I’ve got a new address! You can find my new blog by clicking on the picture of my lampwork beads below. Thanks for tracking me down!
If you’ve come looking for me…..
New Camera…..
……that comes complete with a HUGE new learning curve. Sigh. I am excited though, about the potential this camera has. Hopefully this rookie can eventually do it justice. I’ve got a long road ahead of me!
Another oldie while you are waiting….
I did a series of beads using this technique back in 2004/2005 and ran across a small stash of them when I was attempting to herd my lampwork into one common area. After finding beads in a multitude of nooks and crannies, apparently with no rhyme or reason to my stashing mentality, I made a mental note to be less casual with my ’stashings’ (as if that would change anything!) Most of them were tabular but I found this one that I had left in its original rounded bicone shape.
The Mary Mobile!
Well, not really mine. My dream transportation would be an old 4-wheel drive truck with a lift and a winch for lifting large rocks, but the paint job is right! The picture was taken by yours truly at the Main Street Reunion Car Show in Napa. What every flame lover should drive while wearing these boots:
Just Where Did I Leave Off Again?
I’ve been sorting through the trays (yes I said trays!) of lampwork beads I made before the abrupt halt nearly 6 years ago, and discovered a tray holding some of the last designs I had been experimenting with. The bead above is one in a series I had been exploring. I’m dusting them off (both literally and figuratively) along with my trademark designs as I continue to unearth all of my lampwork tools and glass.
Where to begin is the question, though I might find myself making spacers, lots and lots of spacers, mind-numbing amounts of spacers(!) to get warmed up.
I have been derelict in my duties….
Don’t bother looking down to see when I last posted. Believe me when I say that wooly mammoths were roaming the earth when I penned that particular entry.
Instead of saying I’m getting closer to returning to my lampwork art, (please don’t count how many times I’ve said THAT, ha,and by the way I’ve added lapidary art) I’m going to share one of my newly acquired treasures.
I hate to admit (since they were sold as specimens) that I had originally purchased them to cut up and make cabochons. Shhh. Don’t let word of that get around. However, they were just too beautiful and special. They sit, along with assorted treasures, in my office.
Though there are many of my special items that family will puzzle over when I am gone and exclaim to themselves “mom was a little weird, wasn’t she?”, there is no denying how beautiful these are. I hope you like the eye candy.
Patiently Waiting
Thank you all for waiting patiently for some news, ANY news about when I’ll be selling my beads on a regular basis again. Believe me, for each time you ask yourselves “when?? when??” I am telling myself “next week, next week” a hundred times over.
A friend of mine once asked me if I was dangling my torch time out there as some sort of reward for when I finally deserve it. Well, sort of. I’ve been working hard taking pictures of my beads for The Red Bead online store The Red Bead Boutique. So busy, that I have had scarcely any time to torch.
The good news is I have a stockpile of my beads. The bad news is they are showing up at The Red Bead (the only place to buy them online right now) in dribs and drabs. Thanks for your patience!
My Second Love…………
Though I haven’t made any beads recently (working on that, I promise!), here is a picture of one of the chainmaille bracelets that have occupied a lot of my time. I used to teach a lot of chainmaille classes at The Red Bead. Avid chainmaille students were dubbed a member of the TRB Chainmaille Gang.
Where do I Begin??
At times it seems like the past 4 years have whizzed past in a blur, at other times, it seems like (as Billy once said) they have been measured in dog years.
As I set up my studio, dusting off the remnants of my previous life in glass, I worry that the connection has been broke, that too many years have gone by and that my artistic path that was once so clearly defined has now become too blurred.
My head is reaching out in multiple directions, current responsibilities, past artistic loves, future possibilities, and the net effect is that I sit artistically immobilized. I was once the person who could take off at a run, grasping at a parachute on the way, and know that it would open as I leapt off whatever cliff I had chosen to point myself toward.
It always worked out, sometimes with a smooth effortless ride and others with scrapes and cuts, but it always worked out. Now I sit wondering if the parachute will be there. My cliff has turned into a huge rock wall.
Time to go to the studio and start breaking down that rock wall…..
FINALLY!!!……….
I have spent hours, days, and weeks, trying to figure out how to log back in to this blog. Good grief it is good to be here!! It is not a wordpress-hosted blog (back when I had more computer skills I downloaded the software so it sits on my server) so signing back in became a bit more of a challenge, since I didn’t know how to find the page I needed to sign in.
I am one of those foolhardy people who believe that just because they USED to be able to remember everything they think they can still rely on their aging bank of brain cells. Now that I’ve utterly exhausted myself breaking into this page, and am basking in the glow of a challenge met, updates will have to wait. Duty calls in other areas today.
My it is good to be back!!!
