Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Feeling a Bit Uninspired....

I created around 30 beads last night and I feel as if something is missing. As I finished the night off, I was feeling extremely uninspired. This is of course something that any artist dreads. Art comes from inspiration.... Inspiration comes from many things. Nature, beauty, a perfect green lilypad, a bird migration, etc. It is different for everyone and often changes.

I'm throwing this out to the readers of this blog..... If you have lost your inspiration, what did you do to get it back?

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Glass and IKEA

Last night I made a trek to the local IKEA for a glass case to display jewelry in. I'm not a big fan of IKEA due to its massive size. If you've never been in an IKEA, BEWARE! You can truly get lost in it.

An awareness fell over me while I was walking through the throngs of Swedish designed furniture and housewares...... IKEA is the furniture equivalent to what The Gap is to clothing. I'm not a big fan of The Gap either. (I prefer bowling shirts.) I once had a roommate call clothing purchased at The Gap, Banana Republic and similar clothiers "Garanimals for adults." Interestingly enough, he was a big fan of the Banana Republic.

For those of you who don't know the wonders of Garanimals, it was a marvelous concept designed for the latch-key Gen X-ers. Mom and Dad didn't have to be around to ensure your clothes matched, Garanimals did it for you. The tag for a piece of clothing was shaped like an animal. If two of the puzzle piece-like animals fit together, you had a matching outfit. What a great concept! It was a sad day when Garanimals were no longer found on the shelves of the local retailers.

As you can imagine, due to the trek through IKEA, there was no time to work on glass. Though, I did receive in the mail a fuel flash-back arrestor from Arrow Springs and silver findings from Rio Grande. It was a happy night for me. My Thanksgiving weekend will now consist of eating turkey, making glass objects and if time allows, creating jewelry. Good times.....

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Begin in the Middle

People have been asking me to start a blog for about a year now. So, to please the public, and allow me to get some thoughts in cyberspace, here we go.....

Last night as I was making glass ornaments, I began to get frustrated. Frustrated at forgetting how to make glass ornaments from borosilicate tubing and just a general frustration of not having enough time to work on what is important to me.

Then, as I was separating one of the successful ornaments from the tube..... CRACK! When I looked down, the ornament had shattered in my hand and a small pool of blood began to collect on my thumb. Well that was it for the night.