present I am not going to try to do my current production work. Instead, I want to set up a medium-sized kiln and work in casting with traditional plaster silica molds and the lo-tech 3-D printing described above. I am leaving Judy in charge of the studio in Atlanta, and Lori, Tadashi, Lee, Domenick, Amy, and Brian will keep the studio running smoothly without me. No equipment will break, nothing outside of the usual course of business will happen, there won't be any art emergencies where a client needs some thing RIGHT NOW... Well, I can dream, can't I?

I promised Dave that when I turned 50 I would SLOW DOWN. It's time to make good on that promise, and stepping away from the Atlanta studio a bit (and setting up a Montana studio) is a good start. Really. Did I mention I am completely obsessed with this screen/powder technique?

BECon and Artists

Champagne in a lovely highball glass (for breakfast! with toast!), French press coffee with lots of cream in a mug next to it, and the rising and falling conversation of Tadashi and Morganica (Cynthia Morgan) for my music. BECon 2011 is over. My batteries are refilled to the bursting--as is my spleen... (appendix? Liver? Heart? What organ is the creative seat of the body?) I don't know from where the creative juices flow, but they have welled and filled every nook and cranny in my body and I need to get home and let them out. Thank you Steve Royston Brown.

The workshop I took from Brown was incredible. Even though my second and third pieces did not turn out (incorrect firing schedules--not enough heat so the middles of each piece [made of glass powder] stayed powder and crumbled to dust when I de-molded them) I am completely inspired to continue this body of work when I return to my own studio practice (more on studio practice in a minute) next week.

Who am I kidding?!? When I get back to the studio I am going to dive head-first into orders, work for both the wholesale and retail portions of the BMAC show in Baltimore, running a teaching studio, selling glass and tools, managing a hotshop, setting up a second hotshop/casting studio, having glass date nights, scheduling torchwork beadmaking classes, and managing employees... Making art. *snort* Like I have time for *that*! (But I will, and I'll tell you how tomorrow. Promise. I'm going to take a page from Cynthia's book and write tomorrow's post now--as soon as I finish this one--and schedule it to run tomorrow. Heh. Now more about, well, being an artist.)

I have retreated to Morganica's red leather couch with the heather purple knitted throw her mother made over my legs. It's time to really post. The problem with not posting for a month... er, two months(!) is that if I don't post, it means a LOT is happening that is worth posting about, and the task of getting it all documented may be critically important (at least to me), but it is also physically impossible. Life doesn't stand still just so I can catch up. But I am in charge. I am the adult (snicker). I'm going to jump around a bit and not worry about chronology. Linear order be damned--it may be how things happen, but it doesn't have to be how we think about them, remember them, or chronicle them.

Though I just wrote that life doesn't stand still, today, for me, I am making it do just that. I am ruthlessly avoiding any external stimuli. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to meet anyone. I don't want to see anyone else's work or studio or learn about their technique. Today is a day to process everything I took in over the last week and figure out a way to ease it into my own studio practice. See? I now have a studio practice. All the presenters at BECon talked about their practices. For a couple of moments I thought I was at a medical convention, but then I, too, became taken by the imagery of an artistic practice. Hopefully less than doctors (really, hopefully) we actually are all practicing all the time.

I am also not an artist, I'm a "maker" (the other term used by all the presenters)--which is great because I can't quite get my skin around being an "artist"--even after an hour lounging on Morganica's entryway floor last night floor passionately debating what is art and do I do it with her and Tadashi. I woke up this morning with the strong, clear thought that I am an artist. Then I got over it. I don't create just to convey a message or make a statement, and I have a problem with complete lack of utility. Sure, some of my makings are entirely decorative and not at all utilitarian, and I look forward to creating new work that is just as useless but edgy rather than decorative. But whatever I make needs to engage more than the brain through the eyes. I need it to have a touch--a coolness, a softly catching slipperiness, a weight. I need it to change in different lights and contexts.

Like an artist, I want my work to provoke a response upon first sight and to continually engage the viewer/toucher. But unlike many artists I have met, I am thrilled with the the response being a completely unintellectual reaction of "how beautiful!". Someone wanting to hold and touch my work and to pass it through different lights is the reaction I am usually working to provoke. I don't often want my work to be just a touchstone to provoke an emotional response from the viewer based on his/her philosophical/religious/cultural response. I am not looking to change the world with every (heck, maybe not any) piece I create. It is more important to me to comfort and nurture than it is to shock. Don't get me wrong--I might do work to provoke and shock too, but, if that's all I did, it would simultaneously exhaust me and bore me to tears.

There were many artists presenting at and attending BECon. They came from a variety of backgrounds, though painting was a common thread. They had art degrees--many of the presenters had multiple art degrees and academic credentials. (So many, in fact, that I wondered aloud last night if I should pursue an art degree in order to claim a respectable place in the community. Cynthia and Tadashi vetoed the idea.) The artists were as passionate and high-strung as thoroughbred racehorses and I marveled that the worth-of-work issues (reference "art degrees" above) I have (usually after being around artists) in my self-identified place on the craft side of the art-craft chasm are apparently vastly smaller than those of the artists on the other side.

The people who identify themselves as artists still seem to have as much or more difficulty with their work being accepted by artists in the traditional fine arts media as I do having my work accepted by glass artists. Fortunately for me, it doesn't seem to bother me as much. I was reminded a bit of my time in academia where faculty members used to squabble over the the size of their offices, the number of chairs and windows in said offices, and how they all related to the faculty member's importance in the department. All that said, I am glad to have the title of "maker" to adopt.

Posting?

I have meant to post for the past couple of days, but chatting with Morganica has been all-consuming. My mind is awhirl with ideas, designs and techniques. And now I head off to to Bullseye for my workshop. Later. I'll post later (BE doesn't have open wi-fi in the Resource Center). Later!

Oh Yeah, It's Time To Post!

After maybe the most challenging two weeks in the studio EVER, I am finally back to post. (INSERT NOTE: It is now five days since I started this post so make it the most challenging THREE weeks in the studio ever!) Why has it been challenging? Well for one thing, expansion construction continues apace with the extension on the coldworking room almost finished, the new hotshop done but for electric--and a new in-ground trampoline, raised vegetable garden, cinderblock bog pond and 16'X12' 2'-3' deep pond being added to our backyard next to the studio. The design and construction alone were enough to keep me busy full-time, but I didn't HAVE full-time for them. Nope.

The Chihuly exhibit at the MFAB continues to be very, very good to me. The museum did a normal order for their stores at the BMAC in February requesting 64 pieces for a 4/1 ship. The exhibit opened on 4/7, and they put in a rush order for another 116 pieces for a 4/15 ship. Now one frazzled month later they are up to 665 pieces to be shipped between 4/1 and 5/31--and the exhibit goes through August 7! I begin to be concerned for my summer travel plans to Montana (and the weaving class I was going to take in New Hampshire in June is now right out...).

I already over 100 pieces to ship the first of May from the Buyer's Market (BMAC) show in February--many of them very large. Bertha, Bettina (the big-girl kilns) and I have become very good friends these past few weeks as I have spent every night from 7 pm to 11 or 12 pm with them. I was not alone. My Mom came over every night after dinner for the past week or so and unloaded Bertha and washed and ground the edges (as necessary) on all the newly fused pieces from her so they could g into Bettina for a slump. Dave kept me company and occasionally unloaded Bettina if I hadn't gotten around to it. Jessie swept the studio floors and watered the flowers in the front bed. Judy kept the frit filled and Amy made the morceaux.

Roll-ups have also kept us quite busy at the studio, and it's coming up time to review our paperweight line and plan the colors and designs for the upcoming BMAC. Speaking of the BMAC, the calendar looms: the BMAC is hot on the heels of BECon, which begins (for me) the day after my birthday which is just over two weeks away--right after I get back from Phoenix (where I am now with Mom and J visiting Mom's brother, my uncle Ed--shown here with J). Before the BMAC I need to get two more big orders out, figure out what work I'm going to show and make it, have the roll-ups and paperweights photographed, have postcards made... oh yes, and make a new website for Siyeh Studio (as opposed to Siyeh Glass) for my production work.

I begin to think my 50th year may be my busiest yet!

Has It Really Been Two Weeks?

I need to post quickly before something else explodes or takes a radical detour sideways (too late--everything happened and now it's after 11:00 pm and I'm finally posting!)... It's been a challenging couple of weeks since I last posted. I believe at the time I mentioned a really full life. Hah. I hadn't even begun to see a really full life two weeks ago. NOW I know what a really full life is, and I gotta say, it's not for me. Here are some pics of everything that has physically happened at or around the studio in the past two weeks:

The hotshop before any new construction:














Then after the first few days:















Then when finished (notice the nice deck for datenighters):



























Then there's the new coldworking room expansion which was started and mostly finished in one day:


















And with the new siding, walls and floor up (but with the old interior wall--need to cut that one out still):














Finally, The inside of the new kiln-forming classroom:


















Now I'm tired and need to go to sleep. Another post tomorrow morning I hope).

We Now Pause For Station Identifiction

I love Mondays anymore. I used to be like any other commuter and hate both the thought and the acts of getting in the car, driving to work. and starting another week. Now Monday is still a work day, and I still have a commute (across the backyards though it may be), but the studio is CLOSED. No one is scheduled to work but me. Can you say "regroup"?

I have had the fervid intention to post every day since the year began. Last week, not so successful. Was I slacking? Heck no! I taught three classes--two of them with no preparation as they were not on the calendar and when the participants arrived for their classes I was hip-deep in other projects. But they all three went well. I also finalized the schedule and processed the paperwork for the four (four!) new (new!) studio employees, and Judy left Friday on vacation for two weeks... That Judy keeps the entire studio running has never been more apparent than in the past few days. To add another ring to our circus, Dan our wondermous carpenter came and put the sliding glass doors in between the kiln room and the kiln-forming classroom, and today he was scheduled to begin the coldworking room and hotshop expansions and build the ventilation system for the beadmaking classroom. (I say scheduled as he had car trouble and we had to postpone till tomorrow--Whew!)

But the cherry on top of the whipped cream on top of the triple-scoop sundae that was my full week last week came when the buyer from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston called Thursday afternoon in a panic. I shipped them 66 (66!) pieces on 4/1 which were destined to be split between three of their gift store locations. They had another 50 on order to be shipped today as they currently have a self-curated Chihuly exhibit (Chihuly being the self--not the exhibit) in the Art of the Americas Wing and they thought they might sell some glass art in conjunction with it. Yeah. Uhuh. They put out my work on Tuesday to fill in some empty spots in a location they hadn't planned on putting it, and people grabbed it up like it was on sale in Filene's Basement. My buyer upped her order to *116* pieces on Friday and we pushed back the ship date a day (maybe two). That's why I have been in the studio till midnight every night.

So the Pause For Station Identification... There are so many directions I am going in right now that I am not sure who I am. Am I still a production glass artist? Not really--production time is relegated to the evenings after my "real job". And isn't that a kicker as it's the production work that's bringing in the money to fund everything else right now! Usually it's the day job that pays for the evening's "art". No more. In just over a month I'll be 50 and I STILL don't know who I'll be when I grow up. Nevermind who I want to be--who stands still long enough to think about wanting something? Do or Do Not--there is no Want.

On the plus side, if I died tomorrow no one could say I hadn't lived a really full life!

Adversity, Your Name Is Hotshop

"The mark of your true nature is in the grace with which you face adversity." Thank you Alicia Lomne for the wonderful quote on Facebook this morning.

Yesterday was packed AND challenging for me, as were the two preceding days and as will be today. Yesterday's biggest challenge came in the staff cost of running the hotshop last week with the thermocouple not functioning. When you run a business--no matter how well you run it--there will be weeks you only make a little to bank for the next rainy day, and there will be weeks when you just break even and you're glad to be alive to fight another week. Last week we hemorrhaged money babysitting the thermocouple--It would have cost far less to have just shut the hotshop down rather than to keep it operating sub-optimally.

I keep trying to tell myself that it was a one-off week, hindsight is 20-20, etc., but the reality is that last week hit really hard and we can't have another like it. Period. Not a good day to have to go through when planning a hotshop expansion.

Almost Caught Up!

After two days of post-vacation stress, I am hair-on-fire, full speed ahead. I think I am wearing the very nice people at Olympic Kilns out with me requests for modifications and tweaks to their kilns. I dropped the furnace off yesterday morning to get the thermocouple fixed/replaced and picked up the new bead annealer. Tomorrow I'll take the bead annealer back up to get the doors cut down a little and pick up the furnace. I wish they weren't 40+ miles away, but at least I have the option of going in person and not shipping.

Today is payday in the studio--the first payday with all the new staff. On April 1 we had to switch to a formal bi-weekly pay schedule from having one person bi-weekly and two others whenever-there-was-a-sufficient-amount-due as I have hired *four* more people in the past three weeks! Wheeee! We (the current staff) are excited to be joined by Domenick Peronti, production glassblower and teacher; Amy DeBaets, hotshop assistant (extraordinaire); Lori Schinelli, retail glass manager and kiln-forming instructor; and Tadashi Torii, hotshop manager and lead production artist (for roll-up work we finally get to formally add to our studio offerings). Lee will be the lead teacher in the new expanded space. Brian is still a little lonely up in the beadroom all by himself, but Lee is VERY relieved to be cutting back a bit and giving his knees (and fiery hair) a respite from the 50-60 hour weeks in the hotshop. More info on these wonderful new Siyeh staff Coming Soon to the website (and the newsletter--which is not late unless I call it a quarterly newsletter :-).

In typical how-much-more-can-I-chew fashion, Dan will be in to start the hotshop expansion (a second hotshop off of the first one about half the size of the original) next week, and I'm also going to ask him to expand the coldworking room at the same time. No time like the present! I just hope the payments for the orders I've shipped so far this year start coming in or things could get ugly. Yes, I could have waited to have the money in hand before scheduling the work, but the stars have aligned for getting the new hotshop done NOW and who am I to argue with the stars? Now that I have three glassblowers chomping at the Date Night/lessons/production bit, I need to have a workspace (and work) for them all. Part of the work will be a renewal of roll-up work in the studio. With only one glassblower, we could barely keep up with Date Nights--much less lessons and, far down the line, new production work. But with Domenick and Tadashi--who worked with Johnathan Schmuck doing roll-ups a few years ago and who has produced them for local artists in his own studio since--we are ready to have an entirely new line of work for this summer's BMAC!

Okay, people and projects waiting in the studio, more tomorrow!

Coincidence or Unattributed Inspiration?

I probably wouldn't have even posted today had Bill not sent me this picture from the current Artful Home catalog asking if it reminded me of anything. While no one could ever say it is a copied design, the similarities are striking enough to me that I thought I'd put the work out there for comment. What do you think? Did someone see our Balance piece and say, "Hey, I like that shape! I want to do something like that and call it mine!"?

Today is the ante penultimate day at the beach. Spring break is almost over and we will have to return home to our lives. I have used the time here very productively... to sleep. Yep, I've managed at least 11 hours a day of sleep since we got here last Sunday. I've done a bit of planning and web design work, caught up on date night photo issues and started preparing the next newsletter (already a week late), but mostly I've slept. And as I've slept, I've dreamed. In my dreams I have felt the stirrings of ideas for new designs and a build-up of the energy necessary to realize them. The goal when I get back to the real world (also known as the studio) is to hoard this energy and use it slowly and wisely--no more 17-hour studio days.

Of course, I look at my list of the projects I have awaiting me there and it's depressingly long and diverse--nothing sucks up energy more than a bunch of little to medium projects all requiring development of new skills or reawakening of rusty ones. Give me one or two big projects any day. I have to learn to say "No" to little repairs--especially stained glass ones. I don't even work in stained glass anymore and I am way out of practice.

But worrying about the little things is for after the ultimate (in the sense of last) day at the beach. I'll grumble more next week.

Postscript:

I went a little ways further through the Artful Home catalog and found the work below (the pieces at right are mine). Even more depressing is that this is someone I mentored at the BMAC a few years ago and encourage every time I see him. There were many times he could have said, "Gee, I really like your Pop Art series, I think I'll do something like it!". Am I wrong or petty for thinking he should have?