poker face

I generally don't make "parts" for people but this was a Christmas present for my baby brother.  He likes skulls and squids.  Yeah, NOBODY has one like this.  It was so crazy hard to make 8 tiny legs in a one color design squished up like that.  Oh yeah, and I did it carving with a dremmel.  Come on!  Seriously check out those suction cups.  I worked so hard at getting the 8 legs in that the one guy has nine legs, HA!  Now I need a casino to commission me, yo!

presto!

WHAT!  Two posts in two days.  Yup.  It happened. I finished this baby yesterday, and was issued a perfect overcast sky to photograph it outdoors this morning.  36 x 20 inches of tasty goodness in glass. Well, the commission was obviously about magic.  How lucky did I get right there?  Originally, the whole thing was going to go in a Houdini direction.  So while I am thinking all these Houdini thoughts, I meet a friend that is all about Houdini trivia.  He told me a story about the word believe and that stuck.  I linked it HERE if you're interested. But that is what those tiny "crystal balls" are and the large one is actually a humongous marble sawed in half.  The word beneath is tiny and is so distorted that it looks huge and you cannot tell if it is convex or concave as it appears to move beneath the glass as you change your perspective.  Really, it is flat.

 

So here are some other things incorporated in this mosaic: The red background of the bird is a REFERENCE to the heavy red velvet drapes that I think of in magic.  The recycled bottle rings are a nod to that trick with the three cups.  I was talking with my brother about this trick and he said to make sure I only put ONE red ball in... I am embarrassed that I didn't think of that simple idea myself.  There is a lot of greys and silver in different forms, my way to illustrate "smoke and mirrors."  The tiny black and white strips are a little extension of the tuxedoed arm. And the signature tile?  This cracks me up.  Bicycle cards are the cards we always used.  While I was working on it, taking ideas from various card backs, I had a small open section that I was deciding on.  I asked Shaundi what I could fit in there and she instantly spits out, "a gecko!"  In my former life as a mailman, my nickname was gecko or geck... so there you go. 

 

I WISH everyone could see this in person.  There is so much movement and sparkle in this.  The "magic" from the wand is layered inside and on top of the half inch grey glass.  This is the deepest mosaic I have done and also the most prominent relief.  This makes the mosaic the heaviest I have done per square inch, weighing in at 32 lb.  The entire time I was working on it, a substantial amount of chronological life, I was thinking that this is an amazing world that I get to do this.  I have my daughter and daughter-in-law saying my favorite prayer and it SO fits here.  I pinch my eyes shut and say, "More like this."

super legit

OK, how much fun is this?!!??  In high school, my son was in a band, the singer was Kailynn West.  I wanted to contribute to her kickstarter program and had no idea it came with a song.  I answered a few questions and told her she could take whatever photos from my blog or site.  What a great Christmas idea for someone, right?  I don't know if she would have time yet but Valentine's Day?  She's a doll and I am happy to have this self affirming song stuck in my head.  Click the here to see her adorable video.  Yeah.

makin' magic

No seriously?  Two and a half months?  I can't believe it has been that long since I have blogged.  Well, I wasn't lollygagging.  I'm working on a commission... wait... did I say working?  Ha ha.  I have been in my shop playing all day and will continue as long as I can find ways to feed this addiction.  We're in the home stretch here and will give you some close ups when it is done.  You know I say my work is poop before it is grouted.  Not only that, there is still a great deal of glue, blood, and sharpie all over it. 

 

I am so excited, I can hardly stand it.  There's going to be a "crystal ball" and some magic dust.  And yeah, I think you'll like my signature tile for this one.  Oh right, and a VIDEO too!  This will be the first video of my fused glass mosaics so you will see how things get leveled and inlaid into the substrate.    Found perfect music too.  Yup, got permission.  I wish everyone could be this excited to get to work Monday morning. 

Oh (venti) Venus ...36 x 20 inches

 

In your best Frankie Avalon voice-  Venus if you will, please send a little fly for me to kill...  I'm not kidding you, this is the stuff that gets stuck in my head.  Anyway, while I was trying to think the fly trap piece through, there wasn't a place I looked that I didn't see Starbucks somethings. 

hot summer (16 x 20)

 

My July has been a bit more eventful than I had wanted.  I was invited to a wedding and finished this mosaic in time for the couple's gift.  As planned, the day after the wedding was my son's going-away shebang because he moved to Denver the next day.  I helped him and his wife drive their cars out over three days.  But just like everyone else, there was the old unexpected stuff that can roll ya'.  It is the same stuff that happens to us all.  The night before the wedding, Rob and I were in a car accident that totaled both his car and the car that caused the accident.  All people involved were injury free.  Then the night of Kaleo's party, we got a phone call saying that my mother-in-law, Corrine, had just died.  

 

So yeah, it is easy to look at an injury free car accident as a good thing rather than an inconvenience that snagged an entire evening in our already overbooked life.  But then how do you deal with losing a great friend/second mom in any kind of positive way?  Of course, I did my share of blubbering.  If I feel it, I'm gonna express it.  That's me.   There is no way to advise someone how to look at this because everyone has their own beliefs.  What worked for us is knowing that at least her long struggle was over.  I try to compare it to my son's move to Denver.  Yeah, I will miss him but why would I hold him back from happiness?  I wouldn't.  I am so freaking grateful to have had Corrine as another mom.  I have known her for almost 30 years and we had zero fights.  That is a tough act to follow now that I am a mother-in-law.  I will always have a billion fun memories of her.  It is easy for me to feel peace about her crossing the rainbow bridge because no matter WHAT is over there, it is better than laying in a hospital bed.

 

I thought the Denver move was horrible timing but in the end it was perfect timing.  Everything unfolds as it should.  I have to remind myself constantly.

it's not easy (being green) finished!

 

Here is how this 16 x 24 mosaic came together.  Susquehanna Art Museum asked for a work of mine to be in their VanGo! exhibit for a year.  The work they asked for was sold.  This year's theme for the exhibit is monochromatic and I often go that route anyway.  I had a mosaic half way worked through in my head so I told them I would love to make something specifically for this exhibit.  I was looking for an excuse to make a circuit board and trying unsuccessfully to fit it in my upcoming venus mosaic.  Instead, while thinking of the monochromatic mosaic, it all clicked.

 

I was thinking about how the things I think actually direct my life... how thoughts can be rewired just as circuits can...  I was thinking that one of the things I find difficult in mosaic is that I cannot easily change anything about my work once it is finished.  I felt like I needed to figure out a way to make part of this mosaic interchangeable. So the glass drops in the tube above the circuit tile are loose and can be poured out and rearranged or even switched out for a different color.  Eventually, they may be blue?

 

Yeah, the whole piece is about thought and reflection.  There are references to how we see ourselves - the different distorted mirrors.  There is a pic of a great thinker, Buddha.  There are all kinds of references to thought in the form of thought bubbles represented by dots and bubbles everywhere.  Of course, all this, the circuit board, and being able to change your thoughts (the glass drops) are all more symbolic than I usually work.  Even thinking outside the box is represented by the thoughts extend into the white border.  The life saver is self explanatory.

 

BTW, no, I am not Buddhist.  I was asked.  I don't have to be Buddhist to appreciate the wisdom of Buddha just as one does not need to be Christian to know that a lot of problems could be solved by following Christ's example.  I believe that, "We are what we think." even if it may be a fake Buddha quote.  I believe that, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."  This work will be for sale in a year... MAYBE.