Prepwork for some mini self-portraits dried while I was away....
Underpainting in acrylic-gouache; hastily scrawled kiln schedules in the background....
Switched over to the "dirty side" of the room so I could break out the powdered glasses.
Testing seven Uroboros (System 96) powdered glasses and some homemade milled colorless frit, plus a 50/50 mixture to see how dilution works. Sandwiched between two pieces of hand-blown cylinder sheet glass.
The kiln is running overnight....
Late April and May have been physically challenging to say the least. Whirlwind of pain, medications, confusion, illness, lethargy, maybe even a spot of existential panic.
I've not been in studio often, and when I am, I am more drawn to looking at very old pieces of past projects, or raw components for making larger things, than I am to creating a new project.
Handmade sheet glass from pre-2010, filled with air pockets and imperfections.
With family on my mind, I came in one day, delirious & discouraged, and created a portrait for each of us. I never did like how they turned out, but I preserve them as-is, as a testament to how I felt about my kin, that afternoon, that week, that year.
Left & middle undecided which is Mother and which is Child; right is Father. To the right a small grease marker sketch.
Detail of Mother?, flat black gouache and Phano grease marker.
Detail of Father, poured gouache and MSG solution, scratched with patterning.
Personal challenges abound this month, and yet symbolic objects, tiny projects, omen-like scribbles continue to emerge from my shop, egging me on, making me make.
I've been beading therapeutically for some years (in 2014 with a growing inkling to turn the pieces into a wearable collection), but sometimes even now it stops being a 'project' or a 'business' and goes back to being therapy, time-filler, time-waster, something to keep the hands busy.
On Saturday, I returned to the studio after a week and a half away, sick and adjusting to some new medication, handling (not with aplomb) family matters, meeting with new doctors, suffering a small injury, and so on––
sitting at my desk I was unsure what to do. Saturday afternoon. The sun not throwing itself aggressively down my skylight but the sky was unobtrusively and very prettily blue. It was not precisely a block, the way they call it, but rather that everything was precisely where I had left it, untouched, but I felt a million miles away and at the time it seemed unclear if I was 'allowed' to touch. This will or will not make sense to you.
It was a transient feeling but one that occasionally comes and goes when you break the regularity of studio practice. Introducing new habits can also disrupt the creative process. Medication, meditation, psychotherapy, hard running on the piers, an injury, these can all bring me to another plane of being/thinking too far from baseline to recall how to 'make like I used to'––sometimes the plane is six inches off of reality, sometimes it is out in the cosmos.
Cat's first day in the shop.
I finally made a small painting––oily, scratchy, with wet spots, like a little dog needing a bath––and it was a picture of what I felt my mind was capable of that day––and while I waited for it to dry I sat in the sunlight and beaded.
I haven't had a manicure since my friend bought me one in 2006.
It was a few hours after I'd driven in to Brooklyn that I drove out of Brooklyn, and I'd made some sort of nonsense necklace, but my hands felt worked and I thought things were returning to normalcy, somewhat.
Cupped sequins and smoky hexagonal quartz.
The studio has been turned upside-down for the past week working on a prototyping project. Although the finished product hasn't come to fruition yet, I thought I'd share some pictures from the past week or so. It's been exciting, frustrating, with hardly a moment to breathe.
Smooth-on's Rebound 40 brush-on rubber product
A quick sweep with a heat gun works wonders in smoothing out Castilene surface while leaving the cold core structurally stable.
An old pal & wonderful artist visited, and performed the Ceremonial Setting-up of the Table in a corner of the shop. He may or may not drop in from time to time to do a little work and share some of this space.
Asymmetrical table love!
Always an adventurer, that one.
Exploring the Choi residence's dirtier corners.
I received exciting news from Haystack Mountain School of Crafts this morning––my acceptance letter into Session 5's goblet-making class with James Mongrain. I feel infinitely grateful that I will be able to learn from a dude who makes incredible things like this:
Venetian-style blown glass by James Mongrain
I've always been interested in goblet-making and it was one of my most favorite things to do in the hotshop, back when I was blowing/assisting 40+ hours a week. I find it to be such a conceptually rich kind of object that can be looked at and played with a thousand ways––but I never had as much technical prowess in that regard as I wanted. I'm glad for the chance to learn a little more while enjoying the phosphorescent waters of Deer Isle, Maine. And eating Tom's delicious Haystack food! And chasing the cats! And meeting new people!
Update: and I am thrilled to note that my old friend and very talented glass artist Keunae Song will be at Haystack at the same time!
