'Tis the Season

Santa Sun Catcher

I love decorating for the holidays. I think I got that from my mother. Christmas was her favorite time of year and I so enjoyed helping her decorate the house. She had so many clever ways to bring the spirit of Christmas into our home. Now I feel that I carry that tradition in my own way.

I feel like I've been missing in action for several weeks. Holiday preparations and all that. I wanted to share a few of my stained glass creations that decorate our home this season. The first is a Santa sun catcher. I wish I could claim this design as my own, but I cannot. In the days before I started creating my own designs, I was quite the fan of Christmas pattern books. This originally was a Christmas ornament and I just didn't think that was the right size for this Santa, so I made him about 12" in diameter and he hangs in the kitchen window. I was really big on adapting patterns to suit my tastes and this guy is a perfect example of that. He helps me enjoy my time doing the dishes...of which I am not a fan, but it's one of those tasks that must be done! I used several different types of iridescent glass (red & white) in this one. He really does make me smile.

The Candle Nestled in Poinsettias

I've always loved finding the right glass to create a flame for a candle. I probably made this piece a good 15 years ago. Red poinsettias were my mom's favorite! The white in the candle is this great iridescent glass. I made several from the pattern book I had, one with a cardinal, one with some bells, all very Christmasy! I shared these creations as gifts with family and friends and kept this one for myself. This one is hung at the side window by our front door.

O Christmas Tree

This last one is another favorite of mine. A Christmas tree, but instead of the usual green, I used Bullseye's confetti and streamers Christmas glass with reds and greens. I had fun incorporating the red and green glass jewels in this one too. I have placed this next to the Christmas tree in our living room.

Each year these migrate to different locations in our home. I hope you enjoy the sign above this tree as much as I do. I found it a couple of years ago and really enjoyed the humorous note.

I do have projects waiting for completion and look forward to sharing these with you very soon.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person. I hope your Thanksgiving holiday was wonderful.

Winter

Winter

Photo credit ~ Daniel Krucoff

Another in my series of seasonal bowls. Shortly after I finished Autumn, I knew I needed to create a bowl with the shades of winter. I envisioned it to have whites, clears, and soft grays. As I discussed this with Dan, we frequently bounce our respective ideas off of each other, he said it needed to have some blues in it too. And now you can understand why Dan & I discuss our work with each other. If he hadn't suggested the use of blues to convey the coolness of winter, I don't think this bowl would look right. The minute he said blues, I felt like I had a Homer Simpson moment of "doh!".

Each one that comes out of my kiln, quickly becomes a favorite for me and I really, really like the turquoise blue in this piece as I think it emphasizes the chill of winter. Like those beautiful blue icebergs you see in Alaska. The darkest glass I used was a deep navy blue. I kept with the idea of clears and whites. Coupled with the blues, I feel this conveys a sense of the calm and stillness of a winter day.

Until next time, happy creating all. Aspire to be more as an artist and a person.

She loved it!

In my post on Monday of this week, I published a picture of Lexi's Dream, which is one of my fused bowls that Lexi described to me from a recent dream she had.

Last night, I presented the bowl to Lexi. She loved it! She said that it was even prettier than the one in her dream. It had more depth. The only thing it didn't have was real gold, which I truly don't know how to incorporate gold into glass...I can do silver or copper inclusions. And given the price of gold, that would be cost prohibitive. She saw how I worked at replicating the gold color she described with this lovely, almost lemon yellow transparent glass I used. I found it to be be awesome glass....as with most of my work, the Bullseye Glass palette works so well for me.

I also showed her Fallen Leaves, which she liked too. However, her favorite was the vision come to life, Lexi's Dream. As with all my work, I am truly happy when a piece finds its rightful home.

All that being said, I could tell how thrilled she was with this and how much she loved the colors of this bowl. It is my gift to her. It pales in comparison to all she has given to me as a mentor, friend, teacher, and sister.

Aspiring to be more as an artist and person. Happy creating all!

Fallen Leaves

Fallen Leaves
photo by Daniel Krucoff

I'm still amazed at times how ideas come to me for something. Do you ever find this happening with your creative process? I was working on Lexi's Dream mentioned in an earlier post. And as I was cutting the strips of glass that went into the construction of that bowl, I saw all these pointed pieces of glass that were discarded from the strips I used to make Lexi's Dream. They sort of called out to me and the more I looked at all those glass shards, I thought, a cluster of them would create a wonderful autumnal effect.

So this is the result of thought process on my part. Very abstract, but they remind me of fallen leaves along a hiking trail. The myriad of colors. All those sharp little pieces of glass fused so wonderfully and melded together to create this piece.

I'm going to share this one with Lexi too and see what she thinks of my 'detour' of sorts from her original dream.

I think Dan did such a great job capturing the beauty of this one with the light shining through it.

Aspiring to be more as an artist and person.....

Lexi's Dream

Lexi's Dream

Recently I hit "The Wall", you know, that period of creative block. My friend and mentor, Lexi Erickson, helped me to work through this block. One of the things that Lexi told me was that I needed to let go of some things in order to grow in other areas of my work. She felt one of the things I may need to let go of was some of my work as it relates to glass.

Now I truly love working with glass. Yet I knew deep down she was right and I have let go of some of my glass work. However, I feel that I will continue to create my fused glass bowls and the occasional stained glass window.

Here's the funny part....several nights after our discussion about needing to let go so I could grow in other areas of my work, Lexi had a dream. In this dream, I handed her a bowl I had made. She said it was glowing. And she said this bowl needed to be comprised of transparent glass instead of the mixture of transparent and opalescent glasses that I normally use. She was concerned that I would be upset about this dream after she had told me I needed to let go of some of my glass work. Quite the contrary, it just made me smile.

She described how the bowl looked to her in her dream. She said I needed to make this bowl. And I have. It's pictured above and I'm calling it Lexi's Dream. Now we shall see how closely it actually resembles the one she envisioned in her dream. I will be giving this to her later this week and I'll give you an update on her thoughts about it.

As a result of this work, I had an alternative idea for another bowl of transparents in the same color family as this bowl. It's currently in the kiln for its final firing and I will be posting a picture of it sometime this week.

Isn't interesting how ideas and life co-mingle at times, creating such fun twists and turns in our growth?

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.