lo and behold

This batch of beads is heading off to Beads of Courage.  

In February, for every 25 beads you donate, you get a chance in a raffle to win a GTT Cricket Torch.  I already have a Cricket, so I don’t really care about the contest.  But I love donating to BOC.  I think it’s a fantastic organization, and the more beads I make, the more I hope to donate. 

If you’re bead maker and you’re reading this:  have you made donation lately? 

P.S.  Look how good my stringer work is getting! I made hearts. And I made a flower, too! 

I had a good chunk of time last weekend to work on the torch.  I made seven of my beloved blue ice cube beads.  I wanted to see how close I could come to making a “set” without measuring or using a mold.  I think I did pretty good – there’s one rectangle and the one in the front looks like it has some weird chill mark on the up side.  But if you start from the top of the photo and count down, #1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are close enough for me.  #3 and 5 are particularly close.  #1, 4, and 6 are pretty close, too.  I wear the necklace that I made with similar beads back in November 2009 and the clear is all bubbly and mucky.  Now I use gorgeous Lauscha clear and these beads delight me as much as they did those many months ago. 

I’m intrigued by this idea at Life in the Prairie Box.  Di, the blog author, wants to remove 2011 things from her house in 2011. It’s part of her overall plan to live a simpler, more sustainable life.   She’s keeping a running list on her blog. 

It’s really hard for me to give things or throw things away. It’s also hard for me to stay organized and neat.  Somehow, I’m always just organized enough to function as well as I need to, but never organized enough to look like I am or feel like I could call myself an organized person. Oh well. 

But I like the idea of 2011 in 2011.  The littlest things count. So, here I go. . .

1 – 2.  Two cartons of expired Trader Joe’s tomato soup

3.  A box of Cream of Wheat with Splenda bought by mistake

4.  Vanilla scented hand sanitizer

5.  Empty glass Yartzheit candle holder

6.  Epi-pen expired in 6/09 that we never needed in the first place

7.  2009 – 2010 Yellow Pages

8 – 16.  Empty pill bottles – recycled

17 – 19.  Plastic containers – recycled

20.  pair of ice skates – freecycled

21 – 23.  rain jacket, winter jacket, mittens – given to the school nurse to use as spares

24 – 26.  egg timer, small medicine cups, dental floss in a flavor nobody likes – out of bathroom drawers and into the trash

2/12/11 Comment:  It’s hard to believe that I’ll ever get anywhere 2011 items at this rate, but I like the way this helps me look at my stuff in a different way.  See also  Christine Kane on 9 Destructive Reasons We Cling to Clutter. I’m all about #3, 4, and 6. 

image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/

Here it is . . .

. . . .I  have a functional spot inside my house to melt glass!  Temps have been in the single digits this week – and I’ve been melting glass!!

I can still hardly believe it.  But it works. I have made beads.  Here’s one. 

I call this a puddle bead because you can see the reflection of the white dot floating in the puddle of the pink transparent glass.  I love this style of bead. 

I have much to tell and share about this studio.  It took a long time. I had lots of challenges.  I learned a lot of things along the way that I think will help other people, and I am going to share the details over the next few weeks.  

One of the most important things about my story is that I did everything above board. I have a building permit. I had a gas inspection.  I had professionals help me.  It took longer because I did, but I am glad. 

My studio is in my house that I share with members of my family, including two beautiful and growing children.  I also have a lovely home in which we have invested considerable time and money.  Nothing is without risk, but I wanted everything to be as safe as absolutely possible.  And I think I succeeded. 

I know these photos are boring – but bear with me.  

A room of my own is becoming. 

Soon. 

It has been a long haul, and I will share the story as we go. 

But let’s start here: 

This is a now-empty room in my basement.  I was standing basically at the bottom of the stairs when I took the picture.  To the immediate left of this doorway is another doorway that leads to the unfinished part of our basement.  The kids’ playroom is behind me and to the left.

This room used to be an office that Steve and I shared.  Since we renovated our house two years ago and moved the offices upstairs, it has been our junk collecting room.

The corner where the blue box is will soon hold a table, a torch, and a ventilation fan. 

This is the corner diagonal (and therefore behind) the torch.

Follow that corner around to the right and there is this long narrow cut out where my desk used to be.  I still have a few things hanging on the wall. 

Follow that corner around and you come to a nice empty wall.  The corner to the immediate left is the one back at the top with the blue box. 

I hope you get an idea of the view around the room.  It’s about 10 x 12.  Maybe 12 x 12.

It’s changing fast!

 Hiking the Waimea Canyon.

The paradise of Waipoo Falls.

A tribute to Queen Emma at Koke’e State Park

And the day ends with sunset at The Beach House.

Walking the long shore of a beautiful, empty beach. Swimming. 

 Settling into our cottage amid the gardens.

Day 1:  I want to be these folks when I grow up. 

My lovely lunch – with knitting!   Very relaxing.  Very good food:  here:  chilled tomato bisque with chilled mozerella and pesto. So good that we went back for dinner on the same day.

Day 2:  Heading up the Diamond Head Crater at 7:00 am. 

The circular ridge of the crater from above. 

The ocean view towards Wakiki from on top of the crater.   

Day 3:  On the way to Kauai.  Daddy got the flower leis from people at his work, but I got to wear them! 

When I finally sat down at the torch, some time in early September, I made this.   

The photo is not very good, but this is a lovely bead.  The raised dots of clear are evenly spaced in five rows that encircle the bead.  They are shaped nicely, they give the bead a wonderful feel in the hand.  I  love to roll this bead between my fingers. I am very proud of the technical skill this bead demonstrates.   Like this bead I made almost a full year ago, the green guy touched me in a similar way.  I made a stunning bead out of glass.  And so, I remembered that I must keep on.  Making more.  Making more and more.  

The bead below is the same style as the green one above.  A pink base, and a very bad attempt at raised clear dots in graduated sizes around the bead.  Some of the dots melted. The sizes were all over the place.  A disaster.  I don’t know when I made it, but it was a while ago. 

And this one is the first I ever made with this technique.  I’m not a big fan of raised dots, but when there are a lot of them, the texture of the bead changes from a smooth bead with a few textured areas, to a whole surface that undulates. Especially under the fingers. There are so many raised dots that you don’t touch the base bead at all when you are holding it.  You just feel the smooth bumps of the rounded dots in close proximity.  That’s what I love! 

I am better than I was.  I have improved.  That green bead makes me feel like an artist in midlife again. And that’s just what I needed. 

I’ve just not felt, lately, like I have anything to say about “becoming an artist” in midlife. 

The truth is -  I’ve been discouraged and sort of worn out.   

I could have posted about both my big girls going off to overnight camp for two weeks

and the surprising schedule (or lack thereof) that evolved in their absence.   Or about the lovefest that followed when they came home – I was so proud of them.  Here, squinting into the sun and pained about leaving camp. 

I could have posted about the cauldron of mixed feelings that churn in a household during the last week of summer when some can’t wait for the school bus to meander down our street, and others dread it, feeling a great sense of loss as summer ends.  Mostly, all of us feel some some combination of all kinds of feelings and it makes for a long week.

I didn’t want to whine about the technical difficulties I’ve had lately with my torch and with my camera. 

I didn’t want to share my disappointment about a studio possibility that first so excited me and then fell through with a thud.  I didn’t want to deal with my fear and hesitation about the Plan B studio and the way I feel oh so stuck between the garage torch that is not working well (and may not be safe) and the torch I bought more than 6 months ago which has no place to be . . .

I had thought I would jump back into gear when school started, but the truth is, after a brief burst of energy, I slowed down to rest, to recover a bit from the demands of the summer.  This year, the Jewish holidays came early and a sense of routine was immediately delayed.  And then, October was here, and I still hadn’t written a blog post.

So, today, I am here, finally. 

A few weeks ago, I sent the camera back to Canon.  And I called the contractor to discuss again plans for the basement studio.  I have hopes that by the end of October, I will have an actual indoor year round working glass studio!  Wow – it feels good to write that, to say it out loud.

I’ve also signed on to do two bead sales in December, so I have to produce.

And I sat down at the torch.  I got my hands moving.  I love the glass, and I have simply missed it.