While I have seen a marked deterioration of the seashore environment during my life, I seek out the beauty and favorite sites for expressing my art. I try not to think about the accumulating plastic, blackening of the sand and greening or muddying of the water, changes in seashore wind patterns, and large decline of fish populations that I have observed during my life. My postcards just arrived, and I am getting excited about presenting tidal visions from the point of view of an optimist.

My blueberries and peaches are flowering already. Are they going to make it this year? Durham’s last frost is typically mid-April. Aside from fruit worries and politics depression, I have been enjoying myself in my garage studio all winter. I will be having a solo exhibit at Pleiades Gallery in May, entitled, “Tidal Visions”, and I have finished more than half of the pieces for the show. In addition, we have a member group show opening this week titled “Water”, and I made the piece I have pictured here for that show. It is called “Great Salt Lake” and is based on a photo I took from a plane as it was landing in Salt Lake City.

I’m trying to shed my election year funk and look ahead to creating some fun and interesting art this year – lots of glass inspiration opportunities too! It’s a BeCon year (Bullseye Glass holds a biennial conference in Portland Oregon), the Glass Art Society meets in Norfolk (close by), and I’m very excited about attending a class in April at Penland with glass art master Mark Peiser and new curator of contemporary art at Corning, Susie Silbert.

Next week at Pleiades Gallery we will be installing a new exhibit called “Together”. Each Pleiades artist invites another artist to exhibit with them. My guest artist is photographer John Cavallito. He has shot some phenomenal photographs of splashes, and I have used a few of his images to create fused glass powder prints. Here is one of my glass works to give you an idea of the work. “Together” will be on display from January 12 to March 5.

The fall is starting to get busy. Thinking about the Carolina Designer Craftsmen Art Market at Raleigh Convention Center, November 11-13. Please come if you’re in the area.

I’m working on a big commission piece for someone in Virginia, and I have a few pieces in The Glass Wheel Studio in Norfolk until the end of October.

I’m a member at Pleiades Gallery in downtown Durham, and we have art shows that change every 6 weeks right now. The show now is called, Harvest, and I have several art works in the gallery. We are open Wed – Sun.

Nate Sheaffer, neon artist and member at Pleiades Gallery is opening a new studio and gallery called GLAS in Raleigh. The grand opening with a Creepy show for October is on October 14 (check out GLAS on Facebook). I have a piece in the Creepy show and hope to have a presence in the all glass show later.

I don’t know why it is that I have the most time for fusing when it is the middle of summer and hottest time of the year. At least with powder printing that I’m having fun with now, the fusing times are relatively short; and I run the kiln overnight when it’s the coolest. I just finished a few Sea Life pieces for our exhibit at Pleiades Gallery next month, and now I’m playing around with some powder printing. Hopefully, I will post some of these soon. In the mean time, here are a couple of the flow pieces.

A couple of great things happened this week. First I took some of my cellular themed glass works to Norfolk, and four of them are now on display at the Glass Wheel Studio near the Chrysler Museum. I’ve been trying to move from art fairs to gallery exhibits, and this is an exciting opportunity. The other neat thing is that I just received a book, entitled “Glass Art Today 2” that has a section with my art featured (even an image on the back cover). I had totally forgotten that I applied for it a couple of years ago and never heard anything more about it.

In May Pleiades Gallery celebrates the Art of Cool Jazz Festival in Durham with a jazz inspired exhibit called, Abstract Truth, after the album by Oliver Nelson. Here is my most recent art piece made for the exhibit.

Tomorrow I will install an exhibit of my new art, entitled, “A SHOW OF HANDS” at Pleiades Gallery in Durham. It will be up from March 10-April 3. I’m excited as this marks a somewhat new direction of my art from observational presentations with science themes to topics that have touched my life recently like aging and the passage of time from one generation to the next. The hand can be a powerful image, and I hope I have created interesting and meaningful artworks with them for the audience. Here is the centerpiece of the exhibit, called Mother Nature’s Daughters.

This week marks the end of my art glass exhibits (except ongoing at Pleiades Gallery in Durham). Finally, my new kiln shelf arrived and needs to be cut to fit the kiln, and I made a trip to IKEA to purchase new picture frames for some fused glass powder prints I’m planning to create. All of a sudden I realize it’s December, and I need a lot of small Christmas presents for friends and family. Back to the studio to make some ornaments!

I’m in the middle of packing my car, and it fits together like a puzzle. This weekend (Nov 6-8) is the Carolina Artists Craft Market at the Raleigh Convention Center. Hope to see you there at booth A6. My booth is going to be a little different this year as I am showing a lot of wall pieces including new powder prints and fun mixed media pieces this year.

On Saturday, Nov. 21 I will have an open studio event from 10am to 4pm. Email me for directions. I love to show people how I create my fused glass art. I will have a selection of fused glass dichroic jewelry that I don’t show at other places.

Here are a few of my new pieces that really look better in person.
Cheers!