The Saddle Fits

I am back in the saddle again, so to speak. We returned from Montana a week ago now, J started school, and I filled my calendar with all the obligatory meetings, appointments, and stuff that comprise life in Atlanta. Even with a fuller schedule, the book goes well, and the orders for the studio are done and ready to ship as soon as I get stands from Bill...

In a sad bit of news, Tadashi and Corinna have decided that it's just not working for them for Tadashi to commute down to the studio from North Carolina every week or two for three days so he can teach classes and date nights. Domenick has stepped up to the plate to take over as many dates and lessons as he can for the short term, and I am looking at hiring another glass blower. I am also taking on some of the production responsibilities myself--as was the original plan when I got the equipment from Sara and David. Tadashi is coming down this weekend for one last time to work with me and to teach me how to do the production paperweights and flowers myself--and none to soon as I have an order for 55 paperweights.

Even though it's only been a week, Montana is a distant memory now. Life here is vibrant, color-saturated, full, and not unpleasant--though warm and moist it's also chicken-filled, and that's a plus. It's odd to have J back in school. I keep thinking that I hear her upstairs or that I need to take her to do something, but she's elsewhere.

The big news and project for the next couple of months is, of course, The Book. It's coming along well, but the deadline is now exactly two months from today, and I am going to meet it this time.

A book is an odd, living, thing. Like a child, it seems to come out with a mind and personality of its own. I certainly never expected to write so much (and still be writing it!) on the technical workings of a kiln, and yet today I am hoping to finish pyrometers, thermocouples and relays--after 20+ pages on insulation, elements, element placement and controllers I already wrote. The splitting headache I have from yesterday's dental ordeal is not helping, but I still plow on. Tomorrow, no later than Thursday, I need to have the tools and maintenance section finished and be on to the projects. Oh the fun I am having with the projects! I am doing things with glass that I had never seen or heard of anyone else doing before conceiving of them myself. I am messing around with ceramic powders, enamels, glass powders, and thin sheets this week--all things I do not usually incorporate into my own work. Research has, of course, turned up other people messing around with some of the same techniques, but I am studiously avoiding looking at their work or methodologies as I want to figure out how to do it on my own. These projects (and their write-ups) are the culmination of the work I started in Montana this summer, and just thinking about them gets me all enthused and excited in ways that hi-temp resistance wire properties and behavior just doesn't.

Now it's time to take the glass furnace lid up to Olympic to get it replaced and pick up the rebuilt furnace that they did over the summer. Then projects (and shipping), then writing, then sleep. Wash, rinse, and repeat the previous sentence (minus the shipping) for the next two months and, voila! book!