just in case you are still under the impression that art is easy...

I have been so busy the past two days.  Tuesday I filled a mold for an Oleander small bowl.  It took me all day, finally finished about 7pm.  Back when I was doing these a lot, I had it down to about 5 hours.  Actually, it didn’t take too much longer than that but the preparation takes time and I was dithering about the colors even though I was doing a color combination I had already done.  My notes were not complete on the previous one, I had failed to list one of the colors and though from looking at the picture I was pretty sure what it was, I had not brought those colors back with me to the city (one of the problems of having the studio split between the city and the country...when we hauled all that frit down to the country we thought we would be entirely set up there by the time we were ready to do more pate de verre).  On top of that, I misunderstood my own notes about the green and didn’t bring one of the colors for that that I needed.  This is a special order for a collector who selected this color combination from pictures.  The green and the brown will be a little different but the flowers and bowl color will be the same.  I think he’ll like it OK.  It should come out of the kiln tomorrow. 

Yesterday I worked on the full size drawings for the altar window of the JWUMC chapel...in the shop with the kiln rising to casting temperature (about 1550º) on a 90º day.  I was sweating buckets.  Then, I had an appointment for a design consultation for a new job when the shop was at peak temperature and the couple showed up wearing all black and she had on long sleeves.  I hustled them through the process and out the door.

about the drawing:  10’ wide x 12’ 10” high.  the small circles represent faceted and smooth jewels of varying sizes, some with dicroic glass.  Dicroic glass is a thin glass that has been coated to reflect and transmit different colors with a third color apparent when viewed from an angle.

Today I’m working on the full size drawings for the Oklahoma Heart Hospital chapel (but at least I’ll be able to turn on the AC if necessary).  I finally got the last bit of information yesterday that I need to get started after I threw a little tantrum on Tuesday.  Both the art consultant and interior designer were dragging their feet (I’d been waiting almost a week for the information) and as far as I knew the installation was still set for November.  Fortunately, the installation has been moved back to the end of December.  Ordering the glass is going to be a little dicey since the way the frames were built I have zero wiggle room.  

When I’m busy like this, mostly the stuff in my head is about work.