getting in gear

This past spring, I was contacted by The Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte NC about their annual Gala fundraiser.  They were very interested in acquiring a piece of ours for their silent auction.  We get requests for donations to fundraisers three or four times a year, every year.  We do not, for the most part, donate work to any of these fundraisers.  The reason being that the artist gets nothing, giving away expensive (in the case of glass) materials and loads of (in my case) time; the institution gets money and the collectors get great work for cheap (because who in their right mind would donate a piece of crap they couldn’t sell...a bad reflection on the artist).  Many collectors wait for these fundraisers to add to their collections thereby cutting the gallery and the artist out of the loop.

What made the Mint Museum’s request different is that they offered to pay wholesale for the piece.  This I am happy to participate in so I promised them a small bowl, one of the oleander series.  I called the gallery that had it and, wouldn’t you know, they had just sold it the week before so now I am having to make them one.  I’ve only had all summer to do it.  They need it by mid-September at the latest.  

This is actually a good thing for me as I have not done any new work for nearly a year and it is getting me back to model making.  The longer it was, the harder it was for me to get in the studio and start on something.  Now that the ice is broken, so to speak, hopefully I’ll get started on the new work.

I finished chasing the wax yesterday.  Since the shop is not built yet, we have to do the casting here in the city.  Marc went out to the shop this morning looking for the set up he uses for doing the casting molds and can't find it.  Obviously, it has been taken down to the country house and we did not remember or notice this past weekend so it's back to Wharton today to get the rest of the stuff we need to get this piece done.  I will be so glad when we finally get EVERYTHING together again in one place.  After putting this off all summer, I thought we still had plenty of time.  At this rate, it will slide in with a day or two to spare.  Typical.