October and November at a glance

My week of vacation finally came, and I spent it in San Francisco. I saw the sun, it was warm! I stayed with my best girlfriend and made a lot of food! But most notably I visited the California College of Arts to tour facilities and talk with advisors. That was probably the best thing I've done this year. By the time I returned to the cold and wet I was so pumped about going back for a masters that I jumped right into the projects I've been avoiding, and they've been getting done!

I had bought a bunch of beveled glass jewels to make snowflake-sun-catchers from to sell for Christmas. You can bet from that description that I was dragging my feet all the way. However, since I started seeing the possibilities of using three-dimentional stained glass for larger projects I've been getting more into it and using it as an exploration of forms in that medium. (and it would be nice to make some money from these experiments.)

It was about three years ago that I threatened to make more plates to eat off of, we have two currently. And since returning from SF I threw four more when the temperature was still bearable in the garage. These too have an exploratory function. I am now carving intricate scenes into their faces to practice my bas-relief sculpting and prepare compositions worthy of translating into cast glass- a project that has been growing in my mind for some time.

Finally, I've been revisiting my stockpile of yarn. It was the snow- preventing me from reaching work two days in a row, and then Thanksgiving, that allowed me to spend half a day going through and removing all the nasty worm casings and nibbled yarn ends left over from a moth orgy. It made me very sad, but also motivated to get to my yarn before those nasty pests do again. I'm thinking of making a skirt.

That's all for now.

Happy Turkey Day.

Bumber-mania

Oh my, where to begin?
Last weekend I spent a day with Greg and my mom at Bumbershoot, Seattle's music and arts festival. For those of you who have not heard of it, it is a three day long festival jammed packed with music (at least six stages with bands playing all day) performance, dance, comedy shows, theater, film and visual art exhibitions. It's like I've died and gone to heaven.
Some of the highlights that we saw that day: Squonk Opera A group that puts on a musical performance that is truly a work of art.
Bob Dylan- although you cannot tell what the hell he is saying, he puts on a damn good concert.
And as we wondered through the Flatstock (rows and rows of poster artists selling their wares) I came across something I think I want to buy. I may need your help with this, I really like the pigeon with the pencil but I don't know if it would be too dominant displayed over the fireplace.
Go to the artist's site and tell me what you think. The Bird Machine
oh, and here's pictures

Art for Artists

How important it is to keep a nice a home! If I haven't been busy making art lately it's because I've been paining the walls "Waffle" and the trim a mahogany crimson. After the kitchen was painted two shades of green I sewed some curtains for the windows and am currently working on curtains for the living room.After Greg and I saw the documentary Herb and Dorthy we were moved to start buying the art that we admire. A year later I own my first oil painting by a fabulous Northwest painter, Linda Bean.I don't know why I never thought of it before, but I find it refreshing and inspirational to have other people's artwork around.

Lemonade

Two sad things have happened in the past week:
1) my car was stollen, stripped and abandoned
2) one of my greenhouses was destroyed
but life is too short to get upset over silly things, so what did I do?
I sold the remainder of my car and replaced the greenhouse with another. Problems solved.
I am ready to move on.
see how my project is developing too...
updated pictures

2ed Installation in One Week!

(More pictures here!)
The Heaven and Earth project is off to a good start! The official opening was last Saturday and now you can go visit the park and look at sculpture anytime between now and the end of September.
Visit this site to download the map for the art tour with descriptions of the pieces. Take a pick-nick on your day off. It's a beautiful place and a beautiful exhibition.

Finished!

Finally finished that stained glass commission and installed it. I'm so proud. Now I can focus on the green-tree-house project, which will be installed next week- yikes! The opening will be Sat. June 26th, 2-5, Carkeek Park Environmental Learning Center. Come see!

Two out of Three, so far...

Whooo Hooo!
I remind you that one of my applications (for a doctor's voucher) was already accepted and made usefull, and then I find out that my application to the Heaven and Earth outdoor art exhibition at Carkeek park was accepted as well!
Yippy- so i'll be furiously creating mini greenhouses for little trees until the installation date (next week!)
Unfortunately, my application for the Edge Program through Artist's Trust was rejected. Just got that letter in the mail today, but I'm too excited to care much.
And so far, two out of three makes good odds. I only need to find the time now to keep the momentum of application writing going.
http://heavenandearthexhibition.org/

First Stained Glass Job

I was recently commissioned to fill four windows with stained glass, which is awesome! So my weekends are filled with cutting glass and soldering. It's been fun, but it's taking a lot longer than I suspected so I'm feeling a little behind on not only getting this project completed, but also behind on personal deadlines for the other projects I've neglected because of this. More on those later, here are some pictures of my stained glass progress.

New Year's Resolution

At the turn of the year I made a resolution to get out at least ten applications pertaining to my career as an artist. I decided it could be any kind of application as long as it helped or motivated me to keep making art.
So here we are in the 5th month of the year and I'm finally getting around to it! In the past week I have completed three applications!
The first is for a chance to participate in the Edge program through Artist Trust. It is an intensive workshop-style class on everything a professional artist needs to know about the business of art.
The second is to the Heaven and Earth project at Carkeek park. Every year they have an exhibit of outdoor sculpture for the public and this year I hope they choose me as one of ten artists.
The third one was easy- a one page fill-in-the-blank to qualify for a $75 voucher to see a doctor. They are only being given to artists who don't have insurance, so I figured why not? They got it back to me within an hour! Whoo- HOo! I don't know when was the last time I had a check up.
So there is three out of ten so far. I'm looking into what the next ones will be.
I think this will be a good year.

A New Project

I've been thinking about it so long now that I've finally done something about it. So here are the beginnings of my new adventure into "Nature Morte."

A Grand Opening

The official opening ceremony for the new City of Snoqualmie Town Hall took place this last Saturday, January 9th at 10:30am. I and my fellow artist Kathleen Fruge-Brown were honored by having our commissioned art pieces dedicated to the people of that fine city.