Blue Tuesdays: A Stratozpheric Jump

Blue Stratoz: Stratosphere Trampoline Park in Wilmington DE by Wayne Stratz

Friday 7/24/15,  Margaret and I rolled into Wilmington, we took back roads and found a new place to eat with a way too enticing menu along the way. Who knew southern food was so appealing to me? Well, maybe food is appealing. (Dixie Kitchen in Malvern, PA)

Unloading at the Chase Center went fine. Then before we set up.. a museum visit, Thai Food, an art supply store, and later after set up... dinner with one of my best artist friends, Great Egrets along the riverfront and TV commercials all of which I had never seen... The weekend was off to a fine start.

You jump into shows with hope, and like a trampoline (sure I am only going by knowledge not experience) it sinks and rises. A sale here, a near sale there, a slow hour of no one walking by the booth; and running into friends, who drove south to see you. Encouragement. Disappointment. And that moment in time when I tried to get a woodworker to howl when the show slowed down on Sunday just like my neighbor's dogs would do when they were lonely. I told him I would join in. He loved the concept, but no howling was heard.

The weekend was fun. Did I have hopes to make a fortune and celebrate our birthdays in a huge way? Sure, but we always celebrate. Weekends need to be seen in a big picture.

I used to say life was like a roller coaster, maybe it is like a trampoline. We fuel how high our spirits soar.

and and let me say one of the highest leaps happened when I posted this video on YouTube, we will deliver the item in the spotlight to a collector/fan/friend

;

RevGals Five ~ Sneaky and other thoughts

numbers 15 to 21 in my
Wisdom Series

this Friday the Revgals take us here ~ 

Who knew it was the Second Friday of the month?   

Thank goodness something reminded me, but my apologies for the late post.  I have been busy getting ready for Blizzard Nemo (really, 24 inches in Boston?  Why on earth don't I have a snow blower???) and pondering life transitions--oh, but enough about me.  

How about you?  

1) What is sneaking up on you, and what have you been 

thinking about? 

Mosaic Woman and I will have our first show the first weekend in March.  Three weeks to the Owen J Roberts show.  Are we ready to get started again?  We are ready for the chocolate cake served in the cafe.  

2)  What will you have for lunch today?

Lunch was typical for me.  Peanut Butter and some tasty jam on whole wheat, yogurt, and corn chips.   

3)  If you were to get snowed in for two days, and you need to hunker down, what essentials and treats would you store up?

Water for sure.  How about some bread and pastries from some local bakeries.  I think we could survive. 

4) Tell me a story about one awesome thing you have experienced in the last couple of weeks.

At school my students and I experimented with taking a variety of ways to takes cuttings from a begonia.  It worked successfully no matter which way we did it.  The most amazing ones were the ones we placed in water.  One leaf on a long stem.  When we fished them out this week, the roots were nice to see.  But the ring of tiny gem like leaves emerging from the stem right above those roots was a splendid sight indeed.

 

5)  What is your favorite office supply to splurge on? (now 

THAT is random, right?)

Sharpies, which I used to design my coloring pages.

Cool Show Moments ~ Kepler Poinsot Polyhedra and young super fans

Photo by fdecomite

The man enters my booth making it clear he was not shopping this year, but also saying how much he loves the three trivets he has purchased at the Kimberton Waldorf Show.  

So I say, "How was your year?"

Fifteen minutes later and after a few google image searches, I have become educated in the realm of the Kepler Poinsot Polyhedra.  He has spent the year constructing models and being drawn into mathematical beauty of them.  He apologizes for"boring me," but I reassure him that I love math, design, science, and history of such things.  Yes, this is the Kepler you hopefully learned about in Earth Science classes.  The man that came up with laws of planetary motion.

Later the very young man I celebrated two years ago came back for the third straight year to buy a suncatcher.  Clearly our youngest super~fan.

and with that our 2012 show season has come to an end.  We have commissions to finish and our etsy shop is open, feel free to browse.

Cool things do happen at shows

example of light dancing
not the piece mentioned below

Last week when I spoke to a gathering of artists about connecting with people on social media, I did not say that doing shows was useless.  I may have said they were time consuming and exhausting.  But I also clearly made the point that cool things happen at shows.

Saturday we were at a very local show which meant our very local friends could travel a short distance to see us and many did.  and that is cool.

A man was in our booth and was clearly taken by how the light dances about Mosaic Woman's mosaics.  We chatted a bit but as is often the case, he moved on to see what else would amaze his eyes.  (if you can't accept the fact that not everyone who thinks your craft is a delight will buy a piece... shows may destroy your soul).  I eventually went off in search of coffee and when I returned the man was back and had brought his wife (also note if you feel both members of a married couple have to adore your work equally, stay home and away from shows).

But in this case they were both smitten and chose to buy two mosaics.  OK, so that is cool.  But by the time they left our booth we knew his story.  A story about how fragile we are when a large wave crashes upon us.  How lucky we are to have someone save us and as he said, how many people can say their son saved their life.  How amazing we are in our ability to heal and recover in rehabs that know it is possible for more of your body to function, if the staff can get you to believe it yourself.  How grateful we can be for the years after being saved to celebrate the good things we would never had known, in his case grandchildren. 

Thirty minutes later I saw a man making his way about the show with a walker and knew  he was a happy man, who was ecstatic to be breathing, to be moving.  And that is a cool thing.

To Show or Not to Show, that is the question at hand

We (Nutmeg Designs) have had some amazing days and moments at craft shows, but we also have had disappointing and grand weekends wishing we were home finishing up commissions in the studio, or having friends over for pizza, or being rested for teaching, or going to a movie...

So we are going to look at data and combine it with our emotions to come up with what will likely be a less than perfect plan.  Here is data number one.  Margaret compiled a list of super customers, folk who have shown continued support of our art.  I was convinced that shows would be minor, but to my dismay the only thing that beat it out was friends made at work.  So clearly I have to keep my day job of teaching and keep doing shows.  Well, I knew that already.

But we will be doing less shows.  Our white board of commissionshas had a steady list on it for many months and we trusted that that would not change, so we signed up for far less shows during the holiday rush.   (take your imagination into our studio with your very own commission)  Who knows, maybe we will get to a movie.

My day job is still needed, but we feel little pressure for Mosaic Woman to get a gig.

But wait, lets add up those friends... 61.30% of our super customers are friends that have emerged from many a place.  No wonder I have made pizza for 48 friends in 2012 and still have many people on the "I want to have them over" list.  And being a super client is not required to be invited.

at the end of the year we will examine our sales from 2012 using some new software.  More data!

Catching the Spirit of Children: A Craft Show Reflection

It is enjoyable to sit back and watch eyes come alive as people glance into our booth.  Sometimes those eyes belong to children~ do you remember my tale of of the boy and his roll of coins?   Did I tell you he came back this year with a twenty dollar bill?  I still gave him a discount.  I can do that.

So anyway yesterday there was this girl, who became entranced with Margaret's mosaics.  She came back five times to glow in front of the crosses and frames that had caught more than her eye.  Her spirit was leaping for joy.  Now this is where I get to experience parenting and I have seen parents react in many a way.  I can imagine the frustration one would experience to have your child in love with something, but not having the income to purchase it or knowing the child was going to fall in love with eight more types of craft before the day is over.  This parent did a nice job, she stood back and gave the girl time to enjoy.  I made no attempt to make a sale.  Why get a parent frustrated with me and then likely transfer that to the child.

Ten minutes after her last visit to our booth, I saw her spirit enjoying another booth.  Yes, let that spirit fall in love with color and design... the craft of human hands, hearts and souls.

Another girl comes into our booth.  Later Margaret will tell me that she had been visiting my sun catchers a few times.  Mom says, "If I buy this for you, you know I won't be getting you anything for a long time."  I sit and watch, for this is not my conversation until the child says yes.  Then I am there holding the glass, figuring out tax and change, and handing a bag to a nine year old, who chose my art as a special something in her life.  Yes, we dig the on-line sales, but really can an e-mail announcing a sale beat something like that.

Crunch Time: Pebble Hill Show Approaches

two mosaics, same design,
two different routes
by Wayne Stratz and Margaret Almon

Though a week is left before the opening reception (Sunday, February 5th from 12:15 till 2:00);  Mosaic Woman and I have been spending the week gathering the chosen pieces, writing descriptions for them, filling out the official show paperwork (listing every piece), photographing new pieces, gathering hardware to hang everything, packing it up...

because tomorrow afternoon we will go to the gallery and create our largest display ever and what you can see...    Details here.

But what a creative month led to this time period of doing stuff outside of our studio.  At the Michener Museum we saw a quilt that inspired a thought, "what if I designed a piece, but only glued down the background and allowed Mosaic Woman to take over."  So I did with some creamy white glass, but I thought, "Why waste the other pattern pieces," so I cut the design out of orange glass and glued it on a separate piece of slate.

So now all I have to do is name them, price them, write tags, pack them, and hang them at Pebble Hill.  Oh yeah, there is the not quite finished Sophia Spiral Mandala in my studio and ...

Not so long ago a man asked me what prayer I had when it came to Nutmeg Designs.  My Response: To be surrounded by friends and Family at Pebble Hill.

faithfulness 1: even Wayne wears a wedding ring

A few years back we were gathered with friend and one husband in the room was being harassed for not wearing a wedding ring, at which point a friend said, "Even Wayne wears a wedding ring." It has become a running joke in my head. But truth be told I am not much for adornments, pony tail withstanding.

I had never wore a ring before our wedding day in 1992 and for years it stayed with me day in and day out. And slowly my finger grew a bit fatter.




It got to the point where it had to come off and so one night I provided the needed force, and for a year and a bit the indentation in my finger faded.

At a spring show I walked by the friendly folk, who are Purple Gem Jewelry, I remembered that 12 months earlier I had decided they would be the ones to make my new ring. And they did! So, yes once again, even I wear a wedding ring. And let it be all about how the spirit creates the fruit of faithfulness.

7 for the weekend--- New Things

1. A new flower. The other night after walking under the most amazing wisteria at Rhoads Gardens to get a lilac for our garden, Mosaic Woman searched the annuals for home, while I searched for work. Lantana 'Radiation' is now brightening our front yard.






2. A client of ours decided her house needed a third mandala, and this time she chose one of mine. The only problem, it was for the outside of her house so I needed to make a new concrete crab mandala . I had the orange pieces cut, ground and glued; when I wanted to do something different. The idea of all the flat plain black glass bored me, so Mosaic Woman contacted the client and with some blue Youghiogheny glass it became an Illini crab mandala.


3. Yesterday we had a business meeting at home which extended to the West Main Diner (where they make a fine Greek omelet; and are still friendly even when their computer system crashes in the midst of a full restaurant). As soon as I got home I grabbed the user name, Nutmeg Designs, at You Tube and later in the day posted our first video. I have ideas for plenty that won't be animated, but Einstein may also have more to say in the future...




4. New Jazz...




5. New directions in energy. While Marcellus Shale made for an interesting story, it was one of those gloomy environmental ones as it ended. So we turned to global warming, but with the twist of looking at solutions not just all the news that would leave my students more distressed about their future. Nova, Power Surge has been playing all week in my classroom as we slowly make our way through hope for the future.

6. There is a new stained glass butterfly in this world, but since the client hasn't seen it, you will have to wait till later.

7. New pieces to fix our broken tent frame arrived this week. Guess what I am doing this afternoon.

Crafting On Thursday- headed out to tell their story in Skippack

on sale
So we have been inside doing shows for the last 6 months, and now we have put our panels away and dusted off our tent.

Mosaic Woman and I meet all the new challenges of the change in scenery and of course the weather forecast anxiety will come into play, but I am looking forward to having some natural light flowing through my glass. I won't be able to hang the stories of the pieces up, so it will be up to me to tell the stories myself, and I do enjoy telling stories. The stories behind my designs are true, unlike some places my mind can go (like lies about dusting tents).

So Skippack it will be, this weekend. Stop by and say hello. I'll tell you a story

Spring Fest

May 7th and May 8th, 2011
10:00 am- 5:00 pm
Victorian Carriage Shops
4039 Skippack Pike
Skippack, PA

The Holy Trinity Cross

On March 20th, I sat down at a long table waiting for the vestry to gather at Holy Trinity and drew something that had been gathering in my mind. I got my friend's approval, then got ready to doodle through the rest of the meeting.

When I got sick a week ago I was an hour away from completing four of these crosses. I finally finished them this morning. Apparently when you fill in space with naps and NCAA basketball, studio time gets bumped out of the schedule.

But now I have 4 to take to a show Harrisburg tomorrow, why are we going to Harrisburg.... Mosaic Woman tells that story

... crappy light conditions:

Crafting on Thursday- North Penn Select Craft Show, where you know your Neighbors

one of the 3 mosaics in the booth, which I made.

It is nice to know who your neighbors are, especially when they are friendly and talented.

Tomorrow for the third straight Friday, I will leave work and head to set up our booth without Mosaic Woman. It just has made sense for me to go by myself. I will get the walls set up and the lighting hooked up, then we give ourselves an hour and a half the next morning to get our craft hung.

Their are many cool things about the North Penn Show: a great crowd, great organizers, great volunteers many of whom are the students it benefits, the great location by Lansdale, and friendly neighbors.

There are several that have been in our neighborhood since we started the show.

To our left: Ed Youtz and his wood turnings
Directly across: Bill Yoder and his wooden pens and pencils
On his sides: Cynthia Underhill and her photographs
and Ray Briscoe and his whimsical carvings

This consistency does not happen elsewhere and while the show is never exactly the same (a few years ago someone else had our booth 98 location).

If you get lost, and find yourself close to the food, just stop by Paul Grecian's booth of amazing photos and ask him to direct you to our neck of the woods. I have asked him to get me oriented on more than one occasion.

Here is my eating out in Lansdale guide.

see you there.


...

Crafting On Thursday- Got Glass?

Having made 20+ pieces since the end of the Holiday Craft Show frenzy, I got organized on the quilt my grandma made us back in 1991. We got four shows in five weeks and it all starts tomorrow when I leave work with a Dave to get set up at Owen J Roberts High School. Mosaic Woman will be at home getting her mosaics organized and will surely join me for the show on Saturday and Sunday from 10-4. See what she had to say about the show here.

Hope to see you at a show.

Wordless Wednesday---- on display

Stained glass by Wayne Stratz

This is why ...

I pull out my cell phone and say I have someone to call, Mosaic Woman, who just helped me set up our booth is confused as I never use my phone.

The friend I call and his wife will have a hoot harrassing me for the next 30 hours because they keep seeing me outside of the booth and tell me I take too many breaks, but three times they stop by and and each time leave with something that speaks to them. Including two stained glass hearts, one for his meditation room.

Later I am awed by the fact that in the past year every heart I have sold big and small has gone to a friend. Our hearts.

Months ago a friend suggests a design in certain colors. Finally I take her advice and show her a photo on facebook . She tells me she will stop by and when she does I am not on break. But when I take a lunch break I run into her, and who else, my friend and his wife.

A very young boy enters the booth and announces he is going to buy something. I say, "OK," and glance about for a parent. He points to one, but it is too expensive. I point to one that is as cheap as I go and he digs it. Two crumpled bills appear in his hand. They look not quite right, but then I realize they are two dollar bills. Then a roll of coins emerge. Quarters????

No, it is a coin I have never seen before... Canadian money? He starts counting by ones. He hits 11 and the coins and bills fall to the ground.

I form a cup in my hand and when the counting hits ten, I whisper in his ear, "If you don't tell anyone you can have it for ten." He digs it.


I hold the piece up to the light:



He says, "My dad likes green," and leaves our booth.


This is why I do craft shows. See you at the Water Tower in Chestnut Hill this coming weekend?

A restocking frenzy has led to the following

Nothing like some great sales to inspire one to head into the studio. In the less than two weeks I have created the following which will head to Bethlehem, PA's Christkindlemarkt for their opening weekend this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yes, I may be one toasty teacher after my long weekend.


The first project was my Jazz inspired Sunna's Dream Suncatcher. Which I blogged about here.




I then turned to the vines in amber glass (six varieties to be exact), which a friend inspired. First the Vine that Grew Longer design:




Then the original design:

Inspired by my dad asking if I was going to do anything special for the Holidays, I grabbed (gently) three types of reds and greens and cut out pieces to play with while listening to Nat King Cole sing Christmas tunes.

While I was cutting out those pieces I decided to restock some Dr. Ed Mandalas. A month ago I had 4 and thought I was way ahead of the game, but some emotional sales to folk who were touched by the story of this piece took me down to zero but we sent off the 30% of sales to pancreatic cancer research.

Before I sleep tonight I hope to have a second Dr Ed Mandala finished. This will be the opposite of the one below, the greens move to the outside and instead of the funky pink glass I have a piece of opalescent green doing its thing.



Some things come by chance. As I was foiling the above Dr. Ed Mandala, I noticed an imperfection that could not be ignored. As I ground a new piece into the desired shape, I saw a pile of red and green scraps. I chose some to grind into interesting shapes and then played with the pieces while listening to Nat King Cole. When I picked it up I saw I had created The Scrooge:

Have yourself an arts and crafts weekend in Allentown

In July I started up a conversation with Paul Gretian whose amazing photos happened to be at the same show as our craft. Later in the weekend he invited us to apply to the show his chapter of the PA Guild of Craftsmen puts together and so we will once again be honored to have our craft in the same space as his.

What is art what is craft? No matter. I am inviting you to have an Arts and Crafts Weekend in Allentown, PA.

The Craft show is happening Novemeber 6 and 7 at the Swain School. details

What I suggest is that you make a day of it and head to the Allentown Art Museum while you are in town for the craft show. It is great to hear that the museum is expanding, but sad to report the big connection is falling flat. You see the museum purchased a room that was owned and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was at this moment in the blog post where I was to connect arts and crafts, but the museum's expansion has closed the room from the public view.

And here I was to point out the specific painting by Arthur Dove which Mosaic Woman loves so much, but apparently not everything is easy to find on the internet. But here is a cool Arthur Dove painting of a sunrise:


by Micah MacAllen

The painting we saw at the museum reminded Mosaic Woman of mandalas, which she just happened to blog about.

and let me end with this: as I was writing this post, I was chatting with a member of the Swingle Singers on Twitter. I may just meet her and hear them when they tour the US. They take on many a genre and you can explore that, but this one caught my eye and ear. Have a glorious day and see you in Allentown

Fridays in PA---- Square Peg and Capogiro in Philadelphia

Maybe this should have been called Saturday in Philly.

Saturday from 4-7pm Mosaic Woman will be on the sidewalk in front of Square Peg Artery & Salvage two blocks from Rittenhouse Square. She will be showing off and selling a variety of her mosaics in the big city.

I will be close by... Studying the cosmos for teaching next week and possibly having a snack at Capogiro Gelato...

Fridays in PA---- Doylestown's Largest Festival and we will be there

This weekend an art festival is happening in the county seat of Bucks County and Nutmeg Designs is going to be there in booth 140 located on Hamilton Street.

Booth 139 is this amazing fudge dude... Lee Marino's Fudge Delight. No temptation on that side ;')

In booth 141 is a great friend of ours from the Bucks County Chapter of the PA guild of craftsmen, Cynthia K. Prediger who makes very cool jewelry and has promised to lug along this mosaic by Margaret...




Margaret will likely be wearing one of Cynthia's pendants.

Speaking of our friends at the Bucks Guild...

Booth 86... Amy Turner's ever hip weavings

Booth 85... Bernard Hohlfeld's awe inspiring wood turnings

and Dave and Mindy Spray's Creative Wood Designs by DAMI are located in booth 9.

always an honor to be in shows with such talented folk.

lots of food and music to go along with the arts and crafts. We are excited to have this major show end our outdoor season for 2010. Stop by and check us out.

Our new mandalas will be there along with starflowers of all colors and designs and a new twist on my vine design which has more pieces. I just finished it this week.

Science Mondays... Fuzzy Logic and Craft Shows

Three days a week, students enter my classroom after lunch, at which point I tell them some things about the history of science and then give them time to read silently.

Last Thursday they requested a game of hangman, and I nearly won by using Fuzzy Logic.

In 1965 Lotfi A. Zadeh played with numbers and much has happened since with what mathematicians call fuzzy logic. The short paragraph of the book I am reading said that before his work computers could only do yes or no. And as we know life just isn't that simple.

Mosaic Woman and I will consider doing a craft show. I swear we make it as simple as, is the weekend free? Yes, we do it.

It was nearing 5pm on Sunday and it was time to pack up. It is a mindful time and I enjoy how we don't rush. Plenty of time to stop by the flag poll to joke with new friends, who are staying out of the way of another new friend who is also packing.

But on this night parameters started setting in...

hmmm we will be done packing around 6:30, over two hour drive home, no dinner yet. We don't even consider what I knew, there would be a ton of cars headed home after a weekend in the Poconos and what we didn't know... there was a bad accident farther south. And now I start thinking about an 8 am staff meeting and unpacking a car late at night.

maybe it is best if we just look at the calender and say, "Yes, we can do that show."

interested on the man and his math...