constructive criticism and success

I got juried (just by all that hair on my chinny chin chin) and I got some helpful words from a good friend about how to improve my craft, especially if I ever want to get juried into the state guild. It also showed I have an accurate idea on the strengths and weaknesses of my craft work.


and dig this... I got 16 flowers (not counting weeds) blooming in my yard. including the first Bachelor's Button for the year...

they asked, my craft resume

On Wednesday I am going to hand over several examples of my stained glass. An hour later I may or may not be a juried member of the Bucks County Guild of Craftsmen. They also want a resume describing background and style...

I have always doodled and if you could find a high school or college notebook, you would see that it goes back, at least to junior high. Doodling became more elaborate in my mid twenties as I started spending more time on my designs and my art supplies became more diverse than pens and notebook paper. In my early forties, I felt an urge to do more with my designs.

So five years ago, I took a quilting class and made a quilt top. I had grown up surrounded by quilts and have always loved them, but something was not quite right. Quilting was not for me. So I took a class on how to work with stained glass.

Design is my favorite step in the process. At the beginning I so wanted to spend time with designing pieces that I wondered if I would ever use a design a second time. Now I do, but I also can't stop doodling, especially at staff meetings. The challenge is to take my favored "doodles" and make them glass friendly.

My stained glass has two main categories. I use my drafting tools (my dad is a draftsman and I worked for him one summer, back in the day) to make designs often inspired by traditional quilt squares. I also do what I call star flowers which are my attempt to take a favored doodle and turn it into glass. Recently I was commissioned to make a hummingbird, which may be yet another direction.

There is also a bit of the unknown while working with glass. It is far from the uncertainty of Raku pottery, however, I am never sure what a piece will look like till the soldering and cleaning are finished. That is when I hold it up to the light. Usually a favored step in the process.

That's it, for now. I need to copy and paste it into a word document so more revision may occur. Off to select the pieces to take. Worse thing that can happen tomorrow night is to come home not a juried member, but that is what I am now, so life will not be so different. There are aspects of my work, which I feel in need of improving. So if rejected, I hope it is for those things and not for my designs.

BUY STAINED GLASS

...

does it include...

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Saturday night while chatting with a friend, I realized that I had not seen a warbler this spring. And I vaguely remembered tossing a dead squirrel into my backyard.

Sunday morning I chose the woods over church. How many times did I stop my legs and move my eyes through the upper branches of the trees? If I had kept a list I would have seen over 30 species of birds; wonderful views of many including one of a Great Blue Heron that amazed me, however, no warblers were seen.

Later in the morning and in the afternoon, I went out to garden a few times. My yard is not huge and I have a sense of where the squirrel was tossed. Now I could have spent all my energy on finding the animal, but what sense would that have made.

So for now, I will have to have faith that there are still warblers in the world. As for the squirrel... I have faith that if it was still there I would have seen it. I will keep my eyes open for these unseen things.


...

more thoughts.... cancer and stained glass

Last spring we only did one craft show, we did not make our booth fee... so far the only time that has happened.

Anyway, a friend, a great man, showed up that day. For 8 months I had been dropping food off for him and his family. He would be curious about my life. He said he wanted to come to the craft show. Pancreatic cancer was killing him.

He bought a stained glass mandala that day.

I recently went back to that design.

I hope that I never call it anything but, Dr. Ed's Mandala, and I will give a portion of any sale of said design to fight this cancer.

sales were terrible that day...

but that is only part of the story. For you, my friend, you are missed...

(clicking here will take you to our Mandala Section in out ETSY shop)

Hey! Don't touch that piano...

.... and while your at it, get out of that stained glass studio"

inspired by Joe Jackson's song, cancer listened to while soldering, with mask.

I dig that piano solo, can we say "seeds to loving jazz."

stained glass sold here.

...

why is traffic low at the craft show... word on the street

There is a PhD on this just waiting to happen. What factors lead to how many folk come to a craft fair? Crafters are generally confused, but more than willing to throw out ideas.

here are some frequent ones...

• nice weather
• bad weather
• in fact any kind of weather can lead to slow booth traffic
• the economy
• the internet
• poor advertising
• increase in admission costs
• change in show's location

This past weekend, I heard many of the above, but heard some new ones...

• swine flu hysteria
• The Kentucky Derby, which was my favored one so I spread the word that everyone was home sucking down mint juleps

On Saturday a few mosaics sold, but no pieces of stained glass. Trying to sit with my funk that evening I was wondering if I was depressed by the no sales of my work or not seeing one person who had told me that would try to come to the show.

The next evening the funk could only be the no shows, for I did manage to sell a couple pieces and Mosaic Woman sold three pieces (all in the final 20 seconds of the show).

Reason number 1035...

hectic lives of good folk who wanted to come, and who will be invited again.

because it comes down to this...

...

News stories, short stories, my stories

Maybe it was listening to stories about swine flu all week.

Maybe it was reading a short story from 1975 about the fear caused by cholera on Wednesday night...

... "No, there is more than the body of a man that you have in there," I said. Because now I was sure what it was. I had heard the talk up and down the river, and everyone was afeared that it was coming back, any day now. I don't mind saying that I was afeared too. And had been for a long time at the thought it was coming.

from The Burial by Jack Matthews

Maybe it was the dead squirrel on my side walk Friday morning.

I love making up stories so all day Friday I found myself telling this one...

Have you heard that Squirrel Flu has come to Lansdale? You see, when I left the house for work I saw what I thought was a dead squirrel on the sidewalk at the bottom of my porch steps. I went in to tell Mosaic Woman that she may want to stay inside for a moment. I was going to head back to the garage for a shovel when I realized I had a snow shovel in the mudroom. It was when I was scooping up the squirrel that I realized it wasn't quite dead. It turned and faced me and with a final gasp, it coughed directly at my face. Knowing that deadly flu viruses can spread from other species, I began to be concerned when I my temperature rose over 100 and I began twitching nervously in the middle of a road not sure which way to run away from oncoming traffic. A concerned friend tells me that the final stage of the disease involves raiding bird feeders and making squirrel like sounds.

Anyway. I have always felt blessed to be living in a country and during a period of time when fear of infectious disease has been so low. Cholera, Typhoid, TB, Polio.... I am also glad that my tax money goes to the CDC. I don't expect them to always say the wisest statements, but I believe in their mission.

I imagine the human brain has a special section to fear diseases that spread causing much suffering as they move through populations. Listening to folk this week, I believe our brains are alive and well, and thus full of fear.

For my part I tell stories. And my students, who know me well, say... "You're lying to us again."

and I say, "part of it is true."

may peace be with you.