One of my favorite shows is “Come Out and Play” at Jim-Gin farm in Chatham County (Jones Ferry Road about 5 miles south of Chapel Hill, NC). The opening weekend is August 25-26 from noon til dark. It’s a big party with great art, mostly outdoor sculptures, food, drink, music, community, fun. Check out details at Come Out and Play on Facebook or Google. Debbie Meyer, Eric Brantley, and Debbie’s parents, Jim and Ginger Meyer, sponsor the show, and it is really fun. Hope to see you there.

After several weeks of travel and taking tons of photographs, I am inspired to create more glass art for this show and future exhibits later in the fall. Here is a photo of sand dollar tracks I saw on the beach in Oregon last week. I haven’t ever seen this phenom before. Not sure about this, but several photos may work their way into my glass art.

Over the past year I’ve been more than tempted by certain Bullseye Glasscadia special production glass that I see at Carolina Stained Glass. Of course some I have to have, especially if I imagine something that could emerge from the design in the glass. That’s how my latest piece “Mad Dog Graffiti” arose. Check out the Glasscadia section of my Gallery to see more.

Summer seems to be here already with temperatures over 90 in mid-May. What can we expect now for real summer? At least for a while, I am spending my studio time creating fused glass powder prints. They don’t heat up the space as much as longer fusing schedules. Here are some images from a piece that I hope is in the kiln for it’s final fuse. The first fuse is the mountain, sky and lake on a white background. Then I printed spring flowers on clear glass (second image). The final step is to fuse this onto the background. I used clear glass powder between the layers to eliminate (hopefully) bubbles that occur between the layers. Now the anticipation! More about this technique is in my new MENU category on Techniques.

 

I’m not in a jokey mood, and I know it will be better in 7 months and 6 days. But I won’t go there today. The best I can do is my new funny little piece called, “Racing for fried burgers with Boom-Boom sauce”. I hear it’s a real order at a local restaurant.

Tomorrow is our new installation at Pleiades Gallery in Durham called Changing Worlds about the environment. My new piece for this show is called, “The Current Situation” about the Gulf Stream and its association with climate.

I hope I’m moving forward with my art and not creating the same old thing as last year (thinking about Ground Hog Day, the movie)! I did work more on creating a variety of thin “holey” wafers and finished one project, called Phase Shifts, using them. I’m still working on some more “microbiological” reticulated/web-like or networked wafers. In the mean time, I also just finished a piece for the new themed show, “Electric Avenue”, opening next week at Pleiades Arts in Durham.
If I don’t get too much done creatively, it might be that I’m now on the Board of Directors of the Carolina Designer Craftsmen Guild working on the show committee, and I’m helping with the grants committee at Pleiades Arts. These are kind of daunting tasks for me, especially as I’d rather be playing in my studio.

As 2017 is winding down, I’m spending some time thinking about my future creative directions for my art. Ever since I did a fun and successful commission about microscopic networks last spring, I’ve been planning a project to create more of these networks. If I don’t get too side tracked, I think my next big body of work will follow this direction. Here are two of my first experiments.

This week I’m cleaning up the studio and house and making another batch of my inexpensive fused glass jewelry, some with a new marble style created from some of my pattern bars. If you’re in middle NC, come see me on Saturday, Nov 18, 10-4 or Sunday, Nov 19, noon-4. I love to show people what I’m doing and how I do it. I also have 2 pieces in a November show on Landscapes and Seascapes at 311 W. Martin St. Gallery in Raleigh and several pieces in a new show at Pleiades Arts Gallery in Durham starting next week.

This week I helped install two new shows that will be on exhibit during October with a lot of my art pieces at Pleiades Art Gallery in Durham and at the Pittsboro Center for the Arts, where Bob Wade and I have a show of his wood and paintings along with my glass art. The 3rd Friday reception at Pleiades is Oct. 20th from 6-9pm, and the opening reception in Pittsboro is Saturday, Oct. 7 from 6-9pm. Here is a piece I just finished for the Durham show: It’s called Pscyclepathic Lizard. Pscyclepathic Lizard[/caption]

This summer has been a whirl-wind of travel and collecting photos and memories. Iceland was absolutely amazing, especially as I love geology. The skies!!! The water falls, volcanoes, glaciers, moon scapes!! I just culled my photos down to about 1600. Now what? So many natural patterns, thoughts of glass making. In the mean time we just installed a new exhibit at Pleiades Gallery in Durham, and our theme for this show is “Assemblage”. One of my new pieces for this show is “Twist of Fate – Love Locks based on inspiration from love locks I have seen on the Brooklyn Bridge, a foot bridge in Norfolk and other bridges around the world.

If you live near Durham, NC, visit Pleiades Gallery (3rd Friday reception) and/or come out to Jim-Gin Farm in Chatham County for “Come out and Play” art and sculpture show, Aug. 26-27, and the next 4 Saturdays in Sept.

Travel time for me means taking and collecting photos and images, some for potential art ideas or inspiration, and taking a break from making, but always thinking art glass (It’s a passion and an obsession). Luckily, I just finished a new piece, entitled “Melting” for the Pleiades Gallery annual show, “Truth to Power” that will be installed the week after 4th of July. It’s a great, interesting, and always thought provoking art show.