Inspiration

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16 years
by in Holistic Thoughts

Inspiration comes from many varied sources – a desire to execute something that jumps into one’s mind, seeing new shapes/color combinations/juxtapositions in nature or elsewhere, viewing various things created by others, talking with folks about ideas and works, obligations, guilt, to-do lists. There are so many sources of inspiration. In some ways, continuous dedication to creating work can set one deeper in a single track or similar tracks. That has happened in some ways to some of my fusing work – I have a couple of design patterns that I’ve been busily creating variations on. Fortunately, I’m getting a chance to break out of the routine and will be gathering inspiration from nature and other artists, via a trip to see some Oregon sights (John Day Fossil Beds, Crater Lake, Three Sisters mountains), and a stop by one of my favorite glass sources, the Bullseye Resource Center in Portland. I expect this to help spark some new approaches and visual efforts in my fusing work.

A dedicated blogger I ain’t

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16 years
by in Generic Glass, Multitasking

I have been busy organizing, configuring and creating art work – lampworking glass beads, kiln fusing small plates, learning entry level glass blowing, and tumbling some rocks. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on the organizing stuff, and will be happy to have more time to focus on what designing and creating.

The glass blowing is a relatively new thing for me – my only previous experience was a single afternoon class taken several years back, where I made 6 tree ornaments (a pair of which are shown on the webpage). I’m currently 3/4 of the way through a glass blowing class offered by Art By Fire, a local glassblowing shop in Issaquah. On the first three nights we made flowers, segmented worms; tree ornaments, drinking glasses; and a vase. The last night we will be making paper weights. The vase was annealing in the kiln there at Art By Fire through yesterday, and I will pick it up early next week.

Pictures, you say? Where are the pictures? I do have some, but need to take the time to drop them down in size from 10 megapixels each. As soon as that’s done, I’ll get them posted on the website, with perhaps a few teasers here on the blog.

Setting up for the upcoming week…

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16 years
by in Uncategorized

Part of this weekend was spent making room in the design area of my shop, so that I can get back to cutting glass for new pieces. The exhaust fan is in place and needs a relatively minor alteration to make it fully functional. I’m looking forward to making some good progress this week both in organization, but also in getting a few new pieces through design and into production! First up for tomorrow will be to get the pictures from this last week’s glass blowing class resized and put up on the website.

Holistic thoughts

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16 years
by in Holistic Thoughts, Overview

It turns out that not devoting time in the past to my various creative activities has had an effect on more than just a decrease in made works. It turns out that some movements and muscles involved with lampworking and moving the larger sheets of glass have gotten lazy, as have some of the more creative thoughts that used to come in abundance. How to fix this? I’m taking a holistic approach, and working on both physical and mental approaches – which means dredging up the Tai Chi DVDs, and actually using them…and perhaps some of the yogalates on the ball exercises.

Multi-tasking away

2
16 years
by in Multitasking

A nice batch of sun tea is out brewing on the deck … the first load of quartz/agates from the San Juan Islands is in the tumbler with a load of coarse 60/90 grit, and I’m contemplating the design of the first earring set I’ve made in months.  After the earrings – the uncovering of the glass cutting table.

Let the melting begin…

1
16 years
by in Overview

I’ve taken the big plunge and quit the day job, and am now devoting my time to glass and metal. I’ve been dabbling in various glass and metal activities for a while, and have a glass art business that’s been mostly dormant for over five years. With a lot of encouragement and support from my wife, I’m now able to focus on art exclusively, at least for the summer of 2010.

Tackling this is no trivial project – I have a lot of organization and communication tasks to handle, along with the joy of actually designing and creating the glass and metal pieces.  More on this in future posts.

To establish the timeline, my last day of work in the corporate world was 14 July, 2010 (and best wishes to all who continue to move things forward there) and the next week plus was spent resetting and relaxing at Ocean Shores and Decatur Island with some wonderful friends, and competing in a charity tennis tournament.  The alpha versions of the website and blog are in place,  and I’m beginning the shop cleanup and organization.  I did pick up a few rocks to toss into the tumbler while vacationing – the processing of those should finish up in a few weeks.

As soon as I can figure out a good setup for taking good product pictures, I’ll get the website updated with a gallery; for now, there are a couple of examples at:  http://4SArtGlassDesign.com

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