On Labor Day Weekend I Labor

Coffee in the New York skyline mug, "The Way It Is", by Bruce Hornsby on iTunes, 4695 words written for the book. Late, late, late posting this morning. But on the other hand I already have two kiln loads in (out of the five scheduled for the day). As I have to set up at 6:00 pm for the Marietta Art in the Park Festival and Jessie is home due to no school today, this is a pretty ambitious schedule.

Yesterday's firings were a mixed bag. I made "blobs" for the necklace project (I have changed the design again) and at the last second I decided to layer them so the square on top lined up with the square on the bottom (instead of making the two squares look more like a star with points lined up against sides) as a friend told me she always does them lined up and they come out round. I tried it that way because one down side of the star configuration is that a bit of dichro from the points comes up on the outside of the sides and that wouldn't happen with the complete overlap. However mine did not come out round. Either I didn't fire them as high as she does or I am just cursed. And I am annoyed because I used my only piece of CBS clear rainbow dichro in its entirety to make them. So I am firing them higher now hoping they will round out. If they don't I will use my only piece of CBS clear violet dichro in its entirety to make new ones (I know I am not supposed to be using my sample set).

The pot melt I did to replace the one I so proudly posted the pic of earlier was too yellow-orange and boring. I had to do a replacement because the first one spontaneously cracked. Might have been a subtle compatibility shift from too long at very high temps, or it could just have been karma. In any case it is a book project that I have to redo before my project review (which could be scheduled as soon as next Friday... LOL).

I am crabby, crabby, crabby today, and now I need to shift to planning art fair supplies, shopping for a few tools and materials for the book projects (pure silver wire for the necklace, fountain pump, dremel grinder for ceramics).

Just got back from running all the errands and found I hadn't posted this before we left. Duh. At least this way I can add the recent bit of news. Today the Art Institute of Chicago's catalog came out and my piece is on page 5! They also used a partial picture of it on their main web page for the glass category and on every subsequent glass page. Whoo hoo!