Crossing the Finish Line... Going Toward the Light!

Okay, boys and girls, the lamp is FINISHED!  And it's out of my hands, on its way to the gallery for our exhibit. Wow, I feel so strange with neither the lamp nor the chair hanging over my head!


This Thursday, ORA's  art exhibit opens at Elements Glass Gallery with a first-Thursday reception from 5:30 to 9 pm.  The theme of the exhibit is "LIGHT."  Please come and see the beautiful art works on display (including my lamp which you're sick of hearing about, but just dying to see) by our members and special guests.  There will be food, drink, music, and ART!!  Come celebrate with us.

Elements Glass Gallery
1979 NW Vaughn St.
Portland, OR 97209
503.228.0575

New Members are In!

I am so bleary-eyed!  It's been a long day in front of the screen, but I did it.... I made new web pages for our four new ORA members, and revised the "Artists" page that leads to each of us.  Exhausting!  But go take a look.... http://www.northwestjewishartists.org/artists.html

That grindstone i was talking about?  The Light project?  It will be a pleasure to get back to it, with no screen and no keyboard!  See you tonight at the Pre-JAM Slam!!!!  7 pm at MJCC.... fun and free!

Back to the Grindstone

The CHAIR is finished!  It's not as extensively beaded as I had originally planned, but it's definitely cute.  And cute is important, right?  Very pink-and-purple, with hearts and everything.  We were supposed to give it a clever name, so I called it "Love Seat."  Which is almost clever.

The Love Seat will be featured for sale in the Chair Affair auction on April 8th, which is a benefit for the Portland Community Warehouse.   For more info, and some amazing photos of last year's chairs, see their website:   http://communitywarehouse.org/chairaffair/

So now, it's back to the grindstone for me. The Light project.  Okay, you've guessed by now... it's a lamp. With beading all around the glass globe.  It's been frustrating, but after a few days away from it, I think I can see it more objectively now.  It's pretty nice, and everyone else seems to think it's done.  Of course, I know better.  It's NOT done, but it will be.  Now I have a few days to add to it, and then I'll glue it to the glass at the end.  Hmmm, but first I actually have to make some new web pages before Wednesday night.  Oh well, it was fun visiting the Grindstone.  Back in a few...

The Dark Before the Light

Despite my moaning, groaning, and general whining, the project-from-heck is coming along.  I got it into a presentable form to submit to the jury Tuesday night, accompanied by a note explaining that it isn't finished, but I would like their feedback.  Sort of like a note-from-mom-saying-that-the-dog-ate-my-homework.  Believe it or not, the jury accepted the project for the show!  There have been some very dark moments during this process, and may still be more to come, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel (play on words, since the exhibit's theme is "Light."  Clever, huh?)

Notice how I'm not telling you what it is?  You'll have to come see it at the Exhibit (see info below).  So now i guess I have to finish it, right?  Ack!

But today I decided to take a break from all that light, and do some work on my Chair Affair project.  Again, I'm not sure it will be ready on time, since they moved up the deadline.  But I'll do what I can.  It's a worthy cause, and a fun event.  And the little dollhouse chair I bought to decorate is sooo cute! Plus, there's no yellow involved, which at this point is very appealing !

I hope a lot of people come to both of these events.  Sorry, no dogs allowed.


"Light" Exhibit, featuring 20 ORA artists & associates
March 4 -14, 2010
(First Thursday reception March 4th at 5:30 pm)
 Elements Gallery and Hot Shop
 1979 NW Vaughn St
  503.228.0575


The Chair Affair, a benefit auction for Portland Community Warehouse
Thursday, April 8, 2020
5:30 - 9:00 pm
The Bison Building
419 NE Tenth St.
503.206.5244  or  linda@communitywarehouse.org  for information

Flipping Out

We're getting down to the wire... jury date is Tuesday night... time to put this baby together!  My stomach hurts. I spent some stressful time this morning, figuring out how to piece together the pieces I've made, and where they'll sit on the glass globe. Well, guess what? They didn't all fit!  I actually had to leave one out, and also had to construct one more piece to fit into an empty spot.  Sigh...

But I came up with this cool piece, starting with a semi-circle I had already done (you can see it in the previous post), and adding the reverse flips to fill the space.  What do you call this shape?  It reminds me of that 1964 haircut... the "flip."  With a tiara.

So, back to the construction. Trying to fit them together is crazy, because I have to attach them temporarily to the globe. But how?  I tried 2-sided tape, then clamps.  Hmmm, I didn't try rubber bands.  But I ended up just scotch-taping each piece roughly into place.  It looks ridiculous. But slowly slowly, I'm getting the pieces sewn to each other. Once they're all attached, I can try my plan for anchoring them to the top of the glass, and I hope to have time to add some more embellishment.

I'm really regretting how the timing worked out, because it will not look like I envisioned it.  But at this point, I can only do what I can do, and hope it looks nice enough for the jury.  I'm trying not to flip out.

Balance

I've been working for several weeks in yellows, golds, white, with a touch of orange.  Gotta tell you, i am developing a very strong urge to do something in black and purple!!  Expect that to follow this project.  Don't know what it will be, but it will be DARK!!

After all, a person's got to have some balance in life.  You can't just eat carrots... you need chocolate too, right?  Right!

Shell Beads

Today a market research person asked me what I would do if stranded on a desert island.  I said that after seeking food and water, I would probably collect shells and make them into beads.  This, of course, is a little warped.  But I'm feeling pretty warped right now, working round-the-clock on a beading project, I have beads on the brain.

I'm working on this massive project for our "Light" exhibit at Elements Glass next month. The jury is in a week, and I don't know if the project will be ready in time.  Also, our ORA meeting is tonight, and I'm not sure I'll have enough of a structure to bother showing it to the group.  I'll have to make that decision later today, but over the weekend I finally made peace with myself about the jury next week.  I gave myself permission not to submit it.  If I'm not done in time, so be it.  I have a few other pieces to submit anyway, so that might be all there is.  I'm not going to be stressed about it anymore, because it is not constructive.  And now that I'm feeling more stoic about it, it's moving along faster, and will probably (I hope) be done in time.

I do, however, need to learn from this experience.  How did I get into this last-minute position? Again?  It's mostly that "can't say no" thing, which eats up a lot of my time.  I really have to pick my volunteer commitments more carefully.  And then there's the old time management thing, which is tied with losing weight and quitting smoking for the number-one most common vice that people strive every year to control.  At this age, am I ever really going to lose weight?  Or manage my time better?  It seems less and less likely each year, but I have to hang onto hope, no matter how dim it may be, and keep trying to improve.  Find little shells, search for a way to make them into beads.... keep trying....

The Nuisance of The Wild

I am an animal lover, and I love most of them.  But I don't like coyotes. I do not find them cute or beautiful or romantic or regal. They scare me for real.  Especially because I have a small dog, and coyotes have invaded our neighborhood big-time. 

Coyotes have been sighted on our own street for the last few weeks.  My son even had a near-collision with one on his way home to our driveway.  On Tuesday my husband was walking the dog and heard howling very nearby. Luckily our son happened to come by in the car, so Gary sent him ahead to look for the source of the howl.  Sure enough, it was a coyote, not 100 feet away.  Joel chased him away with the car, and went back to DRIVE Gary and the dog back home. Personally, I don't walk the dog on our street at all.  I drive him somewhere safer, and walk with him there.  This is crazy!

Yes, I understand this is all because their habitat is being destroyed. But this particular neighborhood was built almost 40 years ago, so why are they appearing here now?  Well, I've been puzzled about that, but last night I think I figured it out.  There are a lot of new homes being built fairly nearby.  Not so close that I consider them in our neighborhood, but it's happening in so many nearby areas that I think the coyotes end up wandering over here, where there are no bulldozers, and plenty of small dogs & cats.

So at the moment we live in a state of siege.  I don't know what can be done about it, or how long it will last, but we live in fear.