Lulls

Starting the day with a mocha and a bagel with cream cheese at ChocoLate and typing my post with one hand. If I were a touch typist I'd be out of luck, but I'm adaptable if slow. In one of those perfect alignments of the universe "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" by Green Day just came on the satellite radio.

"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life."

Immediately followed by Soundgarden "Fell on Black Days" and then "The Rain King" by Counting Crows. Good grief, maybe I *am* still 16 and I just had a bad break-up with my boyfriend and now every song on the radio reminds me of us (or, in this case, last Saturday, turning points, life changes, etc.). I have to close my ears now or I won't get anything else done this morning. (Or, as Cher so eloquently put it when she slapped Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck, "Snap out of it!")

As I am Out of Glass (how does that happen anyway?), and R&L apparently won't be delivering my glass today, I am having a transitional couple of days. It's a good time to take stock of my business--or I could just follow Minnie Driver's advice in Grosse Pointe Blank:

"Hey, I know everybody's coming back to take stock of their lives. You know what I say? Leave your livestock alone."

These little lulls in between the sheer mind-numbing roller-coaster terror of Big Events are kind of entertaining. I have the illusion of time. I actually think I have time to plan casting set-up and projects, next stage studio expansion, web site consolidation and development, class lists, product growth, marketing focus, show strategy. Can we all roll on the floor laughing out loud now? When will I learn? No, really, when?

Maybe it's enough for this morning just to post before I go plan the obstacle course for the Waldorf Holiday Fair as the third-grade rep in charge of the project so I can present it at the parent meeting tonight. Think Indiana Jones in a Haunted House navigating physical obstacles, finding objects and solving riddles (mental obstacles) in the themes of first through sixth grade in a Waldorf school--fairy tales, fables and saints, old testament, vikings, Egyptians and Romans.

In fitting closure for the post, The Cranberries "Dreams" just came on Sirrius fm:

"Oh, my life is changing everyday
In every possible way
And my dreams it's never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems

I know I've felt like this before
But now I'm feeling it even more
Because it came from you
And then I open up and see
The person falling here is me
A different way to be

I want more, impossible to ignore
Impossible to ignore
And they'll come true, impossible not to do
Impossible not to do"

Sixteen again indeed.

Fish Day in the Studio, Gumbo for the Gulf Recap

Coffee in the New Orleans skyline mug--how appropriate considering today's topic of our Gumbo for the Gulf event,"Cardinal Song" from Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers by The National for tuneage. Fall is here, summer isn't even a memory. It went by so fast, so chaotically, and so stressfully that I am lucky to not remember it through my exhausted haze. Fall has brought cool weather, rain, and the long-anticipated Slowing Down for me (really). It's also brought a return to blogging (yay!) so let's get on with it.

Last Saturday was our first big event in the studio in a long time. We had a fish-themed project day aligned with a charity event--Gumbo for the Gulf--with all proceeds from the gumbo going to the Nature Conservancy's Fund for Gulf Coast Restoration.

We had quite the team lined up for the day. Brian demoed making fish beads. Lee helped former date nighters (or anyone who had taken an intro to glassblowing from us) blow glass fish. Todd assisted anyone age four or up in making a kilnformed fish. Dave (my wunder spouse) served gumbo and beer all day. Dee ran the front desk/cashier station greeting people and managing the donations/payments. Judy ran the information room which featured a running slideshow of all our date nights to date (over 110), a board with photos of all the daters in order of their dates, and sign-up sheets for several upcoming classes. Lee's daughter Evie and two of his regular students/protegees Austin and Christie assisted Lee with the flow in the hotshop. Judy's husband Carol was on-hand to help with whatever unassigned tasks might manifest, and I was the designated floater for pitching in wherever needed. It was the most prepared I have been for anything in the studio ever--and it took more than a village to make it happen.

Even before Saturday we were preparing. I spent two days organizing and cleaning in the studio during the prior week, and then Judy, Dee, Lee, Austin, Carol, Brian, and Todd all pitched in on Friday for the final straighten/organize schlep-it-to-the-shed push. Dee also picked up the 1/2 keg (15 gallons) of Shiner Bock for the big day and delivered it to the studio.

Food preparation started Thursday--at least the physical part. The mental preparation and organization had been going on for over a month since Dave read about the Gumbo for the Gulf dinner concept and decided he wanted to do one for our friends. I shanghaied both him and his idea and turned it from food for 10-15 at our home into food for 160 at the studio. He rose admirably to the occasion and got several of our friends (thank you Becky-the-bookkeeper, Keith and Arno-Dee's-husband) to pitch in and help.

On Friday Arno trimmed and chopped 20 lbs of chicken thighs. Becky and Dave chopped 15 onions, 20 green peppers, 40 celery stalks, and ten bunches of scallions. All choppers slayed 10 lbs of andouille sausage. Keith made the roux from scratch and directed construction. Arno and Dave baked cornbread. Dave planned 10 batches of the recipe cooked in three segments. Food chopping and prep began at 9:00 am Friday and actual cooking began at 9:00 pm and went till midnight. Dee, Mike and I supported the chefs by drinking beer and eating Thai take-out. Dave was up and cooking again at 4:30 am on Saturday and we opened the studio doors at 10:00 am.

We were mostly ready and in our places for the first two attendees who showed up right at 10:00 am sharp (I always have at least an hour of last-minute putzing to do for shows and big events, and Saturday was no exception). And then we waited. And we waited some more. Maybe people were afraid they wouldn't find parking. I sent out another email with instructions for free parking. And then we waited some more. By the time we closed the doors, 11 people had come to our Fish Saturday in the Studio and Gumbo for the Gulf event. Three or four of them blew fish, three or four of them donated money to the Nature Conservancy in exchange for a bowl of gumbo and (maybe) a beer, some of them just donated money because they had eaten before they came.

It was hard for me to decide to write this post. It's easy to write about successes, plans, exciting developments--even bad shows. Writing about Saturday feels like telling the world you threw a party and no one came, or sharing how you went to a dance and spent the night standing by the wall--the only one never asked to dance. But I'm not 16 anymore, and business isn't a popularity contest. If I didn't get the attendance I thought I would (/deserved) then I need to try something else next time. There were a lot of reasons people stayed away Saturday and I would venture none of them were about me. Well, no more than one or two of them were about me. I'm sure some of them were about Todd, or Dee, or Lee...

All kidding aside, it was a really rough day, and I hope both that our one year anniversary party next month goes better, and that I still have a village that'll show up to help! Here's a last shot of Carol heading home with a thermos of gumbo and a thermos of Shiner. What a way to end the day.

100th Date in the Glass Studio!

I sip my coffee from the Glacier National Park red go-mug on a wooden bench in the dappled sun outside the hospitality room at the Waldorf School as I wait for my 8:30 meeting to begin. Did I forget any prepositions? What a week! Month! Summer! Year! whew.

Yesterday I not only got out the September newsletter, but I also outlined the October one. There are 98 new photos up on the Siyeh Glass Facebook page (only of the first 100 couples for whom we have photo releases). We celebrated our 100th date in the glass studio yesterday morning. Am I repeating myself? I feel like I'm repeating myself. Must be because I wrote THE SAME THING IN THE NEWSLETTER AND ON THE FACEBOOK PAGE! There might be such a thing as too much social networking (ya think?).
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Okay, one meeting down, one to go, then breakdown the exhibit at MODA and finally into the studio! Maybe I should fire some kiln loads today... Judy, the studio elf, is on vacation leaving me running the inside of the studio alone. Oy. I forgot how much work it is. Lee is smart--he's taking the hotshop offline for maintenance this week (I think he just wants some time not running like a madman with his hair on fire). No doubt about it, we have been popular lately. The strategy of many baskets with a few eggs each is paying off for everything except getting enough family time and sleep.

Also got a bunch of the date night slideshows up on YouTube yesterday. Hope to get most (if not all) of the rest of them up today. Later today I'll get all the date night night cd's mailed out--whew! I made almost 40 slideshows and burned more than 50 cd's since I got back from the Buyer's Market in Baltimore. If you do the math, that's almost half our date nights happening in about six weeks. No wonder I'm tired (and Lee melted away from the August heat in the hotshop). But I'm caught up through this past Friday, and I'm going to try really hard to stay caught up. Things just get ugly otherwise.

Okay, off to make more slideshows! (Oh who am I trying to kid?! I'm off to take a nap THEN get in the kiln loads and do the slideshows while J is at swim practice.)

September? Really?

White Jasmine Tea in the Montreal mug, "Samson" by Regina Spektor (punctuated by frequent coughs from me) for music. Day Three of the Patagonian Death Flu and I feel... better. I feel well enough--and have enough margin--to post anyway. Since everything I do today will probably have to be done from a chair and in between naps, posting isn't a great stretch. Sure there are many other things higher in the priority list--hence the paucity of posts over the past couple of months--but I have no physical energy and my mental acuity is only so-so (though my vocabulary appears to be in fine fettle). I also appear to be having some difficulty focusing (literally and figuratively). But let's try to move on to glass.

I promised a post on the Buyer's Market and have not yet delivered. Here we go in a nutshell.

Staff, Facilities, Location
Excellent service from Joe and Maria at Hargrove. Got off to a rocky start with damaged crates, and out-of-reality shipping charges, but they took care of everything smoothly and efficiently. The Rosen team--right up to the chief Rosen--were both attentive and appreciative of our needs. I saw either Christine (the show manager) or Laura (my floor rep) walking our aisle several times a day everyday to make sure no one needed anything. The Baltimore Convention Center was very nice with indoor unloading on the same floor as the show (no interminable lines in front of the freight elevators). We got a cheap, cheap, cheap deal at the Sheraton a couple of blocks from the Convention Center and the rooms were very nice. Local restaurants (predictably) had hot and cold running crabcakes and smoked-hamhock-and-bacon-infused martinis (well, to be honest, only ONE restaurant had the martini but it was so yummy I had to mention it). The American Visionary Art Museum was AMAZING by all accounts (I did not go this year but will next summer--and John bought me a really cool Medusa flexible light-up snake headband from there).

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers
Sales the first day were amazing--as I indicated in my last post. Days two and three, however, were disappointing and dismal, respectively. And I should have expected it. Why? Because it was a small show. Unlike big February Buyer's Markets, the show was small enough for buyers to walk it and place their orders in one day--and a lot of people came the first day. While I saw some familiar faces, there were a LOT of longtime/big exhibitors who weren't there. I heard a consistent level of grumbling from buyers that there weren't enough exhibitors to make the show worthwhile for them. Funny, the exhibitors felt the same way--I heard much muttering that there weren't enough buyers to make the show worthwhile for them. Mutiny, mutiny, mutiny.

As always, the declining positive impact of shows on both buyers and exhibitors is a worthwhile topic, but it's not one I can follow in my muzzy state today. At the end of the show for me, my sales were up from last summer's Buyer's Market and up from the ACRE show in June. I plan to give shows in general, and the two Rosen shows in particular, another year. Now it's time to nap.

BMAC--Live From Baltimore!

Day 2 of the summer Buyer's Market--held for the first time in Baltimore. I'll post at length tonight on set-up and the first two days of the show. However, for those waiting with bated or baited breath, just wanted to say that the show was good to *very* good for everyone I talked to yesterday, and it is so far WAY above expectations. I did about as much in sales yesterday as I did at ACRE in June for the whole show--and I saw current customers who didn't have a chance to order yesterday and who promised to come back today. We'll see how it all shakes out.

I'll also write about last night's amazing dinner at Vino Rosina and expound on the excellent Crotchless (hamhock/bacon/pepperoncini, and more) martini I had.

Where You Been, Willis?

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

I've been down to London to visit the Queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?

I frightened a little mouse, under her chair.

It's been a long time since I posted, I'll try to do better, can we move on now? What a long summer! Got back to the studio Friday after 2-1/2 weeks in Montana and I leave for the summer Buyer's Market of American Craft in Baltimore on Friday with Todd, John and Dee. We're all driving up together in my minivan and then Dee and John are driving it home while I drive a Penske truck filled with old display, work, and Vegas (ACRE) display back to Atlanta with a stop on the way in Greenville to drop off Black Cat's stuff from storage. It will be an interesting show this time as Black Cat isn't going and I will have about seven crates dropped in front of my 10X20 booth. My neighbors are going to be thrilled. We also only have *one day* for set-up this time and I need things out of almost every crate. It will be... exciting. But after this show we'll finally be pared down in several ways--geographic area of shows, number of shows and amount of stuff stored at shows. I am currently only signed up to do two shows next year--the Buyer's Market of American Craft winter in Philly in February and summer in Baltimore in July.

Blech. I'm almost too tired and out of practice to post, but I'll forge on.

At the beginning of next month I am participating in an exhibition at MODA. I received my instructor certification from the Ichiyo School of Ikebana this year and I will be presenting an arrangement the week of September 7 with the other members of my chapter. Our headmaster is coming in from Japan to do a workshop and open the exhibit. I mention this news here as I am creating my own container for my arrangement... and I still have to design it. Procrastination 'R Us. I begin to wonder if I require the anxiety and adrenaline of an immediate deadline in order to get anything done.

Other deadlines coming up Friday (or before) include a Tech Talk article for Profitable Glass on Jonathan Schmuck's roll-up workshop, pre-show orders for Baltimore, new work for Baltimore (including a half-lattice stand), the application for the Oakhurst Art Fair... I'm starting to have palpitations. My book is scheduled to be released in paperback this fall and I am in talks with the publisher about doing another one. Met a wonderful artist in Montana while I was there and he has been looking for someone to cast his work in glass--what a coincidence! I have been looking for work that isn't mine to cast in glass (my talents do not lie in drawing and sculpting at this time--I primarily want to dive into the techniques of casting).

J starts school this week and I still need to get her cello, put all the new patches on her girl scout vest, take her for her swim team tryout, take her to the dentist, do the back-to-school shopping, get her checked for lice (a mandatory pre-school ritual here in the south), and attend the opening assembly on Thursday. No wonder I woke up with a long anxiety attack at 4:00 this morning!

Better get working on the firing schedule and date night cd's (I have 15 slideshows to create and cd's to rip of the glassblowing date nights that happened while I was gone). It's going to be a long week (and I haven't even addressed the online changes coming up at the studio).

Caught Sleeping

Iced mocha in the Dancing Goats looks-like-plastic-but-made-from-corn cup, and it wasn't enough to keep me awake. Embarrassingly, the barista (is it a baristo when it's a guy?), just came over and shook me awake as I had dozed off on the comfy couch and "people were worried I wasn't ok". Dave was sitting right across from me and he assured me I wasn't snoring. I've been up since 6:00, mostly awake since 4:30 having anxiety attacks. First anxiety attacks in a long time, but completely normal as this morning Dave and I took my mother and J to the airport so they could leave on a jet plane to Montana. It's the first time J has spread her wings and traveled somewhere without me, and I turned out to be less ready for it than I thought I was. I'll be joining them in a week and a half, but...

Now that I am awake, I need to work on the Date Night slide shows and cd's and the script and form for Judy to use to book them while I am gone. This past weekend we participated in the East Lake Farmer's Market and had six date nights/mornings in three days. We have seven Date Nights scheduled this weekend (beginning on Thursday). Whew. Good thing I don't have summer camp this week--I'd be broken!

The Universe... Listens!

In a weird turn of events, I find myself this morning with no children for summer camp next week, and hence no summer camp. Maybe I talked to the Universe just enough after all. I have been given the gift of TIME, and I promise not to squander it! My heart swells, my head fills with the possibilities of website improvements, date night forms, class planning, newsletter writing... joy, joy, joy.

This morning I have already walked 4.7 miles and am on my second non-fat iced mocha with one shot of chocolate syrup. Ummm breakfast of (jittery) champions. J is off to cooking camp at Becky's, the cleaning elves are at the house, Dave and I have fled to Chocolate to work, and now it's time to get (finally!) completely caught up on the Date Night cd's. Whee!

A last note: Ernie is too old to rename--even though the new name would be PERFECT for him, and I am not likely to get another cat so I am going to have to write a novel (or maybe a children's book) and have the protagonist either be or be companioned by a cat named (are you ready for it?) Gateau. Is that a perfect multi-lingual punny cat name or what? Well it's funny when presented aurally... orally? oh to heck with it==when you say it out loud. Now to work.

Abraham-Hicks Might Be Onto Something

Lovely, lovely Redband Coffee Co "Fulton Porter" coffee--roasted on July 1, 2010--(a gift from my sister-in-law for my birthday) with just a hint of the last of the Batdorf Bronson "Organic Nicaragua Isabella" (left by Colin and Chris before they moved to Bangkok) with fat-free half and half and Sweet Italian Cream Coffee Mate in the Montreal skyline mug, "Border Reiver" by Mark Knopfler on iTunes. My coffee is as complicated as my life is this morning, but both are greatly improved by the addition of Sara's Facebook post of a quote from Abraham-Hicks:

"Overwhelment is about you not being up to speed with what you told the Universe that you want. The Universe ...is yielding to you. You're just not ready to receive it right now."

Clearly I need to STOP TALKING TO THE UNIVERSE.

So as I am a bit overwhelmed today/this week/this month/this summer, I'll pop up a quick post, and scamper off to fill kilns. (Whose great idea was it to add 1-2 hours of exercise and attention to the body everyday to a schedule that is already full? Oh yeah... mine.)

We did not get the 800-piece commission for the Chinese New Year gala gift. Sadness and relief swirl and mingle in my heart. This week is all about production--I do have two major award commissions to get out before the end of the month with a spate of orders from and since Vegas. My Mom goes home to Montana Monday and takes the J with her for a week and a half. Then I go out for another two weeks and J and I both come home--her to start school and me to head to Baltimore for the Summer Buyer's Market show. Whee. Next week is the last week of summer camp in the studio and Todd and I are thrilled. It's also the week I need to slump all the wine bottles for Todd's niece's wedding.... Hmm, my firing schedule looks to be as complicated as my coffee!

One last procedure/thing/process I need to ponder is my unadvertised Date Night addition of loaning participants a camera, having them take lots of pictures of each other blowing glass, taking the pictures and making a slideshow put to music with them, and burning both the slideshow and all the hi-res photos to cd for them. I have 11 Date Night sets of photos queued up right now from which to create slideshows and burn cds, and no matter how many nights after leaving the studio I devote to them I don't seem to be getting caught up...

Live From Oswego! (Not Anymore I'm Not)

I started this post last week while we were visiting family outside of Chicago. Never got it published so today I throw it up and move on. One more session 0f Glass Craft Summer Camp to go next week. The last week in June we had both glass craft and glass blowing camp going simultaneously and the studio was a hopping place.

Though we have more sessions scheduled for glass blowing (and kilnforming, and casting, and jewelry making, and bead making), we don't have takers for them. It was a bad year to start a summer camp program. but we are neither dismayed nor daunted. In retrospect, had all the camps filled (or even half of them) we would be dead by now (and we might have taken a lot of other people with us). So we'll call the light summer camp schedule a blessing in disguise. We had just enough sessions to keep things hopping, and, well, can't discount the benefit of everyone (including the campers) still being alive.

As you can tell from the adjacent pictures, it did get a little wild at the end. On Friday I had to leave Todd completely in charge for an hour, and I told him to "use his best judgment" when deciding what to do with the campers. Maybe that was not such a good idea (he found the stretch film dispenser)...

The rest of the original post is below. I need to get back to work. (Really.)

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Mocha in a Panera go cup, some desultory piano cd playing quietly in the background. We are ostensibly on vacation in Illinois visiting family for the 4th of July celebration, but in reality Dave and I are both WORKING and leaving our child with the grandparents and Aunt Jan. Heh. It's a good deal. My Mom house and pet-sits for us, and Judy runs the studio so all bases are covered.

I am exhausted this morning as yesterday's "vacation" consisted of a 3.5 mile walk with Dave at 6;30 am and then an intermediate pilates class with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law at 10:00. I had never even done beginner pilates before so I am beat up today. Nonetheless D and I started the day with another 3+ mile walk this morning. Now to work.

Last week was another exciting summer camp session and we had both the 7-9 year-old Glass Craft campers all day and two older glass-blowing campers in the mornings. We did a completely different set of projects in Glass Craft as two of the campers were repeats from the previous session. We also changed up the outdoor activities a bit by adding water projectile devices, bubbles, and croquet.

Ah well, no harm no foul. The glass-blowing camp was a much more serious affair--I saw neither bubble wands nor stretch film in evidence during their sessions. However, with Lee as a teacher, I am sure they didn't need them. That man could make tying your shoelaces fun and interesting and, give him something as exciting as glassblowing to teach... Well, we can safely say no one is *ever* bored.

Ups and Downs

Jessie is taunting me with her Rice Krispie bar. She keeps sneaking it under my nose, almost in reach of my teeth--but not quite. Oh the exquisite weight watchers torture. I think I'll console myself with another swig of Harp lager. My consolation music is "Delirious" by Prince.

Another day, another work week (at least the traditional Monday-Friday part) is over. As usual, we had our ups and downs.

Let's start with the biggest up--we have neon! Thanks to Brian Renoud--our torch instructor and boro/neon artist extraordinaire--we have bright studio green address numerals lighting up the front corner of our building. The photo above shows what they look like in full daylight--you should see the glow at night.

Adding to the up of the week, orders keep coming in and we have as much on the books right now in receivables due or orders scheduled for the next month as we did for August through December of last year. Whew. We may be rising from our slump!

Date nights, too, just continue to build with an increasing number of people interested in kilnforming dates. This weekend alone we have three glassblowing date nights and one kilnforming date night scheduled. In the marketing department for Date Night I got our follow-up letters created which include coupons for discounts on future lessons (or other date nights--glassblowing this time, kilnforming the next!). Now working on a database of attendees (and students from classes, and people who buy supplies) so we can make sure we completed all the steps for a successful date night from the initial booking notification to the follow-up email.

Finally, even though I have been a slacker about getting newsletters out and classes scheduled, I am getting people in for open studio. The first open studio I offered for kilnforming was project-based, priced by the piece, and all materials and tools were provided. It was really aimed at introducing children to kilnforming and enabling them to make little projects for gifts. Though I still offer that one, last week (because of a request for it) I also added a variation based on Bullseye's model. It is so nice sometimes to leave the thinking to someone else! Why invent the wheel when someone hands you a perfectly round one that works. I also have a torchworker interested in beadmaking open studio for next week so we need to finish the small renovation of the torchwork classroom.

The week also had its share of downs. Like many, I am struggling with UPS price increases--especially the $8.69 charge to schedule a pick-up. That is fine if I have several packages going out in a day, but if there is only one and the shipping charge on it is only $5.65, e.g., adding $8.69 is just too hefty a bite. So I experimented with the USPS free scheduled carrier pick-up. The first time--one package going out--was great. Yesterday--six packages going out (all small--all date night stuff so only 14 lbs total) the carrier was a no-show. Customer service at the USPS is really friendly, but incredibly ineffectual; (raise your hand if you would prefer surly and effective to friendly and useless). I put a note in the box to day to PLEASE pick-up the outgoing packages, but I am not holding my breath.

Another minor irritation in my week is a client that put in three PO's with me in May, and right after I accepted them all, sent me an email saying they would not pay for any more shipments that didn't come with artist info cards--a LOT of artist info cards. They kindly sent me a template and instructions for how to create them (if I didn't have my own). Their template came with a requested kind of paper, their logo on the front cover, their website address on the back, a request not to change the front or back, and room on the inside for the artist bio and photo... You know, if they want their own branding all over the marketing materials that go out, then they should produce it and pay for it. The style they are asking for is not expensive, but they have already asked to provide them with photos and bio information for them to use in their marketing materials. Now they are asking us to take the information they already have and use it to make materials that have their branding all over it. I don't think so. If I am going to take my time to create marketing materials for anyone, it's going to be me!

So I worked up the first version of the new artist cards for Siyeh Glass and Studio that feature just Todd and me (I will add Lee as soon as I have a good photo of him or great photos of all of our work to use instead of our mugs). I was just ready to pack them up and send them out when I realized I had made a typo. Be the first to identify it in a comment on this post, and I will send you a lovely little dish in "Peacock".

Now I need to get ready to open the doors for the day (this post started Friday night and morphed into Saturday morning) and send out the summer camp reminder emails for camp next week.

Hubris Nemesis

Coffee is brewing--I hear the final gurgles now, Ernie and Jasmine are playing in the sun on the front porch... Well, Jasmine is playing with the beach ball (she pushes it around with her nose) and Ernie is regally ignoring her and eyeballing the squirrels in the front yard with feigned disinterest. My glass day begins now.

Tomorrow one of my customers is pitching a custom glass and steel piece to one of their customers as a welcoming gift for a huge celebration they are having next year. It might seem like there's a lot of time until next year, but we are hoping they tell us really soon if we're chosen as they will need 800 of these pieces created and custom-wrapped.

A few years ago the thought of doing even 100 identical pieces for an order would have given me anxiety attacks for days. Now I'm amazed to realize that I look forward to doing 800 with placid equanimity (I think Bill is much more stressed about having enough time to do the metal than I am about having time for the glass--of course he's also typically much busier at the end of the year than I am). We have a couple of current orders in the pipeline for 40 of these and 60 of those, and they are not registering on my radar one whit differently than the orders I have in the queue for one and two pieces. Wow.

Last night the two couples we had in the hotshop for Date Night were fascinated with the entire studio (one of the couples had done a bit of kilnforming glass previously). While I took them on the tour, we got to talking about how long the studio's been open for teaching, selling supplies, date night., etc., and when I said the end of October last year, I think we were all surprised. They were very impressed at our set-up and had a hard time believing that we managed to get so much done is such a short time.

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An hour has passed since I wrote on this post. An hour that that was spent talking on the phone with Bill about the details of the 800-piece proposal we are sending in tomorrow. Hubris was indeed my Nemesis on this one. Sure I can do the work, and I also committed to packaging and shipping the work in custom packaging (the custom packaging would be purchased and shipped to me by the customer). And I have no problem doing the packaging and shipping, but Bill brought me a bit back to reality when he started doing the actual math on the space required to store 800 14X14X4 boxes, and how many of them would feasibly fit on a pallet for shipping... and by extension how many pallets would be required to be held for shipping and loaded onto a truck from the studio. Yes, it's still all doable, but I am MUCH less smug than I was when I started this post! Time to slink off and have some coffee.

Uuunngghhh

No coffee yet, I should change that. The house is totally silent, all I hear is the sound of birds outside and the clicking of the keys as I type. I don't think either of them are enough to keep me awake. Jessie and Mom still slumber, Dave's in Austin (not slumbering, I'm sure), and I wish I was not up, dressed, ostensibly working and waiting for the dryer installer to come hook up the new dryer. (Oh I wanted the red washer and dryer, but I just couldn't see my way to paying an extra $200 for the pleasure).

Atlanta in the summer is not really a place for working with hot glass, and yet that's just what we're doing! Are we mad? This week is all about production glass (and website, marketing, and other administration) and next week is all about summer camp again (and website, marketing, and other administration). I find myself longing to be in elementary school again where summer means staying up late, sleeping in late, lounging, reading, and playing. This whole grown-up thing is not all it's cracked up to be. It figures that by the time you really get to make your own decisions, you find yourself deciding to Be Adult and Be Responsible. (Let's go to Greece!).

Okay, off to pick up the new studio shirts from Mike, get more blank cd's from Office Depot, make a deposit at the bank, and buy food and beverage for tonight's date night. No rest for the wicked glass artist.

Seven-Day Work Weeks R Us

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from someone wanting to schedule a date night for last night in the hotshop. Even though it was Father's Day, Lee was game so I shopped (they had to bring their own wine as it was Sunday and you can't buy alcohol in stores here in the lovely south on Sunday) and we put together a nice date. Welcome to a true seven-day work week. I know, I know--I didn't have to answer the phone. But that's the problem with having the studio phone ring in the house too--the phone rings you (or at least I) answer it--regardless of the time, day or night. Might have to rethink that one.

I mentioned in a post last week that I taught the little summer campers how to cut glass, but I didn't post any pictures as I lost my camera for a couple of days (sadly not an uncommon experience, the camera losing). But my Mom found it, and there were some great camp pics of the water slide and cutting glass that I'll share today.

This week is all about production work and marketing. We still have a couple of spots in our Glass Craft Camp for next week, and we have more than a couple available for July 19th. We also need to fill one spot in the glass-blowing camp next week. Busy, busy, busy. The next three weeks actually all have orders scheduled to ship so I have got to get most everything fired this week. It would be too much to try to fuse orders and do camp.

Okay, time to go cut the last pieces of opaline and Tekta for the last of the transparent opaline-a-palooza samples and GET THEM FIRED. Does it seem to anyone but me that this is a project that just won't die? This is definitely the last time that I agree to do 2" X 1" pieces of clear AND another color (opaline, in this case) for each 2" sample square of glass. Either that, or I have the participants cut their own half squares! Heck, since I am responsible for the firing, the post-fire clean-up, and the labeling (even though the latter two are really done by Judy), maybe I should have workshop participants cut ALL the glass!

She Does!

Yesterday was a very special day in the glsss studio. We had a glass blowing date in the afternoon, and at the beginning of it the man proposed! He had arranged it with us in advance and everyone in the studio got into the act. Jessie thought that Todd should make a wire man down on bended knee holding up his hand to offer the ring. I wanted the man to hold a red rose, Todd made the man, Lee distracted the bride-to-be so we could get him set-up on the steel marver, and the groom to be did his part by getting down on bended knee himself to propose. She said "yes of course!", they kissed, drank champagne... and got on with the glass blowing! A butterfly even landed in the hotshop and blessed them with good fortune. I leave the video to tell the rest of the story for me.

Summer Camp Endeth

Coffee in the Denver skyline mug, "Cloudy This Morning" by George Winston on the iPod. I am at my desk in the studio on this fine Saturday morning. We have three glass-blowing dates today (can't very well call them date nights when one is at 10:00 am, one is at 3:30 pm and only the third is at night) and after getting the first one set-up, I am catching up on everything I didn't get to during the first week of summer camp madness. I think I broke Todd... again. To be fair, it was a bit of a bait and switch week for him. He was told he'd be doing the camp for three hours in the afternoon and he ended up being there from at least 9-5 every day. He has a week to recover now (as do I as we do not have anyone signed up for either of my sessions this week--kilnforming in the morning and jewelry-making in the afternoon. I should be at least a little disappointed about the lack of campers, but, frankly, I can't work up the energy. As usual there is no dearth of tasks clamoring to get done and I am hoping to get up a new website, do a class schedule for July, make the forms for a smoother date night, write about Groupons, and send a newsletter this week.

The first session of summer camp was a rousing success. All the campers had a good time (we wore them out too!) and they made some beautiful pieces. I learned some unexpected lessons with this session. As a parent I suppose I should have known, but I didn't take into account that 7-9 year-olds need free time during the day to read, sketch, or just turn their brains off. Going from one project to the next all day for five days is just too much for them (not to mention for me). I am also bad in that I tend to give too many choices for everything. Instead of offering a limited color palette, I let them choose from every color Bullseye makes. Instead of saying we're going to use frit for this project, I let them use frit, confetti, stringer, and cut pieces of glass.

However one thing that worked out way better than I thought it would was expanding the difficulty of their projects. They were way more interested in and excited by learning to cut glass than I thought they would be. They made a ton (really, a metric ton!) of kiln beads during the jewelry afternoon.

For the next Glass Craft session (the week of 6/28) I am going to both limit their choices and expand their technical range. Two of my campers are returning for the next session so I also need to make sure that they are doing enough different that they won't be bored.

Today I need to switch gears and get going on orders for my work. I took three new orders last week and I still have to get them entered into the POS system and the firing schedule. Okay, to work! To work!

2:30, It's the New 4:00 AM!

Nothing to drink, the sounds of the clock ticking, the dogs snoring, and Tuffy the hamster running in his wheel upstairs for my early morning music. *Very* early morning music. As I lay away at 2:30 this morning I decided I might as well just get up and do some work. I have been fretting about not having enough hours in a day to get everything done, and being wide awake this morning while everyone else slumbered (Jessie in with me and Mom back in the guest bed) seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.

This week has been a chaotic blur. We had a full house Tuesday and Wednesday nights as friends who moved to Bangkok today occupied the guest room and Jessie's room. Mom, J and I bunked together in my bed for those days. Ho boy, a whole new snore pattern to get used to (just kidding Mom). This morning as our friends were finishing the repack of all their boxes and suitcases, the cleaning people arrived (they *never* come before noon--this morning 8:50) and hot on their heels was the repairman for the washer and dryer. Pandemonium reigned. (Don't forget summer camp started at 9:00--thank heaven for Todd!). But everything worked out--as it is wont to do. How? I don't know. It's a mystery.

Summer camp has been exhausting and exhilarating. The projects have been fantastic. My main worry is that I have been so focused on making it a really great, full glass experience that I have worn the kids out. Today they very much wanted free-draw and reading time so we had a pretty low-key day. They put together their picture frames, cleaned out their kiln beads, made hammered-copper bookmarks, and did a little free-form fusing. We did not have water slide time again today as at least one of them was so covered in mosquito bites from yesterday that another bite would probably have caused him to turn into a giant mosquito (ala Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"). The campers also made invitations to an exhibit of their work which will take place tomorrow (scratch that--TODAY!) from 3:30-4:30. They are going to set up pedestals to display their work and we are going to have a gallery reception with lemonade, iced tea, and nibblies to show off their amazing portfolios.

But summer camp is not all that has been happening in the studio this week. Date Night continues to be wildly popular--we have three scheduled for Friday and Saturday. I am doing the Farmer's Market this Saturday morning and handing off to Lee about 11:00 as Judy has the day off so I need to head into the studio to work there the rest of the day. We also have a very special Date Afternoon scheduled that day--more on it next week. Orders are trickling in from customers who aren't coming to the shows, and I got a request for a proposal to do 800 glass and steel pieces for a corporate gift by January... A job like that comes in and I won't be adding either Beckman's OR the One of a Kind Show this winter.

The week has not been without its pitfalls. After doing the penultimate enormous load of opaline striker samples the other day I had an epiphany. I was pretty disappointed at how they turned out--they weren't at all as striking (oh what a witty 3:00 am punster poster I am!) as the ones I had seen at Bullseye last summer. And then it hit me: I was putting the opaline on top of the other colors and firing it and that's not at all how it's best used. Yes, over opal glasses it has to go on top or you wouldn't see it--and we were all a bit underwhelmed with how the opaline-on-opal samples turned out. But to get the most bang in combination with transparent glasses, the opaline needs to go on the bottom. Oh. Damn. I flipped a couple of the samples and re-fired them opaline-side down and (predictably) got bad devitrification from firing shelf-side up on the second firing with only a washing in between firings. But the color was much better.

(I think I am finally tuned into it being Friday and not Thursday in terms of this post. I did go to bed last night and slept from 10:00-2:00--I haven't been up since Thursday morning. But it is confusing nonetheless.) Yesterday (meaning Thursday) I tried another firing with devit spray and I am hoping to refire all the transparent samples from the last load and to finish firing the rest of the opaline samples today (the majority of the transparents--and they'll be opaline-side down!).

Now it is after 4:00 and I should probably toddle back to bed to get a little more sleep before the alarm starts shrieking. Groupons post still coming--and a quick question on them, gentle reader. Are they as popular in your area of the country as they are here? Or is this an Atlanta phenomenon?

Can It Be Shorter and Sweeter?

Sauvignon blanc in the stemless again--it's been that kind of a day (week?). I have adorable pictures from summer camp today, but I am too tired to post about it. Tomorrow is another day... Hey, at least I posted!

PS--I really will post about Groupons in the next couple of days.

Summer Camp, and Kiln Loads, and Groupons, Oh My!

A little (well, more than a little) Woodbridge Chardonnay in a Riedel stemless glass, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for background music. What a day!! Two more orders from wholesale customers came in today, it was the second day of summer camp, and I had a second look at a relatively new on-line marketing tool. It was a full and... thought-provoking... day.

Yesterday's summer camp project was the glass sketch for 7-9 year-olds.I put up photos of the pictures they drew on yesterday's post, here is a quick side-by-side of a couple of them in paint/pencil on one side and pre-fired glass in the other. I finish with the glass post-fuse. These kids are AMAZING!

Today's summer camp project was chalk drawings in the morning with the the campers as the stars of their drawings, and fused glass picture frames in the afternoon in which to hold the photos of the drawings and their camper stars. It was a another scorcher in Atlanta, and the little campers sweltered in the pursuit of their art. Heh.

The worst part was when the pictures were done and they had to lay down in them so I could take pictures of them. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the sun was directly overhead and their little grimaces of pain from the sunlight in their eyes somewhat spoiled the effect of the pictures.

At the end of the day we got a summer storm and all the chalk was washed away. The drive looked a bit like the fairgrounds the day after the carnival pulls out--tawdry and sad.

Between summer camp and date night cd's and phone calls and and and, I didn't even get started on my kiln loads till about 6:00 pm--bad as I was already a day late (I should've fired Monday, but the day ran too long, and I should've fired Sunday but, and I should've fired Saturday but but, and Friday and back to Wednesday--my first day home from Vegas).

By 8:00 I had the penultimate load of opaline-a-palooza pieces in, shards for Todd for orders from Vegas, the picture frames--and the first ever sheet of glass I've had to make specifically for Todd. The premise of my work with him is that he repurposes shards of Morceaux de Verre pieces that have been smashed because they are imperfect in some way. I don't throw them (anything) out--and I have never liked selling "seconds"--so it has been a great combination of work to put his metal around my glass and make it into something new and great.

Anyway, Todd has an order for about 60 of his trees for a catalog, each tree uses three pieces of glass in the base, and they want the trees as close to identical as possible (i.e., the same glass) so for the first time we didn't have enough of the right glass and I had to make it. I'm curious to see how it will turn out tomorrow, this 20" x 35" 1/4" thick sheet of Earth glass. I'm also curious as to how well the colors work when it's smashed (and I can't wait to see Todd and Judy's reactions when I make them smash it--you wouldn't believe how many old pieces that would have made great shards were "rescued" because one or the other of them couldn't bear to break them up).

Though summer camp and the kiln loads would each have made a full and interesting post, it has been such a day that I am just now getting to the most interesting happening of the day. Some time (months?) ago Lori approached me to ask me what I thought about Groupons...

I am such a tease, but it can't be helped. I just looked at the clock and it's almost midnight. I will turn into worse than a pumpkin if I don't get TO BED NOW. Speaking of what I could turn into, I need to remember to take a picture of my birthday present from Todd so I can post it. It was too perfect. More on Groupons tomorrow.