It's Been Too Long!

I can't believe I've neglected this poor blog - and so much has been happening too!  Perhaps that's the reason why.  I've just been reflecting on what has been a great year on the glassy front.  I was lucky enough to win the stringing section of the GBUK annual competition, with this my entry Juno's Friend. I was obviously delighted and am already thinking about 2013s entry.

As if that weren't enough I actually managed to win the Lampwork section of the Jewellery Maker of the Year Competition held by Beads and Beyond Magazine.  I have to admit I shed a little tear on hearing the news.  The piece I entered was quite tricky to make, but I'm pleased I persevered with it.  I've also been lucky enough to attend a couple of courses, one with Bronwen Heilmann who came over from the States and the other with Amanda Muddimer who came up from her own studio to deliver a course at Tuffnells glass.  They were both fantastic and I learnt loads of really useful tips.

So I'm here wondering what next year will have to offer on the glassy front?  If its halve as good as this year it will be great!

Spring is in the air!

I was sat doing nothing much the other day, there was no TV babbling in the corner, no children squabbling, no noise much at all, and then I heard it.  The first noticeable dusk birdsong!  Sweet music to my ears.  A sign that the long winter months are on their way out, giving way to spring at last.  I don't know if this is why the piece of copper I was weaving into a spiders web, suddenly became a birds nest, but it did.  Once it was made and patinated there was just one thing missing.  A little birdy to sing in the spring!

So I turned on the torch and made this little fella to sit and sing - I think he's waving good bye to winter!

When Too Much is Not Enough!

I really love the bracelet that I've just made.  It uses my own copper clasp and the links are all made by myself so I feel proud that a lot of care and love went into making it.  The problem is that I would really like to make another in a different colour and I have a very clear image in my head.  So what's the problem, I here you ask?  Well making the lampwork beads nearly killed me.  Ok, so I exaggerate slightly, but it did take some time and commitment to make them.  I settled with all my equipment in front of me and turned each lampie into a lovingly prepared dangly and then set about composing the whole piece, only to find that I had no where near enough danglies to achieve the look I was after:

So I had to make some more.  The only problem with that is, that every time I went near the torch, the last thing I felt like making was more of the same type of beads.  I did, however dig deep into my reserves of energy and perseverance and eventually made more and completed the bracelet, but not until some time had elapsed.  I now face the prospect of facing this huge challenge all over again - this time though I'll be sure to make all the beads necessary in one sitting!  Wish me luck!

I Have The Key

I've just spent a happy couple of hours making lots of new beads.  Having had a collection of old keys kicking about in my beading cupboard, I got to thinking.  Could I use them as mandrels and melt glass onto them?  Well before I knew it I was dipping them in bead release and trying to find out. 

After rather messily covering the shaft of the key with ceramic release (and much of myself too) I encountered my next problem.  How on earth would I hold the key and be able to turn it in the flame without burning my fingers?  I got lucky with the first one and I managed to super heat the end of a glass rod and use this as a punty, attaching it to the hot key.  Easy, I thought.  No, just lucky, as try as I might, the subsequent keys were not playing and I had to think of something else. 

A few of the hollow keys offered another solution, which was to stuff bamboo kebab skewers into them and use this to twist the key as necessary.  Hey presto it worked, but not for long and I soon found myself dodging hot metal and glass as one worked itself loose and fell onto my workbench before bouncing toward my lap!  It was after this narrow escape from a third degree burn that I thought I would leave my torch for the day and give the matter some more thought - so what is the key?  Answers on a postcard please!
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Some day even your mistakes just work!

Today has been a good day, I have had plenty of play time at the torch, and done a good deal of my 'to do list' for today too.  I have four large focal beads cooking nicely in the kiln, and even today's accidents have been happy ones, I picked up a stringer (thinking it was dark amethyst) to add some final detailing to one of the beads.  Detailing complete I thought I'd bake the bead in a reducing flame (propane rich to make all the colours pop), only to find that the dark amethyst was actually a stringer of Triton left from my previous torching session.  Triton is a lovely reactive glass that turns rich metallic shades of blue and purple when placed in a reduction flame, and as it happened it was just what this particular bead needed.  I'm just praying to the kiln fairies that they'll be kind and it is still as pretty in the morning!

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I speak pidgin technology - tweet tweet (did you see what I did there?)

I feel like an outsider, partially understanding a fraction of what I am doing, but wholly understanding my almost complete ignorance of it! 

I chat on a forum, where advice regarding blogging, tweeting, flickr groups and the linking of all of the aforementioned are common place. People are willing, eager even, to share their knowledge and conect themselves to others wirelessly through this wonderful medium we call the web.  They are a kindly bunch, with much patience, Yoda-ish in their manner.  Yet despite all this sharing of knowledge, I feel, as if much of it, is in some mystical language to which I am not party.  As though some unspoken initiation test has yet to be successfully completed, whereon the fog that is cyberspace, will clear and I will gain understanding and clarity and ultimately Jedi status (well not quite, but you get the drift). 

I see myself in all my techno-confusion as the character played by Rowan Atkinson in a 'Not the Nine O'clock News' sketch, who is trying to buy new speakers for his sound system (you remember them - built like tanks), only to be humiliated for his ignorance of modernity by the two serving on, who eventually tell him to go home and play his gramophone Grandad!

... and on that note I'm going to dust off one of my old LPs, and have a Marathon bar (what the hell is a Snickers anyway) and no, I am not a Grandma, well not to the best of my knowledge anyway!

Or on second thoughts a large glass of wine!
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Fight may just have been worth it!

Well I finally assembled and poised the lamps around the pop-up light box and hey presto - in the middle of the night, produced not too shabby photos!

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