Moving the Studio

The studio is mostly moved into the house. There are some minor configuration things I need to do (set up a glasswater guard for the grinder, determine how to store the big sheets of stained glass, figure out how I'm going to handle broken china), but I'm essentially good to go. I spent a good portion of the day making 3-D mosaic Christmas ornaments and trees. I also set up for making wreaths.

Tomorrow, I'm setting up the grout & concrete station in the basement so I can finish up the ornaments, trays, and trees. I'm doing the Holiday Market this weekend (stop by!) on the Downtown Mall, and am planning on bringing as many things as possible. I've got several mosaic tables, a few new mosaic mobiles, and some jewelry, as well.

I am still coming up with unbearably cutesy name for my new studio/office. I've been using studioffice, but that's a bigger tongue-twister than you'd think.

Scratch the Barnudio

Albemarle County says I can't use the barn as a studio if I want to sell my art. So I'm going to have to move everything inside the house. I'd already set up a mini winter studio in here, but it is ridiculous that the County chooses to solve a problem (oh, no! people set up repair shops in their detached garages) by preventing everyone from conducting a home-based business using a detached building. I could petition to get the zoning changed to allow me to use the studio, but if it took 1800 headaches and more than a year 30 years ago to get a zoning change, you know it's going to be 50 times worse now.

Tip of the Day

When taking your camera out to photograph your work in progress, check to make sure you have both the battery and the memory card in the camera.

The Table of Things In Progress

No pictures today

i ended up spending a good portion of the day at one of my antiques booths cleaning up after a squirrel rampaged through knocking over glass and wreaking havoc. The up side is that I've got bits and pieces of glass to play with. The down side is - of course - that there's a squirrel out there with a grudge against me.

Notes from the Studio

When I sold my old house last spring and moved everything down here, there was a point towards the end of the packing process where I just didn't care and dumped all of my jewelry components (beads, wire, findings, drops, pendents, etc)into 4 large ziplock bads and packed them in 4 different crates. I ended up doing that with a lot of my studio equipment, tools, and media, and I'm still going to have to hunt for things.

This was a mistake. It's been five months since I got here, and I still can't find things. I just found the last bag of beads today, and I know there's a box of paint SOMEWHERE in the barnudio. I now have all the beads in box flat. I have findings in a bowl. I've got wire everywhere. It's only organized in the loosest sense of the word. It's organized enough so I can find things and make jewellery (I've been playing with some Blenko glass for earrings), but not so that I can be super efficient. Here's my tip: When you pack, maintain your organizational schema, even if you use six thousand baggies to hold stuff. You'll thank me later.

...

Even though I refuse to put any vintage Christmas items up for sale in my antiques booths until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I'm already getting in the mood! I think I'm going to make some wreaths this year and sell them at the Charlottesville Holiday Market. Some will be artificial and some will be with awesome greenery, nuts, pine cones, buds, and preserved vines from right around the house. I also need to make a bunch of Christmas stamp earrings for the Market. And some mosaic ornaments! And some more of the mosaic Christmas trees. Hrm. Might have to break out the Christmas music tomorrow while I'm working in the shop.

...

I'll take a picture of my staging table tomorrow, when my camera batteries are recharged. There are several interesting things there waiting for grout.

Time to Winterize the Studio!

It was pleasantly warm here in Virginia the past few days, so I took advantage of the weather to throw open the doors and clean and reorganize. Because my studio space is in a rebuilt barn (complete with old, uneven boards), working there in the winter is a bit of a challenge. It's mostly insulated, but generally unheated.

The first thing I'm doing is moving my primary work surfaces toward the center of the building. I've got space heaters, but sitting in front of big swaths of glass (the windows) isn't the best idea when the wind is howling and long-past brisk. I'm also segregating the surfaces more. Up until now, I had one all-purpose mosaicing station - when I was ready to grout, I'd clear it off of all projects (finished or not) and tools, lay down a protective covering, put new tools out and then grout. Then I'd clear it off again and put out my projects not yet finished and start all over.

Now I've set up two separate surfaces - one for creation of the mosaics or other semi-dry projects, and one for messy projects like grouting or concreting or varnishing or painting. I can't believe I didn't have this set up this way from the get go. I need to find a nice level high table for my glass grinder, and find a good place for my easel, but otherwise that part of the studio is ready for action.

The letterpress corner is still a jumble of things. I still haven't solved my uneven-print-in-that-one-corner problem, which is frustrating beyond measure because I can't print my Christmas cards without all four corners printing evenly. I need to spend a day sorting type, as well. I have a coffee-can full of random letters that need to be sorted, and a few boxed sets of type that are waiting my new trays (which are still in Northern Virginia. Must pick those up).

I have a list of projects I hoped I'd finish this summer that never happened, some more serious than others. Highlights of that list include:

• Make my own home-made press - I found awesome directions for making my own press for relief printing, and could therefore make a pretty big one for big prints.
• Make a giant concrete chipmunk for the front yard. It could have looked awesome with a boa of christmas lights for the holidays
• Make some awesome planters out of concrete blocks
• Wood mosaics, using different varnishes and grains and wood varieties
• Finish that dang fish painting (current status: still all screwed up)
• The Blenko mosaic garden - Blenko dalle de vere and broken vessels (most gathered from the Blenko discard pile) arranged in two raised triangular beds on either side of the path from the house to the studio.

Well, Dang.

I used to think I was a good photographer until I started trying to take pictures of my mosaics. Accurately capturing the effect of the light through the various colors while avoiding direct rays of the sun (which makes for weird blinding spots) is a lot harder than I expected. I took a good look at the pictures I took of the glass panels tonight, and they're ... less than stunning.  They're OK, but they don't convey the impact well enough to really sell them - so I guess I'll be taking more pictures tomorrow afternoon.

It was a good day otherwise. I had a productive morning at the yard sales, and I came home to enjoy 70 degrees and an afternoon in the studio. I cut and polished some glass for earrings, worked on the 3-D Christmas trees, and started cleaning and reorganizing. I still haven't quite found the perfect configuration for working in the studio. I also need to spend some serious time on the two big projects (a new top for a coffee table, which is half-designed, and re-concreting some planters) so I can clear up some space. That'd be a good thing to do on Tuesday, actually. You can't hear the house phone ring in the barn.

I decided last night to try and do a couple of Holiday Markets on the Downtown Mall this year. I just have to make sure I have enough product to sell!

Have you seen my tables?

the Sunrise Mosaic Table

Mid Century Style Mosaic Nesting Table Set

Experiments

I've been experimenting with 3-D mosaics this fall. Some of the efforts turned out terribly, but two seem to be working out nicely. I made two hanging balls - one a multi-colored orb, and 1 in blue with white stars. They need a regrouting, but they should be awesome. I'm definitely making more. Today, I tried my hand at a 3-D pine tree. I've got about half of it covered with green glass tiles. Tomorrow, I test how well they adhered and if I (as I suspect) need to use smaller glass tiles on the other ones.

Meanwhile, the quest for decent frames for the mosaic placques continue. I really don't want to make my own frames for them, but I'm getting to the point where I fear that will happen. It's frustrating because I think they're among the best things I've done, and I can't show them off until I've got them framed.