Penny Gentle Art Glass

I am Back!

2011-10-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

It has been over two years...time I spent on other projects that are now complete, and my torch is lit again for making beads. I have so much to show you, but will start with just a few of my favorite beads. I struggled with a lot of styles other bead makers have made popular while I was MIA, but a good friend suggested doing what I love best, so here are some of those beads!

I learned to make roses with glass cane and apply them as murrini within or on the surface of beads. This style of work makes me so happy! Again, Lydia Muell was a great teacher of this type of work, and I thank her profusely.

Elegant maidens, elegant forms...

2009-06-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

It is always an adventure to embark on a new style, well, new to me, and see where it goes. As you scroll down you can see the route my mermaids took, from esoteric and colorful in the beginning, to these simple and elegant forms...less is more, they say.

I love the idea of these maids ascending from the nautilus shape, with textured copper electroforming suggesting the sea foam delineating the two elements. The torsos are etched on most of these mermaids, and the swirling, coiling tails are mostly made with silver-based glass which will always yield a surprise set of colors in the end!

I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoyed making them. And in your seafaring travels you just may see a sea maiden who reminds you of these.

Beware of ladies on seaweed-strewn rocks...!

2009-05-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

Yes, these are the stuff of sailor men's dreams.

Under the sea for 80 days...!

2009-05-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

The Sirens are calling...the odd, the beautiful, the colorful and the classic. I think Odysseus would have been really late getting home if he had seen some of these girls on his voyage!

The mermaids began as fairly classic forms, in colors, with frit, metallic glass, and of course with tails, even hair in some cases. I began seriously incorporating electroformed details, mainly the belts. Some are left bright, and some were patinated. At some point the mermaids changed their forms, and began emerging from nautilus-like shells. This evolution is a source of joy for someone like me because it shows I really can get out of the box and come up with something new and good. Thank the sea gods for that!

2009-04-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Earth is balanced on a cusp of weather change these weeks. One day it will be warm, oh say 41 degreesF, and we are all used to that temperature and don't feel cold. With a flick of clouds it will turn damp, foggy, windy, rainy, and downright uncomfortable. But early in the morning and at dusk you can hear a lot of birds, and the feeders are empty every night because of their appetites and the lack of fresh things to eat. They are gearing up for spring and nesting.

Yesterday I saw three glorious male turkeys just about one block from Route One (you know, a highway) in Rockland, so charged and puffed up for mating that they were just about incapable of doing anything but waddle around trying to interest the ten females who were pecking at bird seed on the grass....all dressed up and nowhere to go! I can see why Ben Franklin wanted them to be the national bird. I prefer the working-man look myself. And I definitely admire the nobility of the American eagle.

That's it for outdoors excitement in my part of the Maine landscape. In my studio roses are abundant, still. Here are more of the painted roses I have loved doing, with different background colors, and finally, in Gaffer Glass, from New Zealand...that will be the bead with deep ruby roses that pull you deeply inside their centers, the bead at the top.

Thank you for stopping by. Next time I will take you somewhere totally different!

The Sun, Full Bore!

2009-03-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

The Arctic air is blowing through town, but the sun is shining! Although it is distracting as I sit all day at the torch, I love it, even though I have to fight with the bright rays competing with my concentration on a ball of molten glass, I am so happy!

There was that hiatus for one month while I struggled with even more new stuff, and the latest floral beads are the result. I mentioned a new tutorial I have been working on, from Lydia Muell. All of the past month's work has led up to being able to make even more sophisticated roses. And I am learning new ways to "paint" them and their buds and foliage. I don't know why I didn't just take up painting in the first place, since this is just about the most difficult way to do it. Imagine painting with hot fluid glass, on glass, where you cannot exactly mix colors like you can with paint, and you can't remove it once you lay it down.

I hope you enjoy these beads. The largest is about 25cm round, and the longer ones are about 35-40cm long. Some are etched, but that is a leap in faith, believe me, taking the shine off a bead. One never knows wehre the details will go when one does that!

Full Circle

2009-03-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

It has been nearly a year since I began my blog here. Once again we are having this teasing weather...sweaters one day, pouring rain and sleet the next, and a mass of mud and ice outside.

My spruce tree is a hub of activity...chickadees, two pairs of cardinals, blue jays, nuthatches, finches by the dozens, all enjoying the various feeders hanging in the tree. And then, if I am lucky, the tribe of twelve turkeys also feeds there, gathering up the carelessly dropped sunflower seeds. And if I am REALLY lucky one of the two woodpeckers will stop by and have a nibble.

Meanwhile I am steadily working on roses. I have a lot to show since my last entry in January so I will begin with these beads. All the flowers here are encased in clear, mostly done in Reichenbach and Gaffer glass. The cool red bead was pressed into a neat shape...looked at from the end it is a diamond form rather than a tubular bead, so there is lots of glass on the edges that adds to the depth of the bead.

I am working on a tutorial by Lydia Muell, and next post I will show the beads I have done with what Lydia has taught me.

Ahhh, winter...

2009-01-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

I will not be discouraged, although we should get up to 20 inches of snow in Maine....maybe not here on the coast. I can always go into my studio and conjure more roses to humor myself.
I have added one more bead from Sunday.

There is Always Something to Learn

2009-01-27T08:04:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I participated in a roundtable discussion with three other artists from the Flower Power show at CMCA. The two painters, of watercolors and oils, were discussing the process of developing technique and style over time, and also the ways they could erase pencil lines, go away for a while, redo a line...or maybe put their whole bodies into painting a line that traveled over quite a large area. They could draft elements, or they could block out an area for painting their flowers or scenes. The more I listened the more I realized that glass work is really a one-shot deal, and every now and then the whole thing really comes together as something I am proud of and like.

My favorite floral artist in glass, Lydia Muell, has been inspiring me for a while, and some of her beads really do look like paintings. Connie Hayes was talking about the process of painting roses at the roundtable, how she gets the "glow" of a particular rose, or captures its personality...which can change throughout the day as it matures and responds to light. So when I next sat at the torch I attempted a more painterly style, in glass, looking at Lydia's roses and rosebuds, and at Connie's roses, blending colors, laying down good underpinnings for my flowers.

I am ecstatic about these beads, done in Reichenbach and Gaffer glass, 96 COE, because for the first time they subjects don't really look like they are in beads. They are loose and bold...a style I never thought I could emulate. Thank you, artists, for sharing what you know, and thank you glass gods for letting me "get it" once again!

In from the Cold

2009-01-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

As cruelly cold as it has been, the inspirations for artists burn brightly in our hearts during these months. While thick fluffy snow fell all day yesterday, my eye was on the pinks and yellows of spring and summer flowers, namely roses. I have added some new elements, along with more variation in the color layers of my leaves...painting, I guess....however I don't know anything at all about painting!

Gifts

2009-01-15T07:03:00.000-08:00

It is a freezing cold day, one to keep me in for the duration. I have been reflecting upon the ways we give the intangible to one another...a piece of beautiful music, like the melody you are hearing at this moment from Solas, which I found on a friend's Blog, and which I am learning; or as in yesterday's visit to my friend Tim's photography book store. I was looking at several photographs he has hanging on his walls. I recognized one of the bridge at Big Sur, and commented upon one of an old majestic building in New York City. There was one of several men around some bocce balls, and one of a buffalo on top of a wagon. Tim had been given snippets of information about all these photos, from people who come from all over the world to his store. The bocce players were in France, and some congoscienti could tell him who the famous players were just by the way they stood and wore their pants and shoes (the photo cuts them all off at the waist)! The buffalo was part of a rodeo act. And I had been over that bridge.

I was thinking about all these bits of information as gifts given to Tim over time, and mentioned a book I was reading, The Names of Things, by Susan Brind Morrow. This is the third time I have read it and have never known anyone else who has read it. Tim said it was one of his favorite books. I brought it up because she mentions how, in Egypt, travelling in the 1980's alone, she discovered she could give songs to people, and they would give songs back, just as people gave Tim information about his photos. Nothing material was exchanged, and the gift could be ephemeral or everlasting in the spirits of the recipients. Great gifts!

As an aside, I treasure the gifts of nuance that I find, sometimes, in my beads. The effects are often accidental but I feel a surge of delight when I get it right!

Something new...

2009-01-14T13:49:00.000-08:00

I hope you enjoy the music I have added to my blog. Some of it is taken directly from the playlist of my friend Victoria Pittman, and I love the first piece played by Winifred Horan, with Solas. Her fiddle was made in Maine by Jonathan Cooper, http://www.jcooperviolinmaker.com/and it is the most beautiful sounding fiddle in the world (except for Joshua Bell's, of course). I bought a lovely Italian violin from this man years ago, and I am currently helping it to learn the haunting Solas piece on my playlist.

It is so freezing cold in Maine today that I have hesitated all day to go to my studio to work. My kiln will keep me warm but the intake air for ventilation will make my little cockatiel shiver....so the woodstove is going in hopes of warming up the house enough to stave off the bitter cold I will be letting in.

Flower Power

2009-01-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

I am in a beautiful show and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, Maine. It is called Flower Power. Anyone who goes to see this show will feel so happy for being able to see 14 artists' interpretations of flowers, offered in the middle of January for extra effect!

Interestingly enough, the piece that most captivated me is lying on a white pedestal. It is a crushed copper bulb, open at one end, attached to a gently curved pipe. It looks like a poppy, in a way. The copper is beautifully and richly oxidized, and all the crenellations and dents bear the emphasis of the deep copper blue surface. So how is this so intriguing? From poppy, to crushed, to lying flat on a surface, my mind leaped to the Middle East...no further explanations necessary. It was a simple, strong statement to me on how things are in that part of the world.

I was inspired by 24 small black panels mounted on the far wall, each bearing roses of different colors and types...just breathtaking, by the artist Connie Hayes.

And somewhere along the way to her wall is a glass case with my offerings, the foxgloves and sweet peas that make up these three necklaces. They are made with Bullseye glass, and the pinks and purples of the one sweet pea necklace are hand-blended colors. I love the goofy first shot because the way light travels through glass makes my heart sing!

Making Interesting Artifacts

2009-01-12T17:47:00.000-08:00

Well, Missing in Action, for sure. But in all the months I have not posted in my beloved Blog I have been working through a lot of glass, learning, practicing, trying to understand things that other glass artists already know.

For most of the four years I have been working with molten glass I have tried to understand how some artists are able to portray flowers, specifically roses. Kim Miles has a technique that makes the petals look like tissue paper. And after several written tutorials with Lydia Muell of Ashton jewels, I have been smitten by her venture into roses as well.

So a student studies, and I have, looking, looking and looking some more, until the lights went on, the colors developed as they should, and I finally started to get that lovely texture in tiny rose petals. Maybe it isn't how Kim does it, and that would be really good. I switched to Bullseye glass part way through last week because the glass is harder and more forgiving of the encasing process, and they make awesome colors, especially pinks.

So if you have been waiting and wondering, as I hope someone has been, here is what has come out of my kiln in the past five days. I, for one, am truly delighted!

It is Shell Season!

2008-07-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Still Under Water!

2008-05-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

Glass is always in a fluid state, even your windows and drinking glasses, solid as they seem to be. So, take a leap of faith and imagine a glass object with jellyfish and sea life existing inside it.

These beads are so thrilling to look at, with wonderful colors, swimming jellies, seaweed, bubbles of air...all in beads! This has been a very exciting week in my development as a glass artist. I have dreamed of putting jellies inside beads, and here are some of them, fully realized at my torch.

Deep Spaces

2008-05-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

I am intrigued by places I cannot go, those deep spaces outside my galaxy, and deep in the oceans of the earth. I have a wonderful book of underwater photographs by Sophie de Wilde, who adventured in most of the oceans of the world.

These beads are evocative of underwater miracles, living in an oceanic environment that allows them some pretty interesting forms and colors. I hope you enjoy these beads, in BullsEye glass, one of my favorites to work with! These are views of two beads, flattened to a smooth, comfortable shape.

Rain

2008-04-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

It started last evening, a soft but persistent rain, the kind that gently soaks the earth. But today the earth is hosting great puddles, and there is mud again. In Maine we have mud for a while in early spring, then we never see mud again for a year, at least that is how I remember it.

So today is a wonderful day to post a couple of stone-like beads with spring irises on them. I love to combine metals, like silver and copper leaf, and maybe a little reactive frit, to get these organic effects. These beads evoke a little of the Japanese sensibility. One has a suggestion of moving water in the background; the vines are also metallic-based, giving them the look of venerability rather than that tender green of early growth.

A Bold Statement!

2008-04-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Some of my beads are pretty large, upwards of 4cm in length, and they need a larger "canvas" for themselves in terms of how they are made into jewelry. Lately I have been experimenting with non-precious metals, making hammered clasps, and some of them got to be pretty large themselves.

So, my mind being the inventive conjurer that it is, came up with this composition with a floral bead made with complex floral cane murinni which I developed last year. The clasp is copper tubing, hammered, presenting itself as the "new pink gold" in this world of atmospheric soaring costs! It is treated with Renaissance wax to prevent it from reverting to its true colors, like the carriage and the pumpkin.

The necklace is on black silk Embead material, with Chinese knots, and it sits just below the collarbones. It is also intentionally asymetrical, to challenge our sensibilities just a little.

Soft Spring Morning

2008-04-23T07:39:00.001-07:00

These are some of the most beautiful days of the year, the air is cool, fragrant and promising. The soft rich smells of warming earth fill us with hope, and under all the mulching leaves from last year green shoots thrust themselves into the world, strong and ready to grow.

I chose this bead for today because it is soft and luscious, with a blast of spring green making its way from underneath the pale creamy petals of flowers.

Let me give you some ideas, Spring!!

2008-04-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

I guess we shall have to tease the warmth out of spring this year. Just when we decide to leave our socks off it chills up again, and it is back to sweaters and regular shoes. But meanwhile, I have some florals to give major hints to Spring about what we want!

These beads are large, nearly 4cm each (well, one, the luscious one with lots of flowers is 4cm). They are shaped and pressed with Jim Moore's 2" lentil press, a tool so beautiful I pick it up sometimes just to enjoy the metals and the craftsmanship! So here's the show, Spring, your own personal catalogue of things you could throw our way. (We will have to continue the show next post. We could only put in four shots today.)

Freshet

2008-04-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

I saw some murrini on a bead from an artist in Germany named Adi, and I loved the freshness of them so much I made them as a floral cane with stamen. In this bead they look like water flowers being moved by currents in a spring stream. The bubbles are compliments of copper leaf between layers of glass, which also renders the glass a deeper aqua. The bead is
nearly 4cm long and feels like a microcosm of water-life in the hand, very comforting and calming.

If you have ever made a bead you might know the intense focus that can take your mind off everything but the flame, the glass and the mandrel. If you enjoy working with glass you may also benefit from the near-healing qualities of the work......when the bead itself gives you even greater pleasure and a healing essence, you cannot ask for much more from your work, except to hope it does the same for others.

A Little Help From My Friend

2008-04-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

There is an amazing bead that Andrea Guarino Slemmons makes called the Sea Garden. She demonstrated it at our class but we did not make one because the class was ending. So when I got out my notes and tried making one it looked AWFUL! It was dark, with no hint of the lovely treasures inside. I made three or four of these. Then I saw a couple using most of the techniques we learned....they were made by Lisa A., who had also taken Andrea's class, in Indiana. Her bead was beautiful, filled with light and lots of aquas, my favorite colors.

So I called her up, and the first thing she asked me was whether I used tanked oxygen. No, I answered, and therein lies the problem. I won't go into details, nor will I give away the even more awesome solution to the problem, but I will show you the beads I made after this generous and eye-opening help from my friend! I am not calling them sea gardens. They are lyrical, and evoke a sense of flowing, of currents, and they are filled with the mysterious colors of dichroic glass. And I am SO HAPPY to be able to make them the way I have!

Turkeys and Peepers

2008-04-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

In my neighborhood there is a resident flock of turkeys which has been around for about three years. They sleep in the trees near our bedroom windows, parade down the road like peacocks, and dine under a neighbor's window. She puts food out several time a day and if it isn't out there yet they fly up and gently bump the windows. I saw them today for the first time in a while, as a couple of large dogs had frightened them off, and the male was proudly herding his ladies across the road for a lunch date.

More exciting to me was the beginning of peeper season the other evening. These little frogs live in a pond across from my house and they are brought into spring activity by the degree at which the sun finally hits them on its return to summer mode. They will yell and carouse for quite a while to find mates, then quiet down. But in the fall, when the sun is hitting us at the same angle on its travels toward winter they will pipe up for a short time.

I hope you enjoy my mini-rogues' gallery of tiny, smiling frogs! They owe their good genes to Mary Lockwood. One of her frogs lives in my studio!

What was that about Spring?

2008-04-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

Another cold and wet front is drifting over Maine today with a promise of a wet three days, THEN....spring. We are so gullible but also hopeful. You cannot argue with warbling birds at 5:00am now, can you?

So to keep the momentum going, three more florals are dancing and twirling about to enchant you. The black floral has amazing metallic color from silver blue and Tink's magic teal dust. The green beads are lightly etched, and I was surprised to find the Terra glass in one floral cane is shiny, since it does not etch, so there is a new quality to the petals I had not planned on.

Soft Spring Sun

2008-04-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Finally today the morning turned sunny, the birds who have made it back to Maine were trying out their songs in the crisp morning air. And the woodpeckers were sounding out the trees in the woods for good strong messenging qualities...they are looking for chicks, after all, they just don't drive hot rods!

So to honor the unfolding of spring as we know it in this northern clime I am showing you a lovely soft-spoken floral, etched to bring out the delicate dusting of saffron yellow frit on a pale rose transparent glass. The pale cane petals belie the bold centers of pink and black, hinting at the ability of even the softest flowers to persevere!

Class with Andrea Guarino Slemmons

2008-04-07T19:14:00.000-07:00

Andrea is one of the most generous teachers I have met. She taught us most of her signature beads. Once we learn the style the real challenge is to use the techniques to evolve new work of our own. We used Moretti opal yellow, various 96 COE enamel powders, PMC and silver coring to develop this collection of beads in the bottom photo. After working on off-mandrel hearts with the ingredients Andrea uses, including opal yellow, I made my hearts with a Reichenbach yellow glass with a combination of frits and enamel powders, and silver foil. Andrea's mothwing beads are unique to her, but I did experiment with color changes, second photo from top. And while I love Andrea's galaxy beads the best, I experimented with some silver-laden colors and practiced my fuming techniques, resulting in a bead that is more like an oceanic vortex, top photo.

A few years ago I took a wonderful class with Michael Barley, another kind and generous teacher. But I was not quite ready for all that he taught. This time I had more capabilities and understanding of the ways of glass, so much of what Andrea taught was greedily absorbed. I hope I will be showing more beads composed with her beautiful techniques. Fuming glass with silver and capturing it in the bead is pure magic.

I also got to know Kristen Frantzen Orr, one of my most favorite beadmakers. Let's hope sharing Thai food and rides with her allowed some floral techniques to rub off...I love to make florals!

I met Stosh, such a cool woman, and Susan from Alaska, so down to earth and warm. Taking classes is a great way to expand one's skills, meet other artists, and stretch the collective envelopes. I am so glad I went to Port Townsend.

Traveling Companion

2008-03-17T11:54:00.001-07:00

Wild march winds are beckoning me to the pacific North West and I am taking a crow with me. He, in turn is bearing a sun clutched beneath him, just like he is supposed to, little thief! over time my little crow will turn many metallic colors due to the reaction of metallic powders on his surface with the pollutants in our air.

And here also are two beads inspired by Jayne of Badger Beads. I like the one with the diaphanous layer of silver leaf with light iris gold and copper ruby frits, suggesting the shape of a fish's body. And then of course there is red...who needs to say more!

Today it looks like this..

2008-03-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

The air is filled with threats of snow. It is gray and quiet outside. When I was photographing this bead I thought of atmosphere. It has a layer of cirrus glass around its core of Psyche glass. This is exactly the feeling of today, the atmosphere hanging low to the earth, boding of winter remnants, just in case we were to be too hopeful about Spring!

Almost Spring

2008-03-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

It is close...the birds are singing more, the air hints at a change. But the ground here in Maine is still rock hard and more snow is coming. I am holding my breath waiting until next week when I fly out to Port Townsend, Washington for a master class with Andrea Guarino Slemmons, another apex point in my career as a student of molten glass. Meanwhile I am pushing back the shrouds of dark winter with floral beads, waiting like all creatures of the northern hemisphere for more solid evidence of spring.