"Drunken Elephant"

This is a piece I had fun making during a visit from Karren and Jason Willenbrink-Johnson. It is always a pleasure to see people work together as proficiently and smoothly as these two do.

It was interesting: in a conversation by Pino during one of his workshops he held at our school (that I was translating,) he came out and said that he was proud to say that Karren had surpassed him as an artist! WOW, what a compliment! It was a moment for everyone to acknowledge that the greatest sculptor of all time admitted that one of his former students had become a better master than himself. It gave us all something to believe in and shoot for.

"My Lady on the Water"

This is part of the series in which I've been developing this idea of creating a scenery to help describe the emotions evoked by the images/objects I create. It's rewarding to be able to make something - to be able to transfer my energy into something tangible - but it is rewarding to be able to take that something and create a narrative, or evoke an emotion. This is what I strive to do in my work! If I don't move someone to feel something, be it that they hate or love it, I don't feel as though I've succeeded in doing what I set out to accomplish: to move the viewer to think and feel more than they were before seeing my piece.

"Volando Per i Nuvoli"

Just a quick note before I head to bed. This is part of a series that I've been working on in which I've been composing background scenes that give a setting to the subject of the composition. This one - "Flying through the Clouds" - is about the beauty of having found a girl that I love and the emotions that our relationship evokes within me: the sensation of flight! Ah, to love and be loved - when it's good, it's great! I've got my girl Heidi to thank for some of the more wonderful 11 months that I've spent in my life.

Just a shout out to Doreen Garner!

Thank you for suggesting that I should get this page up Doreen! I'm digging it so far. It's kind of nice to have a line out, accessible to the
world!

This is the series of graduated Ganesha style goblets that were inspired by a commission from one of my yoga instructors. The smallest is about the average height of a wine glass, and the biggest is about two feet tall. I had the pleasure of embarking on this series with one of my very faithful and insightful assistants - Jay Wright. Thanks for everything Jay, your help has been immeasurable!!!

Just a quickie! )

This is the prototype to a series of Elephant Goblets that I made. I will post those later, but in an effort to stay up on this world of blogging, I'm putting this up now.

Off into the spray-bottle rain of Eugene, OR!

Back at it!

I'm trying to add to this page to get some work up for all y'all to see. I'm in between moving out of my old place and picking up Miriam di Fiore from the airport, which I am supposed to have done right now, but she just called from Seattle - her plane had some issues and she's not sure when she's going to be getting in. We have a five day workshop with her down at the school, starting on Wednesday. I'll try and put up some pix from that.

In the meantime, here's is a shot of my rendition of a design by Pino that he made a few times while I was there, and that has been replicated many times over on the island. He calls it "Amanti - Lovers," and I call it "Homage to Pino."

I got the call, so I'm on the run. I guess that's today's installment.

...continuation of previous post

I thought that this was all going very smoothly, until now. It seems as though I've maxed-out on my megabyte allowance, or something? I can't seem to post any more pictures right now, so I guess this is the end of my first day of daily blogging. Sure has been a good time. Looking forward to the next time...

Sogni d'oro tutti!

Just posting away. Feeling the flow.

I've heard it gets easier as you go - sho'nuf!

This was an installation that I assisted on while living and working on Murano. It was a projected headed by Pino Signoretto. We had to make about 400 pieces for this work, each of which was then cut in half and assembled onto a structure constructed by a team of engineers. The largest components of the 400 were "feathers" pulled out to 15 feet in length.

Getting used to it, yesss!!!

Ok, ok, it's not so bad. Patience may, in fact, be the key to happiness, as I was once told by a very special fortune cookie!

These are some pieces that I made for Gaffer to exemplify some of the possible colors that you can get out of their version of an old Italian formula - Calcedonia. They call their recipe Chalcedony. It is a tricky color, but it has a lot of versatility. Check out this link if you'd like to read the "User Guide" that I wrote for them: http://gaffergirlspyroreport.blogspot.com/

Yo, this is supposed to be easy. What the...: )

I'm sure it'll come clearer, but, in the meantime I'm going to have to keep stumbling into solutions. Here is another shot of some of my work.

This is lampworked borosilicate. I made this sculpture of Dante in 2007 as part of my final paper for my Italian Literature degree that I completed at the University of Oregon. I had the pleasure of studying under Professor Gina Psaki, who let me integrate my passions and work in glass with my Italian Literature studies.

The image on the top is the death mask of Dante, the center is a profile painting of him, both of which I used as references for my work. I also worked off of Gustav Dore`'s illustrations of the Divine Comedy.

This figure is part of a larger project that will depict the whole opening scene in which Dante descends a hill, chased by three "beasts", back into the dark valley - the most lonely and desperate moment of the Inferno for Dante.

My First Blog

Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. For me, it is now: my first interactive web-based page! Alright, welcome. I'm here to show you what I've been up to, and am happy to hear what you think about it. I'm going to be building on this as the learning curve eases. In the meantime, enjoy!