First Bowl! EEEeee!

So, here is my first fused bowl project. Had to use some UT orange. :0) Did about 5 firings all together and a bunch of grinding and sandblasting -- yep, sandblasting! whoa. I am also getting used to using a big diamond blade saw - i think its a tile saw but with a really thin blade. I have yet to cut my fingers off with the saw. :0) I have cut my fingers up a little with the class. I am also working on some way cool jewelry pieces but you'll have to wait to see those. They still need to be fire polished. Oh and I am getting more used to programing a kiln. whoa!

So, there it is. What do you think? :0) It's about 11 inches across and 3" deep.
Yeah! for my first piece.

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follow-up to answer some of Rudy's and Ursula's questions. :0) Designwise - I wanted to play with transparency and solidicity (yes, I made that word up - but hey, I am a designer - I am suppose to make things up!). The "mudle" stripes are cut from a potmelt - where you put a bunch of colors in a metal basket over a kiln shelf and then fire the kiln so the colors melt and made a big puddle of mixed colors. The stripe is transparent in places so light passes through it and look groovy. The potmelt strips were actually straight lines but when slumped into the bowl form it looks more curved which I love! I decided to outline the strips in orange to bring out the orange in the strips. The "solid" black is crushed glass with orange powder sprinkled in it so you can tell it was crushed. Trying to figure out how much crushed glass to put in was challenging so that is why it got fired so many times, I had put too little in at first. The inside of the bowl is shiny and glasslike and then I sandblasted the back to give it a matte look. You can't fire something so its shiny on both sides b/c whatever side is against the shelf or mold will be duller because the glass is not reacting with the air. I like the sandblasted look though and my next peice will be sandblasted on both sides.

I have a notebook of design ideas and I'd say there are about 20 designs in it right now. I've made a couple potmelts that are blues and whites that will be cut up into squares to work on a new piece next week. I also have about 50 new jewelry pieces that I will put through a series of grindings this weekend to firepolish next week. You'll like the new jewelry designs. They are way rad and definitely on the flare side of style.

To answer Ursula's question. None of my pieces of pottery or glass have exploded hurting anyone elses pieces but some of my pottery has broken while being fired, and other people have exploded things into mine - which usually means my pieces end up with an extra chunk of pottery sticking out of the side which I have to grind off. I start pottery on Sept 11th! I have yet to have any glass break but I have had jewelry spread out and melt into another piece making a big blob looking thing. That happened this week actually and I had to do serious surgery with the tile saw to cut them apart and reshape them. :0) Glass likes to be 1/4" thick and will try really hard to make itself that thick. Crazy glass.

So I think thats all the questions.

Here are a few things I've learned about working with glass:
1. its stronger than you think, but pressing on stress points of it will break it.
2. glass is sharp, it will cut you. I have lots of little cuts on my fingers and an embedded speck of black glass that I can't get out of my thumb. Oh, and I bleed pretty easily.
4. Glass fusing is a mix between baking and chemistry.
3. 1260 degrees is HOT. :0)~
4. Glass is so cool!

THE WEDDING pictures are done!!

so after months of working full time, doing house improvements (i still have a bunch to do and still have a non-working toilet!), trying to spend some time with friends, and sorting through over 2500 wedding pictures and editing 800ish, I am done with the Ballek/Venable weddings! All the pics are up on the website: http://www.mphotodesign.com/ but here are are few of my favorites.

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Glass!! EEEeee!! :0)

To add to my millions of other artistic endeavors I am now working with Glenda, a really cool glass artist to learn more about glass and how to make things bigger than jewelry. I had my first session yesterday where I learned how to program a kiln, design larger pieces (I am currently making a 12" bowl), use the glass saw and belt sander, kiln wash a shelf, and set up a rack melt (my first melt will be blues, purples, pink, and white - I'll cut up the piece when its done to put in other larger projects). The first firing of the bowl and the rack melt will be out of the kiln tonight. Oh, exciting. Its pretty cool. I am trading services with Glenda which is way cool b/c taking glass classes normally runs about $100 an hour for training. I am taking pictures for her and creating/updating a portfolio blog for her and she is teaching me to work with glass and letting me use their equipment and kilns. She's been working in glass for 30 years now so she knows quite a bit. :0) Here are a few of her "smaller" pieces. They are about 15-18" in diameter. I am still working on her portfolio blog but it should be available in the next couple weeks. Cool, eh? And I'll still be doing pottery this fall and all my other things. Yes, I might have bit off more than I can chew -- but hey, its fun. :0)~

A Wedding Picture Break

So, all the wedding pictures are coming along. I have finished Hannah's and Heidi's are almost done. Should be done by the end of the week. I took a little break and finished up the shoot I did last month of the Rivera kids. Here are a few of my favorites.

I've been playing around with side lighting. I like how tight this pose is. Worked out well.
Love the tight pose and expressions. Too cute. I muted the colors some to give it a softer look.
Aww.. big brother taking care of his little sister. Doesn't he look like a good protector?
Little Kelsie chillin' out
Kyra in her ballet outfit. Love her big brown eyes and non-smile. She seems so serious.

This is my favorite picture of Kyra probably ever. She is just so precious and sweet. Love the soft colors and gentle and content expression.
Naaman in his superhero outfit. :0)

Todays Readings

So, I was sitting here waiting for Renee to call and was reading "All Sexed Up: Is There a Way Out of Chastity, Marriage, and the Christian Sex Cult?". Its a REALLY long article and some way over my head but what I read was interesting. The author talks about his opinion of how our view of sex in Christian circles is incorrect and cult-like and that we spend too much time thinking, discussing, avoiding, whatever it and forget what we really should be doing which is imitiating Christ. I'd agree with atleast part of what he says. His last few paragraphs sum up what he thinks we can do to help reverse some of our thinking on the subject. Read the whole article (linked above) if ya want to know more. I'll probably have more thought later.

"In the end, I am not saying anything that complex. I believe that Christians need to try to find ways out of sexuality, the very thing I see Christ and Paul trying to do in order to create a larger space for friendship. And this is possible, I believe, when we once again frame Christian action and living in regard to martyrdom instead of sexuality. As some possible ways out of the contemporary Christian sex cult, I propose a few very simple practices of freedom.

First, form friendships in which you speak more about imitating Christ, wherein you discuss your vocation, feeding the hungry, caring for orphans, challenging each other toward economic simplicity, and your redemptive vision for the world than you do about the topic of sex. By this I mean to say, trade in your accountability partner for a friend who will challenge you to imitate Christ in your life by the way you spend your money, the job that you take and the day to day interactions you have with others. Although sex will continue to factor into your discussions from time to time, refuse to make sexual confession the central reason for meeting together but more often concentrate each other on affirming the imitation of Christ. Engage in holistic forms of confession as well as affirmation that allow for failure and are not bound simply to a focus on chastity.

Second, refuse to be organized in the church along sexual lines by forming deep friendships outside of your sexual category. Singles should get to know married folk; women should befriend men; seniors should befriend youths; heterosexuals should get to know homosexuals.

Thirdly, speak more openly about marriage and refuse any formulation of chastity or virginity based upon marriage. Reject the attempt to make marriage the ideal for Christian living, and refuse to focus too much attention on the family. That is to say, do not allow your notions of virginity and chastity to be defined as preparation for marriage or as purified holding stations for an eventual spouse, for this is to disavow virginity and chastity from any intelligible Christian formulation. One does not remain a virgin in Christianity in order to keep oneself pure for his or her eventual spouse, but virginity and chastity are always defined in Christianity as functions of integrity toward one’s goal of imitating Christ.

And finally, refuse to acknowledge liberation as a “coming out” because this implies that one’s essential sexual nature must be recognized. Liberty is always the freedom to love one’s neighbor, not to sleep with her or him as an expression of who one really is. Both Paul and Christ refuse to acknowledge any essential nature, especially a sexual nature, other than the new human nature given in the resurrected Christ that gathers the community of his followers in friendship. These practices, I believe, may begin to lead us out of the contemporary understanding of ourselves as essentially sexual beings. They may lead us in a new direction toward an evangelical asceticism that reclaims the imitation of Christ as a complete form of life. Each of these is only a beginning, but they are an important beginning for finding our way out of the worship of sex. "