"Changing horses?"(4-5-08)

As blogging goes, I suck. I know it. I don't know if it's because I get busy working on something and I forget to keep everyone posted, or if I just don't think that what is going on is "news worthy". It’s probably a combination of both. Having said that, I plan to make a… (maybe monthly… probably bi-monthly) newsletter that I can send to everyone. If I give myself a scheduled goal (deadline), I have a better chance of keeping up with it. If I just stick it on my list somewhere, it may never happen.

I’m still enthralled with my glass work. That’s not news, but I am getting better and better at it. I look at things that I made just a few months ago and I can really see a difference. It’s really encouraging. I’ve been tweaking my temperatures and times in the kiln to get a good fuse, but minimize the loss of detail. It’s working. I’ve also been experimenting with ways to get the glass to do things that it normally wouldn’t do.

For example, I made a faerie riding a hummingbird. You can see from the picture that her upper arm was fused into place but it isn’t sagging (as it would try to do normally). How did I do that? Ha! It’s magic. Well, it’s not, but until I can test it a few more times and make sure that it’s going to work in most applications, I choose to keep it a mystery. I’ll share once I know it isn’t going to ruin anyone’s artwork.

And, by popular demand, I’ve put together a shop on Etsy. I’ve had several friends, for several months, telling me to put my work out there and see what happens. Well, it’s out there so if you lurk around Etsy, look me up.

neomythica.etsy.com

Then there’s the other ideas that are bouncing around in my brain-pan. I’ve been using fibers, like yarn and ribbons, in my work for the last few years. I find the difference of texture and the HUGE array of color choices to be fascinating.

Well, about a month ago, I decided to experiment with some felting. I’ve made a few sudsy messes and I made the kitchen smell like wet sheep, but so far, nothing that I’m happy with. I can see what I want in my head, but I haven’t been able to wrangle the fibers into submission (yet) to get there. I continue to work on it.

The design that I have in my head, that started this trip down the rabbit hole last month, is for a brooch and scarf. I thought that I wanted the scarf to be nuno felted and have a real crinkly look, but now I don’t think so. I think that it would look better in a shiny silky drape, so… I’m going to try my hand at silk painting!!! (That will be a whole new mess in the kitchen, but it shouldn’t smell like a wet sheep. If the weather gets a bit nicer, I may even create my mess on the back porch.)

I'm not giving up on silver. I'm just broadening the palette.