hey now, you're an all star

Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. This smashmouth song was absolutely lodged in my brain for a while. "Hey Now (you're an all star)" is a roll of everything that has been happening for me. My recent decision to refuse to decide between mosaic and fused glass, plus I had just broken a few favorite works...all jumbled up with thoughts about recycled glass. The fused/mosaic combinations that I made last year are some of my favorite works. So, the converse idea has been with me for a while. I briefly thought about doing a high heel but it is so not me. I had Shaundi in yellow Converse high tops when she was just a tot and I clearly remember a hot pink pair she outgrew, handing them down to me before they got stolen from me by Kaleo. This piece is us for sure. It's my blues and greens, a little spot of graffiti and diamond plate, my stripes, my bubbles. I really love the recycled. There is a ring at the top right from a bottle I found in our neighborhood while walking my four legged kids. It has writing pressed into the glass that reads, "Federal law forbids sale or reuse of this bottle." BAH HA HA HA HA HA HA! Some of the rings are from an antique water bottle that we kept change in till Shaundi broke it. And the sneaker? I'm so happy with that, I'm even going to have my site redone around it. Yup! Just that tile took about 2 1/2 weeks with most of that work going in the trash. Its all good.

coming up for air

So totally swamped. I will have the whole skinny on this shortly. For now, here are two "fast and dirty" photos of our progress in Middleburg. This is a result of THREE DAYS of these kids' work, no kidding! First day I spent just explaining how to cut glass...eight times. Every period we start over and each kid takes the time to try it out so the first day nothing was adhered. I can't freaking wait to see this done. Saturday and Sunday I can work on my sneaker mosaic.

OK, here is how I know I have it good. We played the lottery for this weekend's 500 big ones. If we win, the above paragraph will still acurately state my intentions for the next two weeks. No shit! That's my life. I'll hire help around the house so I can WORK MORE!

everyone can give

Yup! Don't need money. Everybody has something they can give. And in doing so, the one you'll help the most is yourself, for sure. When a friend of mine landed this awesome project, he wasn't given a whole ton of money to accomplish it. He asked me to get involved. What he needed were some table tops and he wanted them to be game boards for kids to play on. These are two of the 4 boards that will end up in a play area that is part of Baltimore's Operation Oliver. If you look, you can see my pink camera in the shadow of the iridescent black glass. The bottom is the same glass as the top but sometimes it will flash color and sometimes it will be black.

In short, Operation Oliver is a war veteran's mission to save Oliver Street and bring it back to what it was...maybe even better. Of late, this section had been so deteriorated that it was what the HBO series, "The Wire," is based on. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/iraq-afghanistan-war-vets-save-us-city-15283191 I definitely had my kismet ON with this work because I wound up meeting an accomplished mosaic artist from Baltimore. Yeah, and she was willing to help! You'll be able to see Jo Alexander's work and mine installed this summer. Take your checkers.

you crazy diamond!

Back in January I had my work in a show in Brooklyn. Exciting enough, right? That's what I'm saying. But wait. We go to the last day of the show, "Glass Threads" at Williamsburg Art and Historical Center. I had shipped three pieces including an old favorite, Sunny Side Up...which SOLD! Then I am thinking that it is pretty cool that I sold work in Brooklyn. BUT WAIT! I find out that Sunny Side Up has become part of the permanent collection of The Yuko Nii Foundation. That's what's what!

Do you know what I am saying? I am saying that if you are thinking about leaving your secure job and following your dreams, I am here to tell you that dreams come true. I don't care how old you are, if you know you're ready, JUMP! I have a link to a video of the Glass Thread exhibit because it shows the armonica, a glass instrument, popular back in Ben Franklin's day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdsNkEEO-e0&list=UU2QGm0o80Jw-nvvfZNEr16A&index=1&feature=plcp

I guess that just floats my boat because I am a glass person and because today I learned that Guy Pratt, featured in Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,”opens the song with an armonica. Pretty cool, huh?

SO proud!

It seems like I have been underground lately, but geez, I have been busy. For the past two weeks, I have been doing another artist-in-residence thing at Juniata High School. In short, that means that I worked with 76 kids and their teacher to create a 3 foot x 7 foot glass mosaic in 10 fast days. Of the 4 hours we worked each day, at least a half hour was spent getting things out and putting them away!

The vision was for the work to say "pride." Each student got a 6 inch by 6 inch square to do whatever they wanted as long as they incorporated their portion of the letter into the design. Half of the students made a fused glass tile while the rest used traditional mosaic methods. For a week and a half we worked blind to what our end results would be. We had no idea if the kids would match their letter patterns close enough to produce a legible word. With 76 kids and many absences, there was no guarantee of how many squares would get lost. I made a map of the kids' squares so that they could see who was adjacent to them in case they wanted to collaborate with one another to create a work larger than 6 x 6 inches within the entire mosaic. We had as many as four working on one section that features a mermaid.

We had butterflies and flowers, buildings and guitars, landscapes and eyes, sports and a cheerleader, PIZZA, a gold cross, and a family crest. I mean, what didn't we have? It was cool that themes that were duplicated were done so- quite unknowingly. Interestingly, the results were that each repeat was so different than the other that it just emphasized our diversity, something we are awfully proud of. So the day before we had to adhere the tiles, the last section was fit in 8 minutes before the bell rang. Nothing needed cut or ground to fit (a feat by itself) and you could read the word loud and clear. These kids have pride in what they are as well they SHOULD. They also have pride in what they have created as do I. So after getting paid to play with kids all day for two weeks, I have to get back to work. Oh wait... that is playing all day too! May the rest of 2012 be this wonderful!

ArtFlow has been brought to the school by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Perry County Council of the Arts and the Juniata County Cultural Arts Committee.

yeah, my kids are weird

So about three weeks before Christmas, Shaundi says to me that she would like a purple and green fairy coat. What 25 year old woman asks for this? Are you kidding me? Three weeks before Christmas? Like that can happen. I'll just go down to the purple and green fairy coat store because I bet they have a large selection. Obviously, it is a safe bet to say that I cannot find those colors in a fairy coat even on Etsy and I doubt I could order and have it shipped in time. I told her there was no way it could happen but two weeks later I was still trying to figure out if I could work out her only Christmas request. A week before D Day, I start buying the sweaters and jackets to cut up and reassemble on a machine that is two breaths away from a sewing machine graveyard. This machine was not built to sew these heavy, stretchy fabrics even when it was new. In the end, I got it done about a day before Christmas Eve, complete with sparkly glass star on the tip of the pointy fairy hood. When I added the buttons, my husband says, "You know there is a point where it is too much." I say, "Not when it comes to Shaundi!" THAT'S my daughter.

finally!

All right, it's not the FINAL final picture. It may be January or February till it is done and I can get a finished photo on my site! I can't wait so for now, this is what I got. You can see this will be fantastic when it is done. My part is finished though. The flanking columns will probably be a dark gold. A travertine overhang on top of it will have water raining a curtain of droplets about an inch away from the mosaic. I think I should try to have a boat included in every photograph from now on, right? I hope I can do work like this till I drop.