Preparing For Show Season

Here we are, sliding into the holiday season ever so quickly, and I'm involved in more activities than I have been for quite some time.

I'm still teaching bead making classes at the Bay Area Glass Institute (BAGI), and I'm also teaching them at the Art Glass Center of San Jose. Classes keep me busy 3 nights a week and a couple of Saturdays a month. Along with my association with the Art Glass Center of San Jose came an opportunity to display/sell individual works in the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. Here is my first piece that will be for sale there - a felted vessel I call "Morning Light".

On November 14 and 15, I will be selling my wares at the Bay Area Bead Extravaganza in Oakland, CA. I've been doing this bead show for several years now - and right now my inventory is rather low. I have GOT to get back on the torch pronto! I also plan on having some other items for sale that are new for me. I'll be hand-dying some silk cords that will coordinate with my leaf beads (that I haven't made yet - yikes!).

Early this year my friend Nanette (Scorpio Beads) and I had a booth at the Stitches West show, which is a show for folks who work with fiber. We were selling our beads, jewelry, hand-painted silk scarves and felted objects. The woman who is the artist coordinator for the Olive Hyde Art Guild's annual Holiday Show came by our booth, looked at our products, and asked us if we would be interested in having our work screened for the show. I responded with an enthusiastic "yes!". The Olive Hyde Art Center and Gallery is located in my home town of Fremont, California. The screening took place the Saturday after I returned from my trip to Portland and Chinook, Washington. Shortly thereafter, I was informed that my work was accepted into the show and was given a list containing the type of item and maximum number of items I can submit of each type. When I looked at the numbers, I gulped. Wow... must get busy, must get busy NOW! So I have been focused on creating new felted objects for this show.

Currently, I have 3 new vessels ready for embellishments. These pictures are awful - I didn't have decent lighting when I took them, but maybe it will give you a vague idea of what I'm working on. I've started embellishing the third one - that's why there's a thread hanging off the side of it (work in progress...).

I've dyed some silk chiffon for some new nuno felted scarves and I still have to dye more silk - I'd love to have 5 scarves in the show - but I also must make new jewelry. We'll see how much I can get done by show time.

And to top all of that off, I decided to take a short-term contract job back in my old field of software development. I'll be writing business requirements and possibly some functional requirements for software I haven't been involved with in 16 years. Holy cow! Looks like I'll be starting that next week.

Needless to say, my presence here in the blogosphere has declined a bit. I'm hoping to do a better job of giving you a glimpse into my little world of glass and fiber art. In the mean time, I'm off to work on embellishing those vessels.

Have yourselves a happy and creative day!