Can you say Chihuly?

Okay, so Chihuly (chi as in chick...chi-hoo-lee) is Dale Chihuly the amazing glass blower. Yes, gang, these photos are of glass art!

He no longer works the glass due to one blinded eye & an arm injury, but he directs his team to make his vivid dreams become spectacular realities...and his work is just across the bay from me in San Francisco...I'm so excited I'll be able to see his work on display for a mere $15 at the DeYoung!


It's kind of funny because these 2 photos were taken of displays he installed at Kew Botanical Gardens outside of London, England...just a couple of years after I visited London! So I never saw them but knew nothing of him at the time anyway, so I'm much happier about seeing them now that I've seen awesome work on his website (click his name above) and a t.v. documentary.

Since I live in a world of glass beads, I find his pieces breathtaking as he has glass blown into ridiculously simple or intensely detailed objects. You should see him freely tossing the bobbing balls (left) into the water as if they couldn't break...eeek! I had to laugh recently when "Frasier Crane" on "Frasier" yelled at his father (who nearly knocked over the Chihuly bowl on display in Frasier's apartment)..."don't hit the Chihuly!" Imagine what panic he would have felt seeing these glass bobs tossed!

On a different vein, although the bay area was surrounded on all four sides at one point by very distant wildfires, we still had heavy, smoky air for several days that blotted the blinding rays of the sun with a kind of gray haze that reduced the view of the sun to a deep orange cutout in the sky. Rather an end-of-the-world feel. What a sigh of relief it was to see patches of blue sky return!

I'll be playing Auntie to my godson next week and won't have much access to the internet or my beads, so my business goal is to get my icky taxes reported and to sketch and draw quite a bit so I can get rolling on listing drawings on www.MomsArt.etsy.com along with prints of my son's and my mom's drawings as well. What are the subjects? Hmmmm...welllll okay, just a hint...anatomy and botany...nope, that's all you get and you'll just have to savor the sweet ache of anticipation until then!

I'll be shipping jewelry and craft supplies Monday, July 7th and then again around July 16th.

Until then, ta.

Life is a Sundae

Could life be any sweeter than this handmade glass ice cream sundae? Lezlie Belanger created this lush goody and I added some silver to create a pendant. I listed it, watched a movie, returned to the shop and it had sold! So I guess you could say that ice cream sundaes sell like hotcakes.

The detail is phenomenal and it is difficult for my mind to wrap around the truth that this is, in fact, NOT a real ice cream treat! I love the snazzy spacer at the bottom. It reminds me of the doily that is usually placed on the plate before a sundae is presented in an ice cream shoppe.

I better order more of these so that no one feels left out of wearing one for summer fun.

On the flip side, I finally made a necklace out of ZudaGay's awesome polymer clay piece seen here. The detail is so deep and rich. The texture reminds me of carved wood. I hand wound .999 fine silver around the suede leather cord and found a cool Bali clasp that also has that wound silver feature.

If still available, you can see it on my Etsy site along with other planned pendants & necklaces.