Collaboration of the Celebration Kind

Here's a little tale of a happy combination at the Celebration of Fine Art - I started working on a little gourd with a new technique of layering 10-15 glazes for a dimensional effect in a floral design with a little yellow bird included.  As I worked I was thinking of how to finish the raw gourd top...the design seemed so elegant that the raw edge clearly wasn't right.  I had found an interesting old Victorian brass back plate for a door knocker while I was in San Diego over Christmas.  Just the right size and fit!  But, what to do about the hole...now that seemed unfinished.  You know, these "simple little projects" sometimes get away from you!  So, I wandered down to see what my friends Donna Armstrong and Donna Bernstein thought.  We all mulled it over.  Came up with some great ideas, but the best was to ask Kevin Powers if he would blow a small stopper for it...and so, back to the other end of the tent, where Kevin was working away on his glass.  Gracious guy that he is, he said, sure, let's do it...and after the show closed last night, he blew the sweetest little stopper with a delicate yellow flower in the center, just the exact colors of the work I had done.  And here is the  glass blowing process and the finished piece!  Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!

Working on Japanese inspired box designs.

Currently, in an effort to respond to the cautious marketplace, I am working on box designs.  This means a couple of things to an artist.  First, it means that we are developing a price range that is accessible for a wide range of incomes.  Secondly, and of great opportunity for the artist, it means we can work out ideas for new work, or in my case, for elements of larger work in a vein not previously investigated.  I like these very graphic types of designs.  They work well in color and black and white.  They lend themselves to intricate ways of filling space and to creating complexities in negative and positive space.  Watch and see what happens and these little works grow up.