Aurora....Over Salmon!

So...

Onward....

 with the Aurora Series.

Here's the salmon samples I'm working on for my reps.

 Each is an original.

Different colors & types of glass.

This is a salmon in the round & available

in both a 7.5" size or a 12" size.

We like to use the 7.5" size for desserts or a

ball of salmon pate'. 

Yumm!

Shopping for salmon fishing charters today!



Watch the Skies Tonight!

Here's a Daily News article on the possibility of a great show tonight in the northern skies!

Time to head out with the telescope & camera!

The Snowiest Winter on Record!

Anchorage has had over 88 inches of snow already this year!
We're on record for the snowiest winter on record since 1954.
Check out this article in the Alaska Dispatch.

I believe it!  I'm sick of the snow & shoveling.



Here's a shot of the snow plow with Denali in the background.
So beautiful but soooooo much snow!

Man...Stop the Snow!

We've had over 15 inches of snow in the past few days!

While my husband & son shoveled us out

I worked overtime in the studio in anticipation of the upcoming

Crafts Emporium!!



Can you guess what inspired this piece??

I'm working on lots of new work & also dyed-up some beautiful

cut velvet scarves.

Crafts Emporium

November 19th & 20th

Dena'ina Convention Center

Anchorage, Alaska

See you there!



Aurora over Anchorage!

The northern hemisphere is being treated to

 beautiful aurora displays.

It's magical.

How I Love Sports ~

So......

My dear husband thinks I'm not into SPORTS?

Imagine that....(?)

So in the spirit of loving sports, here's a little trivia for you.

What famous sports movie does the above image reference?

It's my favorite sports movie of all time.

The first person to correctly identify the name of

"the sports movie"  will win a prize!!!

Yeah for prizes!?!?!

Comment with your winning movie name & win!

Can You Say Lederhosen??

The Main Squeeze (plus Stephan & his beautiful family) at St. Marks.

Thank you for inviting us to share in your Octkober Fest Celebration.

We enjoyed the friendship, fabulous German food,

dancing (especially the 7 month old who waltzed with her Grandmother) & music!!

Stephan also graced us with his homemade German forest cake at the

end of our performance ~ delicious!!  

We love a man in lederhosen ~ plus he can cook!?!?

Thank you for your kindness & for inviting us to help celebrate the season.

Happy Equinox!

Women's Show ~

Join me for the Anchorage Women's Show!

Sullivan Arena

Friday, September 23rd

Saturday, September 24th

Sunday, September 25th

11 to 6 pm

~ civilized hours ~

featuring

Loose beads, tools & findings

Art glass for body & abode

&

Glass by William

He's very motivated to sell some of his work

to fund his Lego collection!

                    

So, if you need some Halloween art stop bye my booth & shop! 

You'll make a 7 year old artist very happy!

Thanks Finnskimo!

One of the blogs that I read regularly is Finnskimo.

It's written by Maija who lives in  Kotzebue, Alaska.

She's a talented woman who writes about her life & art in the bush ~

She writes & shares about her creations & loves to sew.  She casually chats  & shows the things she whips up ~ it's amazing!  She recently showed a few sheared beaver hats that she had made & was selling so I thought that William needed one ~

one can never have too many hats when living in Alaska.

Here he is wearing his new hat! 

So warm & stylish!

So perfect to wear while working with clay in the studio!

 

My happy boy.

 No front teeth but a warm & beautiful hat custom made by Maija!

Thanks Maija ~ we love it!!

Slip Casting ~

I'm doing some casting again. 

In the past I've experimented with glass casting but have been wanting to return to my "roots" of ceramic casting.  I haven't done slip casting in many years but a long time ago (in what seems like a galaxy far, far, away) I worked exclusively with clay.  Throwing, slab work & slip casting. 

These are good things to know for a glass artist as it's allowed me to make my own molds as well as repair or reproduce molds I like rather than purchasing expensive molds from a dealer.

I was hanging onto a pair of William's first little red boots...sob!

So cute that I just couldn't bring myself to throw them away.

SO....I thought I would make a plaster cast & then slip cast it as a vase!

Mother's day is coming up, right?

A gift to me & my Mommy.

Here's a picture of the first half cast in plaster.  It's coated with Vaseline (used as a release)

& ready for the second pour of plaster.  The boot is coated as well as the plaster.  It's very important to really coat the plaster otherwise the second pour could stick!

This was much more messy than I remembered! 

Yikes!  I need to finish this up this weekend so I can clean the studio get back to production!

They're BACK.....for dessert?

This morning the Mama & calf came back! 

They are feeding on my cotoneaster shrubs & have them eaten

down below the top of the fence.  This poor hedge doesn't have a chance!

If you look closely you can see our lit white lights along the top of the fence.

It's probably about time to take them down but it's really nice to have the extra light in the early morning when we leave to walk to school....or to add  a little ambiance to dinner time?

OK ~ move on now girls!!

Skyline ~

Yesterday morning we were treated to a beautiful skyline!

This is a picture from our back yard.  Just too beautiful to not enjoy so instead of heading out to school William & I took a walk to take pictures & talk about the skyline.

Then we came home & goggled for information about why the

sky is pink & here's what we learned;

The color of the sky is determined by which colors of light from the sun get scattered around the atmosphere(the air around the earth). When red light is scattered the sky looks red. When you look at the sky your eyes are sensing the light that is being scattered around the atmosphere. Blue light is normally scattered by the gases oxygen and nitrogen which make up most of the atmosphere while red, yellow, and other mixtures of light pink passes right through. However, unlike the gases such as nitrogen and oxygen that do not scatter red and pink light, other particles such as water, pollution, and dust can and do scatter red and pink light making the sky look different shades of red or pink. So when the sun light has to pass though lots of pollution, dust, or water particles red and pink light can get scattered along with the blue making the sky look red or pink. This often happens when it is very polluted, when there is lots of water or dust in the air, or during the morning or dusk when sunlight passes though more of the atmosphere to reach us giving it more opportunities to scatter off of stuff in the air.

So, in a nutshell the color changes in the sky is caused by pollution.

When I was a child my Grandma used to say it was

Mrs. Clause in North Pole frosting cookies. 

I think I like that explanation better!

Artist in the Park! (Part 1)

My family & I had a fabulous time in Denali Park! It was pleasure to be able to share my work with the visitors & the park staff. You know you're in the wilderness when you see signs like this posted all over the place. We were tent camping so seeing these signs in the campground were a little worrisome. Bears like to hunt the calves ~ yum! Fresh & tender meat!

It's late spring so the moose cows have little calves. We saw cows & calves all over the place! Lots of twins & triplets like the ones below. See the hair on the mom's back standing up? She knew we had pulled over in the truck & were watching them....

she was trying to herd the babes up & kept looking at us over her shoulder.

The Mom & trips were right around the corner from the McKinley Chalet

where I was invited to chat it up with the visitors & educate the staff about my work & techniques.

Education helps to sell the work.

I haven't done much in the way of retail selling in a while

so I was looking forward to the experience.

This was a beautiful building & the gift shops were amazing.

Here's one of the displays of my work.

What a great idea to put it in front of the window so the light can come through the window.

They asked me to set up a display table with more of my work. I also brought books, literature & handouts from Bullseye Glass & samples of fusing techniques. The glass samples were a big hit! Everyone liked to hear about the different fusing schedules & learn about the different look of glass fused at different temperatures.

A growing crowd with brisk sales! What fun! The visitors also kept asking me about the sculpture behind me ~ like I knew how it was made or installed??? One lady keep insisting that it was a natural wonder & the building had been buildt around the rock. (hee, hee) I told her I thought it was plastic & she about had a heart attack.....kidding!!! I was only kidding!!

I had to take a picture of the SIGNAL LIGHT in the intersection right outside the McKinley Chalet. Can you believe it???? A signal light!

Wow...I guess they do get a lot of traffic in the park in the summer.

If you look closely at this picture you'll notice all the buildings on the left side of the Parks Highway. It's a strip of assorted log cabins & shops. A number who carry my work. The grizzly sculpture below was outside Summitt Gifts. It's a quaint shop filled to the gills with Alaskan kitch & handcrafted gifts. The grizzy is lifesize at about 10 feet tall. Can you image being a 5 year old & running into a real-life bear this size????

At the end of my work day we went on a little hike along Riley Creek. What fun to jump from rock to rock....and stand on this gigantic boulder.

And pick up sticks.

And head back to our camp site for dinner.

It's SHOW TIME at the SPENARD FARMER'S MARKET!!

Join me on Saturday, May 29th at the Spenard Farmer's Market!

I'll be there selling my art glass, jewelry, garden stakes & more.

I've made the logo into cool magnets & for a $5 donation to the Spenard Farmer's Market you can help to pay for the Port-O-Potties!!

Yep...you read that right! We're raising money for the potties!

See you in Spenard tomorrow!!!

(10 to 3 pm ~ civilized hours)

Box Art ~

Hummm.....Who's in that box ("house") ?

There's a child in there...wearing a paper hat ("turban").

And a recycled can ("bracelet").....

Everything is cool if you put the right spin on it!

Art or Graffitti?

Is graffiti art?

I'm contemplating painting my house this summer so I'm pursuing paint chip charts & trying samples on the walls. In assessing the condition of the

walls I've come across graffiti in my own home!

Here's a small sampling ~

A face. In purple PERMANENT Sharpie marker.

My love of Sharpies is coming back to bite me.

I was told that Rudi-pa-tuti (our golden retriever) drew this....Who knew she was so talented!?!

Then there's the big "W" with a circle around it on the side of the sofa...yes, again the Sharpie marker but this time in black. It looks like a brand, don't you think?

I was again told that "Rudi" did this but I'm not buying it.

Here's my favorite. Little hearts & stars drawn in red Sharpie, cut out,

& taped on the wall under another framed piece.
I know Rudi didn't make these as she can't get her paws in the scissors loops...yet!

I'm re-thinking my painting.

Things to do on a spring day ~

What does one do in Alaska on a spring day? I say "spring" here loosely as we still have a lot of snow on the ground. So of course, there's always art ~ that's looking a little dark William.

We had some beautiful warm weather in February but that was trick as around the first week in March we had cloudy skies & flurries. This worked out well for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. There's always ice skating at the lagoon. This is right downtown & within walking distance from our house so if it's a sunny day we skate!

And of course there's always the indoor water park for an afternoon of fun! William's learning to swim & we're headed to Hawaii for a week at the beach so he needs the experience of being in the water.

Anchorage Accordion Club

It's the third Monday of the month so it's Anchorage Accordion Club time! Bring your box & join us. for more information check out our Yahoo group site.
This is a logo I designed for the trio I play with almost weekly ~ sometimes more. We're lovin our Main Squeeze boxes!

Moose on the Loose!

There's moose all over the place & they're eating my trees, and shrubs, & anything they can find! This guy has lost his rack. See the little knob spots where they used to be?

Oh man...he's looking right at us!

Here's a visitor to the neighborhood strolling down the sidewalk!

There's a Mommy moose & a set of twins wandering around the neighborhood too.