It is Shell Season!

Shells are a favorite subject for me in glass, along with jellyfish. So here are a few new beads for you to enjoy featuring jellies swimming inside seashells.

Step into the Garden, Step into the Sea!

I love doing florals in glass. I am NO gardener, as my yard will testify, but in glass, flowers reign supreme! The detail of the larger bead gives you an idea of the depth one can achieve in glass.

Oh, did I tell you about the mermaids? It has been a goal for a long while to make mermaids, and my favorite models were by Teresa LaLiberte, in Germany. Recently she made a tutorial available on goddesses, which are the land-maids. From there I ventured toward my first mermaid. Her purpose is to germinate the sea, aka jellyfish, my passion in glass. So I got another tutorial done by Mary Lockwood and started learning her style of jellies.

I am offering you a glimpse of the first of the group, not so much to show them off, because they are the first, and I have lofty ambitions with the theme. But I am proud of them. I held my breath while I made the first one, especially as I moved off-mandrel to do her tail....if you have ever worked with glass you know that "cool" is not your friend, so you have to keep the whole piece hot while you work...a tall order when you are deeply concentrating on the placement of "pearls" around the mermaid's neck. The next thing you know there are serious underwater
fissures in your work, and two hours of prep and construction might just bite the water bucket.

So if you chance to find a mermaid, pregnant with jellyfish, with silver-laden glass details and a pearl necklace don't flinch when you see the cost of her. I am pushing my personal envelope with these little sculptures and I can tell you that the good ones would have a dear price. I am hoping some of my mermaids will be "up there" some day, for people to enjoy. And by the way, you may not want to buy such a piece for yourself but your appreciation means so much to us glass artist types! So thank you for your oohs and ahhs....they are golden.

Jellies at play

I have not posted for a while. I took some classes at Playing with Fire in Rockland, Maine, with Trey Cornette, Pipyr and Ed (b0r0), and a day with John Kobuki. And I began a new job, which has taken a lot of time and adjusting, but I am very happy. So I will catch my blog up to the present over the next while.

I am still working on jellyfish. Here is a cold-worked bead from May which has two dark jellyfish chasing each other around the center of the bead.

And after a wonderful three days with Andrea Guarino Slemmons I had to try a feather. Hers are the best, though. I am really happy with this one because it has metallic powders on the surface with give it a wonderful range of copper and bronze tones!

I also made a series of small beads with layers of dots. The top bead here is so luscious to look at, like deep creamy pools of pale color.

I am working on some pretty amazing new things. I have some tutorials from great glass artists that I will tell you about in the next few days, and share with you my newest adventures with glass.

Thank you for visiting my blog. If I could wish you to have a fraction of the happiness I get from glass work you would be so blessed...so I do wish joy and fulfillment for you in whatever you do.