Glass Art Guild of Utah

This past July I joined the Glass Art Guild of Utah. They only meet every other month so I've just attended my third meeting. This month the guild had a show at Red Butte Gardens. I don't feel like I have anything I could enter yet, but I really wanted to go see what was exhibited so i can prepare myself for shows next year. All I can say is I am blown away by the talent exhibited by the members of this group. I'll have to really put on my creative thinking cap to keep up with, let alone compete with, the members of this group.


I took pictures today while I was there. It is by no means a complete account of what was there, just the things that caught my eye. I also can't find the new lithium batteries I bought for my camera (which is falling apart as well) so I ran out of battery before I took pics of everything I wanted to. So, if any guild members are reading this and got left out, I'm truly sorry. I thought everything I saw there was fun and creative, just didn't get to document it all! Following are pics and credits. Since a lot of people have trouble pricing their items I decided to include the listed prices as well. Awesome work, folks!

Happy Birthday Robbie!

Yesterday, January 24, was one of those wonderful, fullfilling days. For the first part of the day, I introduced 7 new people to the art of lamp working. What an enthusiastic group of people! They were each so excited as they walked in the room, they could hardly wait to get their hands on those torches!

It was a great group. They all pulled stringers like they'd been doing it forever. Everyone had a kit or access to one by the time they left. We'll being seeing all of them again for supplies I'm sure! I was having battery issues with my camera but there is a picture of each of the students having fun playing with fire.

After class was over, and everything was all cleaned up, I went home, changed clothes and then myhusband and I went to Provo for the Northern Utah Scottish Association's annual Burns Supper. I love these events! The food is always representative of Scotland, whether it's Salmon, beef, cock-a-leekie soup or of course, the obligatory haggis. This event celebrates the birth of the poet Robert Burns, and since he wrote "Ode to a Haggis" you HAVE to eat haggis at this event! And, thankfully, the chef at BYU really knows how to cook a haggis and it tastes wonderful! The above picture of the gentleman with the knife is the reciting the "Ode" (he is an actual Scotsman, so he recites it every year). Before his recital he mentioned that those who have eaten a hot dog can cast no aspertions on the haggis!

The second picture of the event is actually the traditional "Toast to the Lassies" (Although you obviously can't tell what's going on, I just wanted a good pic of the crowd). Both the toast and it's equally traditional rebuttal were very humorous.
The next pic is of my husband sitting at our table. He's actually more interested in the goings on than it looks. The other gentleman with his back to the camera is another native Scot. Very nice speaking with him during the meal. The final picture is of people clasping hands and singing "Auld Lang Sang". The Burns Supper is a tradition going back to the early 19th century. Robbie died in 1796, and in 1809, a group of his friends met at his favorite pub and started what became an annual event by 1819. I am exactly two hundred years and one month younger than Mr. Burns. I am now starting to really appreciate the things he wrote and understand what made him someone who is remembered in January all over the world, even now, 250 years later. Good food, good fun, and I would encourage anyone to attend one near you, and yes, TRY THE HAGGIS!

2008 - What the Hey???

I absolutely cannot believe what this year has wrought.

Jan = spending all my time madly making stuff for what turned out to be a horrible show.

Feb = horrible show, lose trailer tire in blizzard on the way down. Get swindled out of $1100 by show promoter.

Mar = given the boss from hell at a state job. This woman has tried to get my husband fired for years. She's going to be MY boss? Nuh uh!

Apr = good thing, sweet little baby granddaughter Emma. Bad thing. While I'm babysitting her brothers, one of them gives me a goose egg and a black eye!

May = good thing... quit state job and get hired at a stained glass shop. Just feel like a fish out of water because while I've got the experience in warm glass, my stained glass leaves a lot to be desired! Bad thing... loan for house falls through at literally the last minute and I end up living in daughter's basement.


June = busy. Get many projects started, none finished. Start selling at a farmer's market that I sold at last year, but starts out slow, and I can't get there early to set up because of work. Least stressful month so far, though.

July = hubby has surgery on his nose. They keep him extra time at the out patient surgery center because, apparently, he forgets to breathe when he's asleep. He sleeps sitting up, with an oxy concentrator for two weeks. I lose a couple of new candle holders I made to the wind at the farmer's market.

August = I switched doctor's and at a physical he found a lump in my right breast. Not worried, know I've got "dense" ones (packed, not dumb!) and mother has had lots of fibrous lumps. Sends me for a diagnostic mammo anyway, and that Dr. decides to freak out, chew me out for not getting in when I was supposed to. Schedules biopsy. Don't know whether to be worried or not! Biopsy... oh, can we say fun? They had to do TWO of em, and on the second one they couldn't get me to stop bleeding. Ended up with a breast that is 3/4 covered in huge black, red and blue bruise. Not malignant. Yeah. Better to be safe than sorry but... Holy Hannah!
Still living in daughter's basement.

Sooooo... really... can it please get just a bit better for the end of the year??? I really need to finish projects, get stuff sold. It's taken me two full days to catch up with over 2500 email and over 600 deviations here, and almost 200 messages here. For those who faved/watched me... sorry it's taken so long to respond! Hopefully, I will get caught up on projects next!

I did find some torch time, and I've posted pics along with a couple of things I've completed at work.

New Things

I was fortunate enough to be hired by a local stained glass shop. I had taken a couple of bead making classes there, then I took a stained glass class. I had made a sum total of three stained glass pieces before I started there. They knew I had the experience with fusing, etc. and they are taking a leap of faith by teaching me the stained glass stuff. This piece is my first one completed since I started at the shop. The pattern is from a book "Celtic Knotwork" by Rachel Cecere. (Making sure to give proper credit!) The main glass of the knot is NOT tan... it's an antique white glass with a slight opalescence to it that I can't get to photograph any other way but tan! I've been playing with a stained glass design program, so the next one I do is going to be my design!


This shop is "Designer Glass Works" in Layton, and they just finished a beautiful window and 12 stained glass crosses for a local Catholic church. They had the stained glass work done before I started there, but I got the job of gluing the two types of crosses together. I snapped this picture before they went out the door to be installed. I hope to go to that church and take pictures of what they look like installed.


I did manage to get some cabs fused over Memorial Day weekend, and they've all been sold already! Here's a pic though. I'm headed out to the garage to cut some more glass and see if I can't get another fusing done.

Ugh! Moving!

We need to be out of our house today and I won't be able to get internet at the new place until May 13th. My website will be down until then. I should have intermittent access between now and then, but the server will be dark. :)

I know there are a couple of orders out there, please be patient until I get things back up and sorted. How the crap did we accumulate so much sh**? Yeesh! We've been moving for 5 straight days and I start a new job tomorrow. So unorganization will be the name of the game for a bit!

Thanks everyone, and I'll be in touch soon!

Art and Depression

Things have just gotten to be too much over the last couple of days. There has been almost no good news this whole week.

My husband, bless his soul, has been so good. Trying to maintain a positive attitude. I, on the other hand, have been in full bitch mode.

I suffer from depression. This seems to be a common thing through artists, only instead of expressing ourselves through art, we sometimes seem to be paralyzed and can't do any art. Fear of our art being ridiculed falls into this category as well.

In an effort to do some self help stuff, pulling together people who deal with this issue I've just started a yahoo discussion group. If you are interested in joining go here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artanddepression/

I hope to draw a group of people who are genuinely interested in helping to create a positive, nuturing and safe environment to help us all grow as artists and get past the road blocks. Within 2 1/2 hours of creation, this group had 20 members...

A Birth and a Bang

So last Tuesday morning (April 1st!) I get a phone call from my daughter. She's been to the doctor and it looks like she'll be heading to the hospital sometime that day. She asks if I want to head over to her house to be with the boys and then they can just leave whenever she's ready. Sure. I get some things together to work on while I'm over there. I spend a good part of the day in her garage cutting glass keeping an eye on the boys while they play in the yard. Later, we're all in the house, she's taking a bath, her hubby is watching TV, the boys are playing upstairs in their bedroom or down with daddy and I. The four year old pics up a pair of daddy's binoculars and swirls them around over his head. Of course, they slip out of his hand and find landing above my left eyebrow. OUCH! This pic was taken the next morning, and the funny thing is it looked worse a few days later! My eyelid is still completely purple!

Mommy and Daddy leave around 7:30 or so to go to the hospital. By this time my grandson is mortified that he saw me cry; he knows he hurt me and he feels bad. Doesn't want a thing to do with me, plus he knows something's up, mommy and daddy leaving this time is different, even if he doesn't know why. He knows they are going to pick up baby Emma, but... he's 4! Other grandma shows up and helps calm him down. He likes her better right now. That's ok, cause she's a pretty cool lady.

The next morning I take the boys up to the hospital to meet their new sister. They both give her a kiss to welcome her into the family, but after that? DJ is in love with her, but excited to be with daddy, Doug just cares that "ok, there's mom... now how many buttons can I push in this hospital room???" Of course Nana (me) thinks she's beautiful and I get to dress her for her hospital pics. A fun but very exhausting two days! (You can see in this picture that Daddy's in the hospital bed trying to convince everyone he was the one who gave birth...)

Daughter and baby are home and all are doing fine. Life slowly getting back to a normal schedule with them. Me? HA! We're moving... I have 4 projects that HAVE to be done before we move. Add to that the stress of doing the whole house loan thing, trying to fight off a cold, and finding out there may be some fraud involved with the Tucson show... (possibly more on that later!) Hasn't this April fool's prank gone on long enough??? Have a good April!