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Welcome to the New Year!
We would like to wish everyone a happy new year! It is my warmest wish that 2010 be a good year for us all. I’m not here to talk about resolutions because I haven’t made any and I’m not a fan anyway. They tend to make me stress and feel guilty for not following through on them all. I would prefer to say that I will strive to be a better person and work hard at whatever I may do this year. Shauna and I are both working on new designs and I wish I had something to show you today but the sketches are too rough at this point…
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Here Comes Santa Claus!
Christmas will soon be upon us and as we hurry to ready ourselves for this glorious day, we should all take a moment to remember our brave troops who are abroad and unable to celebrate Christmas with their families. May God bless them one and all. Another thing we should all do this Christmas season is to remember to sit back every now and then to catch our breath and enjoy all that is going on around us with our family and friends. We move at too fast a pace in our normal lives and need to make every effort to appreciate what we have and not take our blessings…
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Bronzed
Good evening. I have “finished” these earrings, bronze with chrysoprase and moonstones. They are the bronze domes I showed in a recent post, just fired with the three holes in each. I think these earrings are prettier with all three stones green, but these will stay as they are unless something else occurs to me, which is possible since I am not settled with them. We are going to start making our own earwires, one pair shown with the earrings. We each got a set of cup burs, which work great for quickly filing the ends of the wire for a comfortable fit. Sometimes finishing afterward with a file is…
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Make Your Plans! (The holidays are here!)
I would like to talk about the Mary Queen Christmas Bazaar this evening, because it’s coming up–before we know it–the first weekend in December! This art, craft, and food festival is held annually in Friendswood, and was first suggested to us in 2005 by my sister-in-law. We learned that the bazaar is a juried arts and crafts event with top-quality goods. We got in that year, and plan to continue our annual streak of participation in this “feel-good” event. The bazaar is held in the parish hall–indoors!–so bad weather can’t put a hole in your calendar, so plan to join us December 4th and 5th. Attending the MQCB will light…
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Happy Hallowe’en! & other (technical) topics
Working on a few projects at once, as usual. Keeps it interesting… I have been working with bronze clay over the last few weeks. My first experiences were with domes that fired to about 1.5″ but I had some problems with uneven shrinkage so had to cut them to a smaller diameter. Warping is always a strong possibility, but uneven shrinkage is when the edges of your shape pull in; a circle is no longer a circle, in my case. I have been doing some research which has helped me consider the issues. The following can effect shrinkage:1) thickness–thinner pieces not only warp easily but if pieces have uneventhicknesses, edge…
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All Hallow’s Eve
ArtoberFest 2009, Galveston, Texas Tomorrow is Hallowe’en! It’s always been my second favorite holiday. Mom used to make donuts in our kitchen, and we trick-or-treated faithfully until well into junior high. So now our kids are carrying on the tradition! I will be out contributing, dressed witchly with my pit fire burning, enticing the juicy little ones into the backyard lair…. But that means it’s after Artoberfest ‘way back on the 17th-18th! Seems like months ago by now, but we had a great show and need to thank Galveston! My earlier post explained how much we love going there, and this year was even better since we had the best…
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Ready to show!
The last new pieces have been finished and we are now in our packing mode, getting ready for the trek to ARToberFEST! This pendant is called “Warmth” and features a Rhodolite cab (garnet family) and 24k gold, which was applied using the Keum-boo technique. Read more about the pendant at our site. We hope to see many friends at this show. Please come by if you are out and about this weekend. Hope to see you there!
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ARToberFEST is this weekend!
We are burning the midnight oil getting ready for ARToberFEST on the 17th and 18th! It’s great to be down in Galveston–an important historical town in Texas, and there’s nothing like being at the Gulf! I anticipate meeting the artists who will be on either side of us–an inevitable and pleasant aspect of doing these shows. Last ARToberFEST we met Becci King and Kathy Spanier, very nice people to say the least. We traded with Kathy for some of her beautiful watercolors. Best news of all though is that it’s supposed to be SUNNY! We have had buckets of rain lately–yesterday I thought the curbs might wash away but the…
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One Down and Two to Go
Alone Star was in Austin at the Pecan Street Festival just a couple of weeks ago. It was a good experience for us going back to Austin, our home town, and as usual, such jaunts continue to be learning experiences as we hone down just what we want to to with our presentation during shows. Every show is different, so our displays have been different for each. One thing we know for sure is that we want to make setting up and breaking down much simpler than it has been in the past, for all the shows. And we think we are getting closer to that goal as we get…
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ARToberFEST Gallery of Artisans
Shauna and I have received special mention this year in the ARToberFEST gallery. Please take a moment to go view the gallery to get a small taste of the outstanding art to be shown this coming weekend. We hope to see you there!
