Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Boo

My nose is cold, yep pretty consistently now, my nose is cold...that is at least it's cold when I am not blowing glass. This small change creates a fierce primal shift in my outlook on life. OCTOBER, the fear season, spooky long shadows appear, and the possessed street light down the street gets to me again. When the evenings are filled with light as they are on so many summer evenings I don't even think about the weird alley, one street over, the one that has a street light that tries to do Morse code.
But on a chilly evening such as this one, as the pumpkins come out to stand gaurd. I remember how on one night while walking Serafina, the light went out as I stepped directly under it. Hmmmm a short in some wiring perhaps, or a timer? I wondered to myself as chills ran up my spine. Later that week we took another jaunt down the alley, a seemingly good place to poop my pooch out, gravel lined, un-trafficked, weed rimmed...But this time Serafina seemed reluctant, something she never is when pulling me along. However we ventured down again, and I began a dialog in my head aimed at the light, vaguely wondering about coincidence or spooks, this time it came ON as I passed under it. My shadow appeared short and disfigured in old mud ruts.....Okay, send good vibes....I turned around and faced it, thinking if there was something ghosty to this thing it could answer me ...I begged the question if it could signal to me, that it was trying to reach out, it went out as fast as my silly question ill formed in my mind....That was last October, I don't go down there any more, the house on the corner of this alley is perpetually for sale, the name of the street is Shady Lane, and it just plain gives me the Willy's. My nose is cold, and the scarcity of planetary petroleum products is not the only thing to be afraid of these days....wooooo

Monday, October 27, 2008

Little Roady Trip

Hey guys, we are back from Providence. What a trip, met some real talent from all across New England and was happy to be among a large group of Maine-iacs, making up almost 10% of the show! Lot's of Maine Crafts Guild members as well as some indie artisans from our great state. The best part about the week-end was reconnecting with the Hawkes, dear friends. We reminisced that the last time we were in Providence was at their wedding and now there darling daughter* is almost 15. Thanks for the great hospitality! What fun to be in a compact deeply diverse city, we had vegan food at the Garden Grille, Haute Cuisine at Chez Pascal, got inspired to be funky at Oop Gallery (glad they are selling our work!) and great coffee at Tazza. True inspiration came from a trip to the Chace Center at RISD, where a new exhibit of Chihuly work has opened the newly built space. I was happy to see some brand new pieces, most of the botanical shows I have seen recently featured work more than 15 or years old. The show featured work of some of the early







students of Dale's and I loved the idea of their mutual exploration in glass. One of the first things Dale made his students do according to Michael Glancy was buy a good quality camera....good reminder how important documentation is! Clearly Dale has always been an excellent promoter of glass art. Another show at the RISD art museum was an installation by Beth Lipman.

Beth Lipman
Still Life with Pearls, Antler, and Oysters, 2006


Strange to say but I felt the show was put together especially for me. After You are Gone is the name of the installation, as a glass bubble blower who has made 1000s of decorative blown glass objects I found this commentary on the decorative arts very provocative.....
As a parting note, remember that one's self is one of the most fundamental of all canvases.... Kudos to *Angela for her daring to push the pink loving limits with her new Mohawk!!!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Fine Furnishing Show in Providence Rhode Island

inspires

We are getting ready for the Providence Fine Furnishing and Fine Crafts show.

"Find it. Love it. Buy it
at the Fine Furnishings & Fine Craft Shows
- Providence on October 24 – 26 at the Rhode Island Convention Center"

I can't help it but we have been having so much fun getting ready. We plan to show our distinctive blown glass jewelry, but many beautiful individually crafted blown glass pieces showing our range of sculptural and functional work as well.
Autumn's influence has inspired blown glass pumpkins,
churning surf vases, and blazing blown glass tree vases. Living on the coast of Maine we find that we just look outside and the strong influence of mother nature fills us up. I find myself sitting at my glass blowing bench spinning pipe and, boom I see firey trees bubbling forth. Yesterday we spotted our friends Obediah and Kate, of Sullivan, Maine gathering seaweed for their garden. And I am reminded of Ken's life filled tide pool glass sculptures, another little piece of the coast we plan to show this week-end. I hope you'll come to the show to see what we mean.