Newton ~ A Basset Tale..yes pun intended

This is one of our bassets, our youngest one, Newton...named after Sir Isaac. Today is his birthday. On the left, the full grown boy of 3 years. On the right, typical basset puppy sitting posture at 8 weeks! He's still just as cute and sweet today and every inch a puppy!

While this post isn't related to my glass work, he is an integral part of my work as he does keep me company while I'm in the studio. :)

And his parents are pretty gorgeous too....both are Champions. His Dad is Expo, on the left, and his mom is Riva (she's known as Red). I sure do love bassets. My aaaawwww moment of the day.

Order is Back in the Studio

I'm pleased to report that it actually took less time than I thought to re-gain order in my studio. Before I started this clean up, I didn't have one clutter free surface. Now my plan/goal is to keep things as close to this as possible. One of the keys for me will be to put things back as I use them. I have locations for things better defined. The peg boards were added this fall in one of my last attempts to reorganize and they helped, but clutter seems to multiply. I've conquered it for now.

Here's the tour of the studio.

This view shows my light table in the foreground. It doubles as a place where I do my wire wrapping. Right now it is set up for wire wrapping and I have the surface covered with the cloth I keep in place to prevent beads, tools, glass from rolling around. To the left is my large work surface (a Koala cutting table on rollers). It's the perfect height for me...I'm a little over 5' 7" and this is about 36" high so it keeps me from bending over too much to work. The floors are stained and sealed concrete, so I have a couple of anti-fatigue mats that I can stand on for long periods of time. BIG help. I have two grid glass cutting systems set up on that table, covered with a vinyl table cloth to protect the surface from water spray when I'm grinding. The grid systems are on either side of the glass grinder. To the right is another large work table. I generally use its surface as a spot to assemble stained glass windows or build items that are going into the kiln.

Another view of my two largest work surfaces. Lots of storage under each. I have an Ott-Lite on rollers that gives the best light of any, so I use it a lot for detail work.









This gives a better view of my light table where I wire wrap. I also use the light table to cut stained glass as it allows me to have a good idea of what light will look like coming through the glass. I can pick and choose which section of the glass will best represent what I want in a design.

Yes, I have a TV in here. I listen to lots of movies or music while I work. Depends on my mood. I can't and don't actually sit and watch movies as I just can't do that and work. I just like to have something on in the background. And when I need a break, then I'll watch whatever scene is on.... I get a lot of use out of DVDs.



This last view shows my overflowing glass bins. The sad thing.....this isn't all of my glass. Yep, I'm a glass-aholic! These are really great storage bins for the large sheets of glass. Dan and I built them a few years ago, from a design given in the book "How to Design Your Stained Glass Studio". Great little book, but I don't think it's in print anymore.


And no picture of the studio would be complete without one of our bassets. I think you can see Newton in the foreground of a couple of these.

It was time well spent and I'm very happy with the results. I've started working on the bowl in preparation for slumping it.

Now, if any of you are up to sharing photos of your studios, that would be GREAT! I know Tracey has. I'd love to see how your work spaces are set up.

Basset Supervision

I jokingly refer to "Basset Supervision" during my work. Here are some photos of the adorable threesome. One of them, sometimes all three, are with me as I work on my glass pieces. When I am cutting large sheets of glass, they are banned from the studio for safety reasons. Any other time, they are welcome company. Newton is the pup...all of 2 years old and the photo of his is just the face shot. Nocturne is fondly referred to as Little Miss. She's the one that is sleeping on the pillows with her tongue out (now that's relaxed!). And Bueller (named after the movie....once we heard Ben Stein's delivery of that name, we knew it would be perfect for a basset name) is sleeping on blankets I have in the studio. Bueller is the most confident dog that Dan & I have ever had.

So these are my basset supervisors. While they may try to claim artistic control of my work, that wouldn't be right. However, they are loyal companions and great snuggle bunnies.

I thought it would be fun to share pictures of the three hounds in my life. I have done some basset tribute windows (in stained glass) for some of the folks responsible for allowing us to have these wonderful dogs in our life, which you can find on the gallery of my website, Kathleen Krucoff Studio. Enjoy! Notice two out of the three are sleeping....something they do very well.