Happy Halloween

The awesome Mr.Tommy Brunett performing the love song "Witch in the Woods."

A Tidy Bench is a Happy Bench

There, that's better.

Holy Bench Mess Batman!

So many rods - so little time.

Headpins in the Wild

I am currently so obsessed with headpins that I am seeing them everywhere.

Kissing Cousins

Another found object necklace.

This one has an antique Venetian glass bead, a kitschy kissing charm, a filthy old bottle cap. a stone, a baroque pearl, some hammered sterling, one of my glass heart focal beads and a little glass crow dangle.

Which one is my favorite? Could be this one.

More Earrings

There are a few new pairs of earrings in my Etsy "Belvedere" shop.

A Little Twisted

A simple bead shape -with a twist - literally.

First, make a small bead with a raised ring around the middle - like the planet Saturn.

Then lightly spot heat an area on the ring of glass and, using tweezers, grab the glass and slowly give it a quarter turn twist.

If you're doing two beads on a mandrel be sure and quench the tweezers before doing the twist on the second bead - otherwise the tweezers will be too hot and the glass will stick to them.

This pair is Cim's Bordello center with a twisted band of Double Helix Aion.
I wish the iridescence of the band showed a little better in these photos, in real life it looks like a soap bubble.

Seed Pod Pairs

'Tis the season to make pairs, and pairs, and pairs of beads for earrings.

These have a core bead of Cim's Kahki and outer leaves of Cim's Maple.
Maple is one of my new favorite colors, it's a much more earthy transparent brown than topaz.

This pair is Cim's Army Men with Maple again.
Go ahead, ask me how many bundles of Maple glass rods I bought. I'll never tell...

These are my favorites. The centers on these are Cim's Atlantis, the outer leaves are Cim's Halong Bay and Maple (again). Atlantis is dreamy, it's an opalescent turquoise that is not at all fussy.

Jackie (6)O

My friend Jackie wanted her portrait done a la Andy Warhol's iconic "Jackie O."
It's her big birthday - how could I refuse?

I started with this snapshot of her and hunkered down for a long night of Photoshop magic.

Here's Warhol's version - I think the copy cat version turned out just fine, but best of all, Jackie is happy.

Heaven is Hot

The weather yesterday was of those fall days.
Not one of the crisp, sunny ones with beautiful leaves and long slanting light.
It was a cold, nasty, windy thing with a dark miserable sky.
Reminding all Rochesterians that big, bad winter is just around the corner.


Yesterday's temperature inside the studio?
86 fucking glorious degrees.
It wasn't just warm - it was hot.
Yes! The boiler is on and as promised my studio is one of the toastiest in that giant, old rambling building.

It was a wonderful day of torching...

...followed by some quality time with my favorite chair.
She's a ruin, but I adore her. She's a rescue chair, found on the curb.
I seduced her with whispers of leather restorer and promises of fancy digs.
And now she's my special, studio friend.

My bowl of 'shorts' is getting out of hand.
Maybe today I will turn straw into gold and make a big batch of buttons out of that mess.

Almost Like Christmas

Is there anything better than getting new art making supplies?

Look what the UPS man showed up with yesterday.
Just in time for all of that holiday bead making - I ordered in a beautifully, excessive amount of glass.

I'm the kind of artist who likes to have, and use, every color in the crayon box.

I know, I lot of them look so similar, but many of them are cored canes. That means that the centers are a different color than the outside so when they melt you get lovely striations. This kind of rod is perfect for leaves and flower petals.

O! It's just too good.

And the cherry on top of my glassy cupcake?
Glitter for glass, or in other words: cased aventurine rods.

A Penny's Worth of Thoughts

Another heart necklace with found objects.

A rusted bottle cap, smoky topaz rondelles and sterling silver.
Plus a real gold heart I found run over in the street paired with a little, hand carved, jade Buddha.

A big glass heart and an old penny.

Starring Ed

About a month ago the curator of one of the shops where my jewelry is sold asked me to make a handful of found object pieces. She wanted merchandise to compliment a show of "Extreme Materials" at the art museum.

Humph, I thought, that's going to be a challenge for me.

Don't get me wrong, I love found objects. In jewelry and otherwise. Orphans, misfits, fragments and do-bobs. My house is full of all kinds of odd things I have dragged home from estate sales. Who else do you know that has a big flock of old, crumbling cement chicken in their entry hall?

But in my jewelry?

I started with one of my standards, a big glass heart on a cord. I make about a jillion of these.
This one is transparent pink with a thin encasing of Double Helix's golden metallic glass called Aurae.

To the bottom of the necklace I added a big hand-hammered figure eight of sterling silver with a chunk of smoky topaz in the center. Then a little, old sterling star charm and a battered, gold washed men's ring engraved "Ed." 

I bought the ring at Ed's estate sale.
Dear Ed: you may be dead but your ring lives on.
Hope you don't mind.

The Dork

The epitome of fashion in the studio. Double glasses.

Never Enough Apples

Here, in upstate New York, the harvest is in.

I Adore Halloween

Tonight I have a little studio open house, it's a monthly event called 'First Fridays.'
The building I work in opens up to the public and all the artist's throw open their doors and let people see that witchcraft we do.

Since it's almost, almost Halloween I decided to make some holiday earrings to sell at the event.
Here's the kiln fully loaded with spooky headpins.

I used only basic black, two shades of orange glass (orange and creamsicle) and some intense black frit.
The wires are 19gauge blackened steel.

I even, neurotically, made some special earring cards.
All this for $10 earrings?
Oh, why not.

If you're here in Rochester - this fun event is tonight from 6-9 at the Hungerford Building. 1115 East Main Street. Use door #2 and ask the elevator operator to take you to the 4th floor, I am in studio 402 (rhymes with boo).

P.S. if there are any leftovers from tonight's madness I am going to bring them with me to Java's at the Public Market tomorrow morning. I should drift in around 10:30.

Two Headed Wolf

My husband owns an enormous independent record store.
Sometimes, when I get inspired, I will design a tee shirts for his crazy business. This is my latest.
The new shirts should be on the shelves late next week.

Big Skies & Little Beads

I am a headpin making machine.

These are just a few of the hundreds of headpins that I have made in the past week or so.
After all, it is earring season.

Little golden leaves - Double Helix's iridesent 'Aurae' glass over transparent topaz.

Grass green seeds with transparent dark purple leaves wrapped around them.

All of these are going to be bent, hammered and wound into earrings, maybe with a few semi-precious stone added here and there. They will be sold at the endless series of holiday shows and sales I have scheduled from now through December.

Big skies over Rochester last night - this is the view from my studio window as I finished a long afternoon session of torching that lasted well into the evening.