Did I tell you I don't like cats.....

That's what Lou keeps telling me....yeah right. Even if it were true...I don't think the cats care. He makes a really good cat bed.

National Geographic and the itchy butt

Now I'm sure you want to know what one has to do with the other. I'll get to that.

I got up this morning and thought it felt a little cold...but I had to get ready for the show so I went about my business. Before I left the house I looked at the thermostat. It was 60 degrees in house and the thermostat was set at 67 degrees. The thermostat/furnace has been acting weird. I turn the heat up and the thermostat will click but the furnace won't come on. This has happened about three times and I've been able to mess with the thermostat and get the furnace to turn on. I tried to get the furnace to turn on before I left...but no luck.

Now this is on top of the laundry sewer line backing up last night. We had it snaked last Saturday and I hadn't used the washer since. I did last night only to find that it is still backing up.

Oh...and did I mention that Lou left for Florida this morning.

So my morning was not going well and I had to leave for the show. I was in a sour mood when I got there and preoccupied with how I was going to get all these things repaired. I sent Lou a not so polite e-mail about how great my morning was going. It's a joke with us that the last time he went to Florida the tree came through the roof. Things seem to go wrong when he goes out of town and I am left trying to fix them.

I decided to take tomorrow off....another PTO day I don't have....so the furnace company can check things out. Good news is that the furnace is still under a 5-year warrenty so I won't have to pay for any parts needed. This let me concentrate on the show.

I had sales last night at the charity preview but only two sales today....OUCH. Really bad show for me this year. I have always done well. I displayed only bronze but I don't thing that was the problem as I did well at the summer shows with it. I had a number of people tell me how great the pieces were...but very little buying. A number of vendors were having the same problem.

So you tend to sit around and stare at each other and people watch. You also hear everything your neighbors say. Now everyone has a story to give about their product...but one vendor...a wildlife photographer...had a voice that carried. But mid-day....we all knew his story. "These are all actual photographs and I'm the culprit.... I hunt with a camera and leave behind footprints.....National Geographic quality on a local level"....and more. He's 80 years old and quite a character...lots of stories. But when you hear the same line over and over and over...you want to bang your head against the wall. So that's National Geographic

Now to Itcy Butt. When you aren't busy selling...you're people watching. Merry got an eye-full when a customer walking by lifted up the back of her shirt and put both hands down the back of her pants and proceeding to scratch her butt. I'm sorry I missed that. Really... that would have been the laugh of the day...and you know I can laugh LOUD.

So thankfully that show is over. One down and two to go. I will be very glad when they are all over. Shows are just exhausting. When you make money at least there is a reward. When you don't....you wonder why you should continue to do them.

Good news...when I got home the furnace was on. So at least I will have heat tonight. Tomorrow I will still have the furnace checked out. Something is wrong and hopefully they can figure it out tomorrow.

Mrs. Claus' Closet Today and Tomorrow.

This show was my first. I have been doing it for 5 years now...I think. Judy gave me a break back then and invited me to do the show. I have been doing shows ever since. So I crawled out of bed this morning to set up the booth. Since this show is only 10 minutes away I came back home for some lunch. Today is the Sneak Peek...the tickets are more expensive but it is for charity. It runs from 4-9pm today. Tomorrw we are open to the public from 10am-9pm...long day. Donna is once again my neighbor and we always have good time :)) They serve wine and cheese tonight...we aren't suppose to partake as vendors but we sneak a glass...or two.

This is the first of three shows in three weeks.

Show this week

Tuesday and Wednesday I will be at Mrs. Claus' Closet in Westlake. I've been making earrings and pendants all weekend long. Below are a couple pics.


It will be a busy week....I'm already looking forward to next weekend.

And you thought I'd never be famous....

I have a piece of original artwork hanging in the Cleveland Museum of Art ....and it's not in the bathroom either.

A group from work went to the museum yesterday over lunch to see the Gauguin exhibit....Paul Gauguin: Paris 1889. The exhibit recreates an independant exhibit that Gauguin organized at the time of the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Gauguin approached Monsier Volpini, the owner of the Cafe des Arts, to hang 100 paintings created by Gauguin and his friends. A sort of thumbing of the nose to the art establishment, who excluded him from the Exposition.


In addition to the paintings, there are some original letters from Gauguin to his sister and from Van Goh to Gauguin. It was amazing to look at these fragile documents and see their hand writting and signatures. Especially Van Goh's (I am a fan). To see "Vincent" signed at the bottom of the letter gave me a thrill.

Part of this exhibit was Gauguin's lithographs which he produced himself. They were printed on yellow paper and were aimed at people who could not afford to purchase a painting. At the end of the exhibit, the CMA allows you to do some hands on art. Probably meant for children .... our group of administrators all huddled around the art table where they provided us with rubber stamps with some of Gauguin's images and crayons. So before we went back to work, we stamped and colored....and hung our creations on the wall. My 15 minues of fame is a signed original piece of work on the same walls that hold Gauguin's. LOL

By now you all know I have an obsession with Paris (really!). I am reading a book called Eiffel's Tower: And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count.

It's a historical look at the time leading up to the Exposition Universelle, the building of the Eiffel Tower and some of the famous personalites present....Buffalo Bill, Anne Oakley, Thomas Edision, Vincent Van Goh, Louis Pasteur, Paul Gauguin, James McNeill Whistler and more. Over 28 million travelled to Paris for the Exposition....in 1889. What an amazing time that must have been.

Industrial Furniture

Do you like industrial furniture. Check out Le Grenier. I am drooling. I wish I could pull larger pics from this site but I can't. The downside...they are in northern France. I've been looking for industrial salvage places around Cleveland...I don't know why...I don't have any room in the house. But it would be fun to see what's out there.

These two pieces are on my wish list. A large cabinet to hold all sorts of tools and pieces parts.
And a good hefty work bench

A girl can dream :))

New Pics

"I had a farm in Africa....

at the foot of the Ngong hills." Out of Africa is a classic book and movie. Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) wrote a wonderful story and Meryl Streep and Robert Redford brought it to life on the screen.

A couple of pieces inspired by African artifacts....

Necklaces...

The first two are based on drawer pulls I found in Tucson. In the first necklace I included Napalese bone beads inlaid with brass rings.

This one was created after studying a painting of NYC buildings and bridges.

Happy Sweetest Day

I didn't know that Sweetest Day originated in Cleveland and that not everyone celebrates it or even knows about it. Here is the Wikipedia story behind the day.

The origin of Sweetest Day is frequently attributed to candy company employee Herbert Birch Kingston as an act of philanthropy. However, Bill Lubinger, a reporter for The Plain Dealer, contends that "Dozens of Cleveland's top candy makers concocted the promotion 84 years ago and it stuck, although it never became as widely accepted as hoped." The Cleveland Plain Dealer's October 8, 1921 edition, which chronicles the first Sweetest Day in Cleveland, states that the first Sweetest Day was planned by a committee of 12 confectioners chaired by candymaker C. C. Hartzell. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee distributed over 20,000 boxes of candy to "newsboys, orphans, old folks, and the poor" in Cleveland, Ohio. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee was assisted in the distribution of candy by some of the biggest movie stars of the day including Theda Bara and Ann Pennington.

Sweetest Day now involves giving small gifts and cards to your loved ones.

So we woke up today and Lou said..."I have a card for you but I haven't signed it yet" and I said "I have a card for you too ,but I can't find it" And we both started laughing.

Pouting Buddah

I wore the two of these together today. The bottom piece is 24" and was made from a drawing I did on Scribbler. I added a garnet drop. It swings back and forth when I move and makes a soft jingling noise. The top one is 18" and I've renamed him to Pouting Buddah and he has that great deep red color to match the garnet. I think I'm gonna have to keep these two.

The Pouting Buddah is perfect right now. That's my mood at work. I'm having an issue. I can't be promoted because rankings at my level are based on the size of your department and budget. So no matter how good I am at my job or how many extra projects I take on for the Institute at large...and I take on a lot of extra projects... I can only advance if I take a position with another department. I can never understand why employeers put people in this position. I've been with the department for 13 years so I won't be leaving. But I also won't be taking on extra projects anytime soon....Why Bother? I will get over this and go back to being my over-acheiving self...but for right now I'm not happy...I'm pouting...LOL.

I will be wearing Pouting Buddah everyday for a while....because it will make me laugh.

Baubles....

Happy Buddha...although he doesn't look to happy. I think I'm going to dome the discs a bit. He looks a little too flat on the top and bottom. Maybe then he'll be happier.


A couple of resin pieces. I think I made these about 2 years ago but never put them into jewelry.



This was the disc I was drilling. I put the 4 side holes in when I made the piece but then decided to use it in a different way so I drilled one hole and decided I wanted a second hole. Two days later when I was done drilling :) I put the piece together.

Drilling Bronze....Again

I spent another few minutes drilling a hole in a bronze piece today. I have to stop making my pieces so thick. Anyway... my brother the welder and around the house magic man...he builds everything....say that when drilling bronze be sure to use high speed steel drill bits. And there's a tool out there called a Drill Doctor. It sharpens dull drill bits. COOL!!!

Assembly...

I am busy assembling jewelry. Pulling pieces parts together. Bronze pendants, chain, gemstones, glass beads. I zone out when I'm doing this...because I enjoy it. I'm such a messy person. My desk becomes one huge pile of stuff and I end up digging through piles to find what I'm looking for. It not unusual for me to spend a few minutes looking for something .... just to find it's right in front of me. What's up with that? Why can't my brain see it the first time I look? I guess it's like finding Waldo. All the bronze pieces parts are roughly the same color so as I scan the desk I look right over it. It's so frustrating.

I need to become more methodic. Keep all gemstones on the left side, all glass beads on the right, all findings in their bags in a box and all pendants in another box. Ah...but what fun would that be. It's my fate to work in organized chaos. I'm like that at work too. Paperwork in stacks all over my desk....somewhat organized but chaotic. About twice a week I gather up all the papers into a stack and resort and organize and start making a mess all over again. I guess a leopard doesn't change it's spots.

Bronze is hard!!

Funny...I've been working in bronze clay since it was released and never drill it before. I always made my holes prior to firing. Yesterday I had a piece that needed a hole. So I drilled...and drilled...and drilled. I knew bronze was hard....but I didn't realize it was that hard.

And I think that's about all I have to say today.

Gemstones and Mushrooms

I went to another gem show last Saturday and picked up a few more strands. I'm into facetted rondelles right now.

I picked up a few really rough strands of turquoise and some other stones. Funny...the ones I thought were the coolest were the cheapest.


I also got some silver. This is a small size chain..the discs are about 4mm. Nice and shiny...but not for long. I'll be dropping it into some LOS to give it a nice aged look.


Lou came home with another cigar box for me today. Perfect for storing all the gemstones.


Now for the mushrooms....seems like the lawn has become a mushroom farm. We found another large bunch of mushrooms today. Really cool shapes.


The undersides were really amazing.

Melancholy Baby

Boy...that's what I have been recently. Lovely word melancholy...and wistful. Polite names for sadness or depression. I'm not depressed. Just overworked and tired. Susan said it when she wrote " Having come from the corporate world, I found we were acting and deciding at 100 mph." Sometimes I find Mach 1 is a more apt description. I'm going through a phase at work right now that as I clear one item off my desk, 3-4 have come through the door to replace it. And though I am good at not bringing work home either physically or mentally....these times at work are draining. Once at home I have no energy to do anything except stare vacantly at the TV with a little bit of drool coming out of the corner of my mouth....I'm serious :)

So I've decided to fine-tune. My own personal 12 step program to focusing my life.

Step 1: Stay off the internet ....and here I sit blogging. But blogging isn't what I'm referring to. I have a bad habit of non-stop surfing...reading other blogs, searching for the next thing that will spike my interest, taking stupid quizes on FaceBook. It's like being a junky. I'm looking for that next fix.

Step 2: Get more sleep. I'm not doing myself any favor by only getting 6 hours of sleep a night. Especially since I'm staying up late surfing the internet or watching a movie that I've probably seen before. I'm better off getting a extra couple hours of sleep

That's all I got for now...If I can do those two things, it'll be an acheivment.

I'm in a mood...

Usually when I say that...I'm angry. I'm in more of a contemplative funk. I've been thinking about where I am in life and what I want to do next. And I've come to a conclusion....I have no idea.

I was reading Helen Drigg's flashcard and she quoted Lew Wackler as saying to acheive master status at something you need to put in 10,000 hours. And this got me thinking about where my life is going.

Do I concentrate on my job? I'm rather good at what I do...which mostly involves crunching numbers. I'm good at math. In college we had the option of not going to calculus class if we could pass the standardized tests. So I skipped class, taught myself calculus and passed all the tests with A's. I sometimes wonder if I should have gone for a degree in Math rather than Biology. But at the time I was headed for a career in the medical laboratory. I've been at my current job for 12 years. Given an average 8 hour day....I've put in close to 25,000 hours. I've definetely acheived master status.

Then there's the jewelry. I whine alot about the fact that I work a full time job and have limited time to design. But it's a fact....that I whine and that I have limited time. I estimate that it would take me about 20 years at my current rate to acheive master status. Now that's depressing. Especially since I ping-pong back and forth about the techniques and styles I want to focus on.

So I am contemplating the future...the shows this summer drained me. It was hard to prepare for them, do them, and work.. And each day I take as PTO to do a show is a day of vacation that I won't be taking to spend time with Lou.

I'm in search of balance and direction.

Old Transit Maps

If you like old maps...old transit maps...old New York City transit maps.....take a look at this site. It has all kinds of old maps of the transit system.

Countdown to Paris...

64 days to go. The apartment is booked. I can't wait to see this place. It has beams going through the living room and a ton of windows. It's up on the 5th floor so it overlooks the rooftops. At night you can see Notre Dame off in the distance.



We booked the flights tonight. Lou travels so much that he had enough frequent flyer miles for both of us to get free tickets. Woo-Hoo!!!

Gemstones

I played hooky from work this afternoon and went to the Rings and Things show. It was only in town for one day and ran from 12-4 so I had no choice but to take the afternoon off. I was looking for some small rondelles to use with the bronze. I picked up a few strands....garnet, labradorite, sodalite, and carnelian.



But my most favortie buy was a strand of jade Happy Buddha beads. There are about 20 of them in the strand and each one is a little bit different. There were only 2 strands and now I'm thinking I should have bought the other strand too....Oh Well.



There is another gem show in town this weekend at the county fairgrounds and since Lou is golfing Saturday morning I think I'll be heading to the show. This will be a bigger show with different vendors. I'm still looking for some amethyst and anything else that catches my eye...like the Happy Buddha's.

Crack....Thud.....Whoosh!!!!

That's the sound of a tree falling. And this is the second time it's happened this summer. Not the whole tree...but a very very very large branch. Extend your arms out in front of you in a circle.....that's about the size of it.

At 2AM this morning I awoke to that sound. Luckily the last sound was a whoosh...which means the tree didn't hit anything. The whoosh is the sound that the leaves make as they sort of whiplash on the ground after it hits. If the tree had hit something it would have been Crack....Thud....metal crunching, glass breaking, cats screaming.

It spanned across the entire front yard and down into the driveway in between our two cars. It missed the cars, missed the lampost, missed the fence, missed the house. It did take out a little 3' tall Japanese Maple. But we were extremely lucky there was no significant damage.

The tree dudes came out right away, cut it up, and chipped it. They also went up into the tree and took out some other questionable branches. We left work early to clean things up but they did a great job of taking everything. We hosed down the driveway and front porch to get rid of the saw dust but other than that...the dudes did it all.

I don't have any pictures because they were gone before we got home. As we cleaned up we did find a few mushrooms.....very, very, very large mushrooms. Those I made Lou hold up so I could take pics.

Can you believe the size of this? It's bigger than a wedding bouquet...with this mushroom I thee wed.



This one is smaller but it looks like it could talk....."Feed me Morris"

Maybe tonight I'll get some sleep. After the tree fell I didn't sleep at all.

From my bead stringing days.....

Back in 2005 I got the cover of Bead Style magazine. It was particularly significant because this was the necklace I made the night my Dad passed away. I couldn't sleep and my mind was numb so I put my hands to work and this is what I created.


Kalmbach has released a new book...Big & Bold. The necklace in one of the projects in the book....page 58.

New Pendants

Cleopatra has nothing on this chick. I would show the original picture that it came from but...I accidentally saved the tear-away image over the original picture.



This came from a stained glass window in the Cluny Museum...



This came from a picture of the Conciergerie. One of my favorite buildings. I like the turrets. This looks better in person. I was having a hard time photographing it.



The Eiffel tower glimpsed between trees.



I haven't decided if this will be part of a mixed media piece or a bracelet or...


I overlaid a picture of the Eiffel Tower over the French version of La Vie en Rose.

I struck a nerve.....

with the post on Monday. Sounds like I'm not the only person that gets suckered into repairing jewelry. But I will not do it again and I will not apologize for it.

So everyone ...say it with me....NO, I DO NOT REPAIR JEWELRY. NO, NO, NO, NO NO.

There now don't you feel better. I do.

I will never ever agree to do this again....

that is what I said to myself with each amethyst chip I strung tonight. Get ready because I'm going to rant even though I did this to myself.

I've had a number of people at work approach me to fix their jewlery. And a few years ago I used to do this and even design things with strands of beads they would bring me. But I haven't strung anything in a long time since my interests have moved on to metals. But they still continue to ask. And now that I think of it, the ones that have come to me have never purchased a piece of my jewelry....but they still ask if I can fix theirs. Most of it is cheap and they would be better off if they just threw it out. But for some reason they want it repaired. A while back I decided that I wasn't going to do this ever again. NO, NO, NO.

But I had a weak moment when a co-worker asked about a bracelet. I said OK but it had to be after my shows were finished this summer. On the day after my last summer show she followed me to my office to give me the bracelet....an amethyst bracelet strung on elastic that her daughter had broken. Much to my surprise she pulled out a bag of amythyst chips and proceded to tell me about the necklace she wanted me to string for her and the single strand bracelet now became 4 strands with silver pieces in it. I don't know why I didn't say NOOOOOOO at that point but I took everything home and it's been sitting here for 2 months.

I couldn't give it back to her at this point because it's been so long. So tonight I strung the necklace and with each chip I said..."I will never do this again". And it wasn't like they were spectacular chips and maybe I could have enjoyed the beauty of the gemstone. The chips are really low grade. So it was torture. I also strung the 4 strands for the bracelet but I don't have a clasp that will work from a design perspective. So I am taking everything back to her tomorrow. The necklace is finished and I am going to recommend someone else at work to finish the bracelet. I will not take on the task of looking for the right clasp.

At one point tonight Lou asked me if I was OK. He said I looked angry. I started laughing. I was angry. But I did it to myself.

I WILL NEVER EVER AGREE TO FIX JEWELRY THAT WASN'T MADE BY ME....EVER AGAIN.

Colors....

Pretty colors. I'm off to prep another load for the kiln. I could have made one big load but like a little kid...I couldn't wait. I wanted to get some of it fired. It's like opening a present when I pull the bronze out.

BibliOdyssey

If you like old book illustrations, you need to check out BibliOdyssey. I could spend days and days on this site. Pick an picture...any picture and use it for inspiration. There is also a list of recommended books in the BibliOdyssey Emporium that are worth taking a look at.

The Thunderbirds are here....

This weekend is the Cleveland Airshow...an annual Labor Day event. The Thunderbirds arrived today. I could see them practicing from my office window. It was hard to concentrate because I could hear the planes coming before I could see them so natuarally I kept looking up from my desk.

Then later when I got home I heard whinning engines overhead. I stepped outside to see the C-130 Hercules descending so it could land at Burke Lakefront Airport. It's a cargo transport plane and is massive.

Last year we got to see Fat Albert...that's the Blue Angels C-130 transport plane. It can perform jet-assisted take-0ffs. Imagine this big ass plane lumbering down the runway for a take-off. It's so big you can't believe that it will even get off the ground....but it does. At some point very soon after take-off they kick in the jets and this massive plane rockets into the sky. It's impressive.

Of course there will be protesters outside the airshow. They protest these "weapons of war".... "weapons of mass destruction". Lou tells me I'm a bleeding heart...I don't ever want to see people go to war. I grew up watching the Vietnam War on TV. That definetely had an impact on a 10 year old girl. These are weapons that can inflict massive destruction but I also think the sheer force of their existence can keep war at bay. Sane people will think twice before starting a conflict because of the consequences. It's the insane ones that don't care and start wars anyway....kinda like our past President (that's means you GW-yah).

OH but this is much too serious for my blog. I am taking tomorrow off so I have a 4-day weekend.....and we have no plans....and if I'm lucky we won't have any last minute invitations. I might actually get 4 days in the studio. WOO HOO!!!

Like a Stuck Record....

I'm stuck on making tear aways. I played around with pictures I took in Paris and I've been making tear aways for about a week. Sometimes I get stuck...I make something and then get lost in making different sizes and variations. Put down the pasta machine and walk away!!!!

I'm anxious to work with them. Here are two that I really want to see put to metal. The first was from a picture of a stained glass window in the Musee National du Moyen Age....Middle Ages museum. It's a little grainy but I'm hoping that adds to the piece.

The next is from a stone tablet in the Louvre. Same issue with it being grainy.

We'll have to see if they translate to metal. Sometimes something that looks good on paper doesn't easily make a good tear away or translate to metal well.

I'm going to do some work with these this weekend. I'm hoping to take Friday off as well as Monday. If that happens I should be able to get some concentrated time in the studio. Keep your fingers crossed that I don't have to be at work on Friday.