the View from the Shop

The shop where I teach is in North Portland in an old train barn on Columbia Blvd.

There are three key things that I associate with my commute to work:

• the train (I love the colors and shapes of the graffiti and train cars)
• the smell of cookies (there is a Kraft (used to be Nabisco) plant a few blocks from the shop)
• the view of Mt Hood

The train always honks as it goes by the shop (there are 3 bridges it passes underneath, so they all honk 3 times). There is a lot of industry around the shop that uses these trains, as they head to and from the big ports on the river. They only thing I do not like about the trains is when they honk just as I am opening the front door - this makes me jump and I think they do so just to see my reaction! Its loud!

The cookie factory is always pumping out cookies and crackers, they make Oreos and Wheat Thins. When the insanely wonderful smell of chocolate wafts in the breeze my brain always says "brownies!" - I used to think they must be making brownie mix in that factory, but I have since learned it is the chocolate cookies for Oreos! And what I thought was the intoxicating smell of Vanilla Wafers in the making, is the vanilla cream stuffing for the Oreos. Yum. One day I hope to get a tour of this factory. Oh yes I do!

Best of all though (does it get better than the smell of cookies?!) is the sight of Mt. Hood. The view is amazing from Columbia Blvd. She glows majestically, perfectly framed by trees around the road. I always want to snap pictures, a few days ago I couldn't resist as the sun was setting and the mountain looked so amazing. That is the photo above.

The view of Mt. Hood has always been a present factor in my work as a glass artist. The first shop space I rented was in a barn up on Mt Hood. I rented there for a couple of years. Learning to snow board in the winter and enjoying the cold rivers in the summer were integral parts of working on Mt. Hood. It was an awesome way of working as a glass artist. And now I will always have this positive association with the view of Mt. Hood.

In my garage studio at home I made a painting of Mt. Hood and hung it behind an old window (there's a wall that I thought should have a window and so I put a fake one there!).

Holiday Craft Show Prep

I am knee deep in holiday prep - working my way thru holiday craft shows. Prep involves many things, like stamping bags....I tried to take a few pictures today so I could share here...
I've been making more terrariums... these pictures are fun because people keep asking me how I make the tiny little arrangements - look see! - I use my old dissection kit!
The q-tips are for cleaning the glass if I get a bunch of dirt stuck to the inside of the terrariums...
I also made a bunch more "care cards" and stickers... more packaging details... the care cards are for the terrariums to tell people how to care for them...

I've been strategizing on how to fit a lot of stuff into a small vending space... this weekend I am working with 5ft by 10ft. Last weekend it was 6ft by 4ft. So I made up this piece of graph paper and cut little pieces of paper to represent my display stuff... put a little sticky glue on the back of the cutouts and this way I can play around with display ideas...

Last week I sorta set some stuff up in my living room to see what I had to work with...

and I bought this cake plate from Ikea to display my tiny terrariums underneath. I LOVE it.

Kiln Moving Day

Huge big thanks to my friends for helping me move my new beast. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Especially Yed - you rock! I am forever in your debt. Seriously.

I thought it'd be fun to just make a slide show of the pictures I took while my new baby got moved into its new space. Getting it in the truck was so exciting (a fork lift picked it up), driving it to Aquila and dropping it off was no problem (thanks to Yed!), but then it had to be picked up and moved across the studio and upstairs(stairs had a corner, and there was a corner in the studio that was really tight). WOW. Its big and its black - its simply awesome. I've never seen one exactly like it and I love it.

New Studio Space

I am moving into new studio space - the shop that I teach at, the Aquila Glass School, is renting out some upstairs space to myself and a couple of friends. Its a great space, and Don is fantastic to work with.

The electrician is coming on the 15th to put in all the power lines (4 kilns and two big lights). I had Tim help me build crates to hold the glass (and Amy already had the amazing crate shown above). I forgot to take pictures of the space with the new stuff in it. Today I picked up great shop tables to work on (thank you craigslist). Its been sorta intense, everything is heavy and this is an upstairs unit. Next week my goal is to pick up the kiln I am purchasing at Bullseye and get it up there. Anyone strong and burly want to help? Sheesh. I am dreading getting it up there. Today I picked up the cement board to line the surface that will hold the new kiln. So I am ready, just nervous of moving a kiln that weighs over 300lbs up a flight of stairs that turns in the middle. Yuck. I am hoping I can take the lid off the kiln and that way we only have to move 2 lighter and smaller pieces. Of course this royal "we" doesn't really include me - lets be real - honestly its Tim and who-ever else big-and-strong I can sweet-talk or pay to help heave this beast. :) A friend of mine rented 4 big burly movers when she bought a Paragon. They came in, they moved the thing, they left. It was awesome. Made it look so easy. C'ept she had to pay them for 4 hours (when in took 20mins) to make it "worth their time". hm...

Repetitive Circle Cutting

This is for Michelle - you asked for it! :)

I post so many pictures of all my circle cutting... my friend Shoozles on Etsy asked to see a video... so here it is. My apologies - its a bit boring (but I sped it up so the video is about 5min)



this video is not a tutorial - my technique is my own and I take no responsibility for people hurting themselves doing silly things - kids don't try this at home :)

I want to make your studio a mobile!

A few weeks ago I was reading an article on the Etsy blog about photography - it was called "Seller Tip: Present Yourself to the Press" Great article - to sum it up: all artists and small business people should be prepared with a good head shot and/or a good shot of their studio. These pictures should be quality, ready on demand and high resolution. This way when a magazine or blog contacts you for an interview you are ready! I couldn't agree more.
So here's the story I am trying to share: while reading this article I noticed this picture (the one above) and I fixated on this beautiful little Italian studio space, something about it made me swoon and I instantly wanted to make a mobile for this space (maybe I just want to sit in that hammock and gaze at a mobile - wouldn't that be a nice way to take a nap?!) I'm not sure if its the fact that the studio is in Italy, or the bright colors and maps and embroidery hoops on the wall... something about it caught my attention.

So I emailed the artist and told her so! This is very unlike me - I have never done anything like this... and when she got back to me enthusiastically I realized that I had to follow thru with the offer!
This is the mobile I made... after digging around in my drawer of random circles (I always seem to have some extra laying around, so I try and herd them into a particular drawer and occasionally they come in very handy - like now!) I made this beautiful mobile for that wonderful little Italian studio.

Then I imposed the picture of the mobile into the picture of the studio - I wanted to see what it may look like!
And now I am thinking that this was really fun! I figure its my good karma for the year... and now I am thinking that it'd be fun to do a contest called "I want to make a mobile for your studio" and take submissions of studio shots and the one that most inspires me to make a mobile for their space would win one! What fun. I wonder how I could effectively advertise this... more thoughts to come. For now I just wanted to share the story

Playing Catch-Up

This week I have been running around busy. Whew - nothing like trying to make up for lost time. Errand running, studio work and a lot of cleaning around the house was all packed in with a rescheduled class and a printing session with Jan. Oh and emails that took me hours to get thru... did I mention the shipping marathon, yeah. I'm a little backed up. But surviving.
I didn't take many pictures at all this week... thus the lack of blogging... but today I took my camera to the studio and took a few shots (shown above). A kiln-load of printed glass (soon to be plates - I love the 3 birds) that Jan and I made on Wed - we were busy! We're trying to print a bunch of glass to have for the holiday season... Then Thursday Aimee and I cut 2 zillion wires (I made a new jig that is so very exciting to me - I will blog about that later) and she bent me hundreds of U shaped hooks... no pictures of this but you can see me using some of those U-hooks with glass circles today...

I had a little bit o' fun with the Picassa collage program, making the collage of the pictures from today... then I made another collage of pictures from the Japanese Garden a few weeks ago. I like Picassa... I started using it because that's how my dad shares his photography with me. Its free and easy to use. I recently discovered the collage part of the software.

How do I deal with my scrap?

Today I continued to attack my scrap glass piles (its all gems of colorful goodness, just dirty and sharp and needing TLC). This time I took pictures!

Above you can see how I am dealing with a bunch of blue scrap. The blue bin was so full that I had to deal with some of it - otherwise I couldn't sort any more scrap bucket cuz there was no room for blue in the blue bin! Oh no! So what I do (and I am much more productive when my dear Aimee helps me!) is cut the funny shaped bits up into regular sizes of squares and triangles. These bits are then put in containers for quick access.

Today I even cleaned the glass as I went!! (clearly this is not something I enjoy doing) For a while I had been lubricating the scoring device with mineral spirits, but when I realized how freakin' toxic the fumes from this substance (thanx Jan for educating me!!!) I switched to vegetable oil. Then my friend Denis invested in some great blue glass cutting lubricant that is water soluble (so it washes off the glass really nicely!) - that is what I use now, so most of the scrap is really easy to clean. However the scrap that was covered in vegetable oil now is covered in dust and dirt and glass splinters. And the vegetable oil/silica combo has turned into some sort of strange resin. Its not easy to clean off. I tried the normal glass cleaner (a vinegar water concoction), then warm soapy water, finally I scraped the shit off. The ironic part is that the toxic brain killer mineral spirit I was using in the first place would make a great cleaner to get the strange vegetable oil/silica turned resin off the glass. Hmph. I hate cleaning.
Anyhow - here I am sorting out the bucket... big paint bucket filled weighs 50lbs... I sort it by color so I can then use the glass up. You can see I have laid big crates around to collect the glass bits, they stack nicely and hold a lot of pieces... I've used smaller plastic ice cream tubs for the colors I have less of (like white)...

Then the next step is what was pictured first... I take the glass and clean it up a bit and cut it up more into pieces: square and triangles in sizes that I use to make mini mobiles and earrings.

What's in My Drawers

As a follow-up to my Ode to Trays, I thought I show whats in my drawers.

After accumulating a large stack (10) of plastic drawer inserts from Ikea, I finally broke down and bought the metal drawers that the plastic trays were meant to go in! Two of these drawer units and a piece of wood from the ReBuilding Center and voila - a desk!
I put this together for myself over a year ago and it has served me well. Not only does it organize the bits for me and get the trays off the floor, but its a good desk! The yoga ball makes an excellent chair also.

Here is what the tray looks like empty: its nice and deep, its inexpensive, the individual compartments aren't overly small (those bead/fishing plastic organizers have such small compartments) and I like the variety of sizes of the 5 compartments in each tray.

And heres what the trays look like in my drawers:

Sneak Peak Into My Studio: Trays

I use a lot of trays. Some of them even get friendly labels :) I love my label gun thing too.

I use so many different types of trays. Mainly for organizational purposes, but also because I like to work in my lap, so trays make it easy to have a good work surface and carry things from room to room.

The following are some pictures of trays that I use... the first is an awesome set, mostly just because it is orange.... and it is 3-in-1 which is just great. I keep my O-rings and S-hooks in these (handmade O-Rings, to see how I make them click HERE)

This next tray is a favorite of mine, found it at Ikea, its sorta small, but great for assembling the parts needed for a project.

Oh these bamboo trays are fantastic. A friend of mine found them at the Dollar-Store and now I have a dozen of them, which really, quantity alone makes them very useful in my studio. They have a slotted bottom which is sorta a PITA (little things fall thru), but like I said, I have a dozen of them stacked up in my closet, and this just comes in handy.

The next trays I found at the craft store, actually there were 3 in this embedded-wooden-tray-set... the third tray has gone m.i.a. You can see in the next picture that the bottom tray magically fits my labeled packages for mini mobiles. The top tray fits the stuff that I need to prep the packages...

see... the clear plastic bags with labels stuck to them and fishing line already inserted inside (I always include a little fishing line in the package to help hang the mobile) are all snug and happily waiting in the bottom tray

This next tray is one of those drawer-inserts that can be found at Ikea... I use them to organize bits for mini mobiles...

The next tray is just a simply cheapo found at the local store in the Rubbermaid section... very useful, I have a handful of them. This one had prisms in it at the moment...

these are also a Rubbermaid find... I like em'. I think they are supposed to be used as inserts in drawers to organize stuff. My mother always used these in our kitchen drawers to hold things and keep it all looking good and pretty.

The last two trays are from Ikea. They have a whole section of trays that I am always getting lost in. Why are trays sold to hold cocktails? I mean, that is a good use for them, but so single-minded. The crafty-person like myself uses these trays for much more than just a drink. For realz

I have a couple of nice wooden trays, this one has a handle, which I thought would be great, but its pretty big, so once I have it loaded down with glass pieces its quite heavy. I have another wooden Ikea number that is sort of boat shaped... its beautiful but sort of useless... everything rolls to the center.

Alright, that is my ode to trays.

I do love trays.
I always keep my eye out for them.
If I see a tray in the store and its cheap, I tend to take it home with me.