Form and Space and Home

I had lunch last week with a friend who is a Professor Emeritus of Architectural History. She has made a lifelong study of French cathedrals and is a wonderful designer, traveler, and beadcrafter - she's the kind of person we want to be when we grow up. When I walked into her house just south of downtown, I was overwhelmed with the sense of form and space. Her interior colors came from an African bead necklace she found on one of her trips - her plant room soars at least twenty-five feet up in the center of the house and includes a very tall cat tower for her four cats. It's an amazing home, small and perfect, like a Shaker jewel box. Here are a few photos, which don't do justice to the flow of the space and the lightness of the design.

Elegant Little Card

Look at this wonderful little card I made yesterday - it opens up to become a votive candle holder. It folds flat to fit in a envelope. I fund the pattern in a half-price book about garden cards (seed packets and markers) but this is a gem! It's made from one 9x12" sheet of construction paper with little round windows cut out for translucent paper. This card could be a present all by itself, especially with a little votive candle added.

A Wordle

In class tomorrow, my students will be making Wordle graphics from their first blog entries. I did one myself of my most recent entries - these word clouds feature words you use most often. I'm wondering why mine has "POT" as a main element. "Shard" makes sense, but how about "easy" and "roll"? Interesting. If you want to make your own, go to the Wordle site.

Small Studio Eureka

Mechanical solutions do not come easy to me, but I needed a way to keep my heavy recycled kraft paper available and easy to unroll. I "visioned" a solution - a clay flower pot turned upside down, a wooden dowel that would fit thru both the roll and the pot hole, and three round furniture slider discs between the roll and the pot to keep it turning smoothly. The sucker works! And the extra dowel space above the roll give me a place to hang scissors and tape. Now off to the patent office . . .

Celtic Treasure from Gina

My friend Gina and I met today to discuss a collaborative project we're thinking about, and she surprised me with a beautiful gift - earrings she had made from tiny glass vials filled with grains of sand she gathered on the beach at Enniscrone, County Sligo, Ireland. I was totally speechless when I opened them. They are lovely and delicate and filled with symbolism as well as sand - she crafted the tiny copper spirals herself (there's one even on the bottom of the vials) and even wrapped the wire around the glass so that they are secure but still seem to float. Gina, you are amazing -I think you have a new direction to explore along with your wonderful journals!

Creative Solution

(. . . . . . .if I do say so myself)
A friend purchased my magnetic adornment shard called "Canyon", but she wodered if there was any way she could wear it as a necklace. After looking at the back, I figured out a way to attach a section of soda straw, the translucent kind, above the magnet so a cord could be strung through it. The shard can still be worn as a brooch if the cord is removed, but this makes it doubly versatile. Thanks, Teri, for giving me the challenge! See the pics of the front and back:

Rick Rocks - Proud mom (and grandmother)

Rick and Haley on Rock Center last night - I'm speechless with happiness!

Grand Opening

After a few weeks of hectic holiday activity (including a *great* visit with my Austin Brother and my Philadelphia Brother) I went back to work in the studio on Sunday and made a kilnful of shard faces. When I fired late last night, it had started to rain. I worried a bit even though the kiln is under a canopy, but when I opened it this morning, everything was perfect - no breakage, no overfiring. It was grand! Now to surface-finish and sign each piece - what a good way to start the new year. Here's what I saw when I opened the kiln lid early this morning: