Scenes from the Opening Reception

Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts

I thought I would share some of the photos from the opening reception on Friday night at the Palmer Lake Artist Group's Fine Art Show at Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts.

As I have mentioned, I do like this venue. The turn out for the opening receptions continues to be good.

The Krucoff Clan fared well as each of us won ribbons for our works. Dan won first place in the Photography category.

Daniel Krucoff ~ First Place Photography

Mary received second place for her watercolor.

Mary Krucoff's Watercolor ~ 2nd Place in the category

I received a second place for my wire wrapped glass jewelry.

Bling Wire Wrapped Glass Jewelry by Kathleen Krucoff

And I also had the good fortune of receiving 3rd place for one of my glass bowls, Summer Days.

Summer Days ~ 3rd Place ~ Fused Glass Bowl by Kathleen Krucoff

Suzanne Jenne, a gifted artist, was the MC for the silent auction. I'm happy that I won one of the items in the auction. The proceeds from the auction go toward the scholarship fund to help art students from the area go on to pursue their studies in college.



Here are a few more shots of the variety of work at this show.







And here are a few of the Krucoffs. You will notice a photo of Dan in front of his work is noticeably absent....hmmmmmm he does like being the photographer!

Mary and her painting.

Me with my jewelry.

A girl and her glass..... bowl that is, with ... a glass of wine!

Oh yes, those are 'adult beverages' that Mary & I have. What's an opening reception without a little wine or beer?

We had a fun evening. Hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse of the surroundings.

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

Silent Auction Report

You may recall at the beginning of March, I posted about an auction that was raising money for one of the local elementary schools for their teaching of the arts. I'm happy to report that the piece I donated, "A little bit of twilight" sold and the lady who bought it wore it for the rest of the evening. My friend Heather, who approached me about this, said the woman was very happy with the necklace and was smiling ...showing it off. That kind of feedback really warms my heart.

Heather said that the auction didn't do as well as everyone had hoped, but they did raise some money and that's a good thing. The economy and limited advertising budgets more than likely contributed to the results. I am happy that I was able to contribute in some small way.

Make it a great week of creativity.

Wraps Heading to Coyote Creek

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you are snow bound. Here are a few of the pieces that will be heading to Coyote Creek Arts in a couple of weeks. I'm working on getting as many earrings done as I can as they take the longest time to do right now. I finally have a design that works well for the small round globes. And now I have documented the process so I can refer back to it. Nice to have those repeatable patterns. The basics are there, I just add variations with crystals, bead, plain, or swirls. There are a few of the crinklized ones in this group. The set in the upper left is some of the new dichroic I purchased a few weeks ago. Lovely colors.

Dan is using the snow blower as I write this, digging us out. We have plans to go the the Colorado Springs Philharmonic "Old & New"...Mozart, this afternoon, taking Dan's mom as our birthday gift to her. The only problem is, she needs the plow guy to open her driveway...a mere 1/4 mile in length...up hill too. We don't have a way to get her out, so hopefully, all this will come together so we can pick her up.

Happy creating all!

Crinklized Dichroic Results

These are just a few of the crinklized results from last night's firing. Aren't they gorgeous? This batch turned out really nice with more of the crinkles than my first batch. I took them up a little higher in temperature to get more of that texture and I'm happy that did the trick. And I am just lovin' the patterns too. Lots of possibilities. I did make some earrings in this batch too.

Now I have even more wire wrapping work to do. It should be a great weekend of creativity while snowed in! To quote a lyric from Monty Python, "Always look on the bright side of life!" :D

In the kiln......

This is my batch of crinklized pendants and earrings that I just put in the kiln, which is firing up to temperature as I write this. I'm very anxious to see how the patterns turn out. I kept things pretty simple so the shape of the pendants and earrings wouldn't detract from the look of the glass post firing. I'll post a picture of the firing results tomorrow, once everything has cooled. And I will try to show some of the pattern details too. These should be really unique.

We are under another winter storm warning, which will be in effect until noon on Saturday. I figure we are house bound until Saturday. We had thunder-snow earlier, sleek, rain, snow, hail. It's been an interesting weather day.

Tree Buds

I really enjoy creating glass combinations and seeing what shape the inclusions take during the fusing process.  The pendant looks like there is a branch with some tree buds, hence the name.  The earrings match in terms of color, although they don't have any 'buds'.  

I experimented some with the wire wrap on the earrings and I like the way the glass centers are framed.   I also added some spirals to this, and that was before my friend Sandy of SCJ Jewelry Design explained the Beauty of Spirals in her blog!  Thanks to Sandy I have some insight as to why we find spirals so  attractive.