Blue Squashes: Rene Lalique at the Corning Museum of Glass

Blue Squashes: Rene Lalique at the Corning Museum of Glass. Photo by Wayne Stratz

I remembered Blue Tuesdays as we entered the realm of Lalique and his vase caught our eyes. My camera refused to take a photo of the tag, but even my poor memory could remember artist and title.

"Glass is a wonderful substance. Everything makes it an incomparable plastic medium in the hands of an ingenious artist, offering his imagination and talent almost limitless scope for discovery." ―René Lalique 

^{see full biography at Corning Museum's website}

Blue Squashes: Rene Lalique at the Corning Museum of Glass. Photo by Wayne Stratz

Blue Butterfly Thoughts

Blue Butterfly by Wayne Stratz with the row homes of Lansdale, PA

When I go about creating a blue wing, I walk to my tower of glass, go to the blues and choose one, two, or in this case three that delight my eye.

When a butterfly creates a blue wing, it requires a bit more precision. Scales grow forth, each one from an individual cell and thus a colorless membrane is covered. To get blue light to reach my eyes, the wavelength of light entering my eye must be in the range from 400 to 480 nm. The slits in the scales of the Blue Morpho are 200 nm apart. One inch contains 25,400,000 nm. Like I said, I don't need that precision because the glass already appears blue.


Now if I actually worked from scratch, some cobolt or copper would come in handy to make glass blue.

and this... see all my current animals, blue and not blue at my etsy shop

Blue Skies turn Hans Van De Bovenkamp Sagg's Portal blue

Hans Van De Bovenkamp "Sagg Portal" 2004 stainless steel  at The Grounds for Sculpture. Photo by Wayne Stratz

The Sculpure caught Margaret's eye as it resembled a sculpture here in Lansdale (a search of his name and Lansdale led to nothing).

The clouds caught my eye.

Combining them led to a real combination that I did not notice at the time.

That is the unexpected joys that can come with photos. In this case the blue sky reflection in the stainless steel sculpture was not my goal, my goal was to get the two separate, not the two interconnected.

Van de Bovenkamp states, “…it is all about time, change, and interconnectedness." The sky changes and the sculpture connects to it. See the entire sculpture and more about the piece here

Glass is so much the same. A photo of a suncatcher in a window is a moment in time, as time unfolds the glass changes interconnected to the moment at hand.

Wayne Stratz: Stained glass designed to the music of Vijay Iyer

See three other moments of this suncatcher.

;

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

;

Blue Tuesdays: 7 Blue Mosaic Pendants by Margaret Almon

Blue Mosaic Pendant by Margaret Almon with a milleffiori 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

see her pendants on etsy

Blue Mosaic Pendant by Margaret Almon with gold smalti

Pale Blue Mosaic Pendant by Margaret Almon

Blue Mosaic Pendant by Margaret Almon with a Log Cabin quilt design

Blue Mosaic Pendant by Margaret Almon

Dark Blue Mosaic Pendant by Margaret Almon

 

 

Blue Mosaic Pendant by Margaret Almon with a dove designed by Wayne Stratz

being complementary ... Blue Tuesdays

Going Blue: Margaret's Hydrangea Blooms Again in 2015 by Wayne Stratz

Margaret has been posting Orange Tuesday blog posts for quite some time, so going Blue at Stratoz is a complementary new route.

When we moved into our Two Studio Row a decade or so ago, there was a hydrangea in the front yard, but it was under the porch roof and got very little water, so I moved it out into the rain. It didn't bloom. As we walked about Lansdale, Margaret expressed her love of their blooms.

We bought a Hydrangea and I placed it in the backyard, where it can be seen from her studio window. It bloomed. 

From 2008 in the garden of nutmeg designs: A violet Hydrangea (clearly showing the fickle nature of the bloom color......) by Wayne Stratz

The winter of 2013-14 was brutal with some extreme lows and I did wonder if the Hydrangeas had died when spring slowly emerged, but they arrived late and from down below the surface of the Earth and took their shape. But 2014 would feature no blooms for Margaret. This past winter had some cold moments, and though stunned, the Hydrangeas came through in better shape. One of the last things I did before leaving for my silent retreat, was to take out the garbage and bring in a Hydrangea.

Orange Vase. Blue Hydrangea. by Wayne Stratz

Our Hydrangeas do not compete well with many that we see as we walk about. I don't feel like a success when I think of Hydrangeas. But I persevere and they persevere. And that is all we can do on these hot and muggy summer days.