"Pot Melt" Pendants

I just finished this "pot melt" pendant and decided to add embellishments to it. For those of you not familiar with "pot melt" - it is a term used to describe a technique where pieces of glass are placed in a container or pot with a hole in the bottom. The pot is then elevated above a tray or container. As the kiln heats up, the glass begins to melt and flow through the hole in the bottom of the pot and onto the tray below. The resulting design of the glass is determined by the melting glass itself. It is always a surprise to open the kiln and see what awaits. I use a wire frame instead of a pot but the technique is still the same.
These "pot melt" pendants are my personal favorites. I love the randomness of the designs and it is a great way to recycle and/or use small pieces of glass you could not otherwise use.

Glass Stuck in Mold

I am not having a very good studio day. I was fusing this neat heart shaped pendant and the glass got stuck in the mold - mainly due to my neglecting to put kiln paper in the bottom of the mold even though I had kiln washed it. Now I can't get the darn thing out. I have pried and prodded and tapped but no luck. I now have it in the kiln upside down reheating it and hoping for the best. At this point I just want to save the mold. If anyone has any suggestions as to what I can do, please let me know. I have never had this happen before.

What Type Are You?

What Type Are You?

Hearts for Haiti

"Hearts for Haiti" is a collective formed by a number of Etsy artists who have donated items to be sold for the Haiti earthquake relief effort. One hundred percent of each sale minus the Etsy fee and PayPal fee will go directly to "Doctors Without Borders" for the victims of the disaster in Haiti. This is truly a worthwhile effort. Please consider donating or purchasing an item from this shop. You may visit the shop at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/HeartsforHaiti.

Just in time for Valentine's Day but can be worn all year. You can view this pendant in my Etsy Shop.

I belong to the Handmade Artists Forum (HAF) and each week we are spotlighting one of our members. Our HAF Etsy Street Team member spotlight this week is on LauraDaGoddess. For more information go to: http://www.facebook.com/LauraDaGoddess

This has been a special day. I got to meet for the first time, an internet friend and fellow glass artist from Washington State. LaWatha Wisehart and her husband were camping in south FL along with their cairn terrier named Bailey and their golden retriver named Casey. They stopped by to visit and Bailey and Casey met Zoe, my cairn terrier. It was so nice to be able to meet in person after getting to know one another online. This is one of the true rewards of social networking.

To see more of LaWatha's glass work, visit her at http://www.lawatha.etsy.com

I just listed this "Kandinsky" inspired pendant in my Etsy shop this weekend. It is much more striking than my photographs show - I have the darnest time trying to photograph glass and have never had any luck using a "light box". I use natural light and hope for the best.

My daughter, Ann Scott, and I have collaborated on the necklaces shown in both of my shops. She designs and does the beaded work and I do the fused glass pendants/brooches. This "pot melt" style pendant necklace is one of my favorites click here

Frazzle Broochs

I have made a series of brooches/pins that were designed to bring a smile to the face of all those who wear or see them. They are made from bits and pieces of leftover dichroic and opaque glass and are all properly fused and annealed in the kiln. After cooling, various threads, yarns and fibers are added to make the "and you think you have a bad hair day". I have named these broochs "Frazzles" and hopefully they will make a frazzled day much less stressful.

Thoughts on 2010

I have been spending alot of time lately thinking about what I want to do as an aspiring artist in this next year. Some of them are pretty clear cut such as learning to drill a hole in glass and doing more work with glass frit. These will no doubt be challenging but the real challenge comes in learning how to market my work much more effectively.
One of my key problems is not knowing how to use the computer that well. I will try to do one thing only to discover that not only do I not know how to do it but I also don't know how to do several other things which would allow me to do the initial thing. Confused? Well now you have some idea how I feel. I get so frustrated and tired of trying to do something on the computer and not getting it to work that I just throw up my hands and quit. A case in point is how to get a mini-artfire set up and how to get various links and photographs on my blog. I want to make a special effort to get a blog up and going on a regular basis and I want to learn more about social networking in general. There is so much helpful information out there on how to do all of these things and I need to figure out a way to read and learn and experiment without throwing up my hands, pulling my hair out and quitting.
Another thing I would like to focus on is spending more time familiarizing myself with the work of other artists. There are so many talented and creative artists whose work interests and fascinates me. I try to post items of interest periodically on my FB pages but I would like to learn the mechanics of featuring other sellers on my blog. Again computer literacy is required.
Like everyone else I am faced with time constraints so becoming more focused, better organized and learning new skills needs to be addressed. It's going to be a busy year.

Good Reads

I have just discovered this wonderful writer named Tana French and have read one of her books and am half way through the second one. I don't want to do anything but read - I so love to find a book like that. I'm reading her first book now entitled "In The Woods" which is about three children missing in a dark woods and only one is found - traumatized and standing in blood filled shoes. Twenty yeas later this child is now a detective and has to investigate a child murdered in that same woods. Old memories surface and a cold case is reopened. This book won the prestigious Edgar Award for best mystery. Her second book is "The Likeness" which
involves a detective from "In the Woods" going undercover and assuming the identity of a murdered girl who is her "double" and who has used an alias the detective has previously used. This book has won numerous awards as best thriller and novel of the year. If you like really well written mysteries that have excellent plots and great character development, you will want to read these books. I can't wait for her to publish another one.

Invictus

I just recently saw the movie "Invictus" and have been thinking about it alot. I can not fathom how Mandela survived all those years in prison. He says one way he kept his sanity was focusing on the poem "Invictus". The last two lines of the poem keep running through my mind :
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Rick DiBiasio in his blog "The Affluent Artist" writes a really interesting article entitled: "Hope, Mandela and You". If you can, check it out at
http://affluentartist.com/

I would like to introduce myself and welcome you to my blog. I am a fused glass artist who lives in south Florida with my husband and our cairn terrier "Zoe". I have a grown son and daughter, four granddaughters, one grandson, two granddogs and a soon-to-be grandcat. I am a retired social worker and worked for a number of years in the mental health field. In the early 1990's I retired to the mountains in Colorado and decided to try and find a creative outlet for myself. I started painting gourds and making gourd and fiber masks. I did this for appx. 10 years and did shows and worked with various western and southwest galleries. We then decided to move back east to be closer to our families. I continued to work with the gourds and with a gallery in Key West for another three years until I realized that I was really needing a change. A friend had decided to take a fused glass class at the local high school and invited me to go with her. I did and that was the beginning of a new venture. I continued to take classes in glass fusing and thought I would focus on making mirrors. I bought a large kiln and the challenge began. I made two very large wall mirrors that had to be made in sections and then assembled. One hangs in my home and one in my daughter's. I decided that was going to be too much and I needed to think smaller. I then began making smaller mirrors which I sell though a local gallery and then got interested in making jewelry. I purchased a smaller kiln and one that didn't intimidate me quite so much and I now focus on making jewelry and smaller items. I have two online shops - one on Etsy and one on Artfire - where I sell my jewelry and small home decor items.
In addition to working in my studio, I love gardening and being outdoors. Fortunately for me, our climate here allows me to do both. I also like to read and belong to a fun Book Club. I volunteer with the local Humane Society working with the Boys & Girls Club, visiting nursing homes, and attending special events with my certified therapy dog. I have done the pet therapy work for 8 years.

I live within a couple of hours of my daughter's home so I spend alot of time with two of my granddaughters and my grandson. Unfortunately my son and his family live in Maryland so we only see them two or three times a year.

I look forward to getting to know many of you better and hope you will continue to check out this blog and my shops. I am new to blogging so you will have to bear with me while I fumble and stumple through trying to figure out how to add things, arrange things, delete things, etc. Another challenge awaits me......

Very hot and sunny here in south Florida this weekend and we are still in the throes of a bad drought. Rainy season doesn't start until June so we still have a few weeks of brown lawns and serious watering restrictions to go.
This afternoon I am off to help with the annual Environmental Studies Center's annual fund raiser - "Fishnic on the St. Lucie". I will be working in the arts & crafts section with the kids helping them to paint a mural and also to paint coconuts which they can take home. The Center provides kids of all ages the opportunity to learn more about our environment and our need to care for it well. There will be live music, lots of activities for both adults and kids, a fish dinner, cash bar, exhibits and lots of family fun. Monies raised from this event along with public shcool funds will help pay for a teacher for the Center .

Well this will no doubt be a challenge for both me and anyone else who decides to follow this blog. I am not very computer literate and this is my first effort at blogging. That being said, here goes.......
I am a fused glass artist and am trying to figure out how to design and set up my blog like many of the other artists do in my CGGE team on etsy. If you aren't familiar with this group, check us out at: http://www.cgge.org/.
My passions in life other than my family are fused glass, gardening and pet therapy work with my cairn terrier "Zoe".