Last week we installed our latest etched glass job, 3 panels that set on the inside sill in front of the existing glass in the master bedroom. This is the center of the three panels, 21" x 32".

Currently, we're working on another residential commission, a side lite to the front door and a panel to be installed as a divider in the kitchen.

We decided to donate a piece to the National Liberty Museum's annual auction this year. They have asked us for years and this year we were finally persuaded. The 11th Annual Glass Now Auction takes place October 30, 2010. If you plan to attend be sure and place a bid on our piece "Egg Cup 3 / Mistaken Identity", 4 3/8"w x 3 5/8"h x 4 3/8"d.

I have finally been spending hours and days in the model making studio. Whatever logjam kept me out of there has finally broken up and I am full of ideas and pieces to do. I already have a growing pile of finished waxes and plan to start casting some of them soon. The new work seems to be going off in several directions right now. I'm still constructing boxes but I have also begun two other series of pieces that I'm thinking will be wall hung perhaps or held up with an armature or both. I'm not really sure yet. Anyway, I'm back to sculpting away in wax.

Another bit of news...I had an article on techniques for working with wax published in the current issue of Glass Craftsman Magazine, #218 - Summer 2010, and we made the cover!

Check out my blog, you might find it entertaining. It's not specifically about glass but I do write about our work a lot.

6/13/10 - It's been a laid back and slow spring but now that summer is here we have been busy. The shop is finally being built! The frame is up, the siding and roofing is bought and ready to be put on. Next will be getting the electrical in and then we can finally put the shop and studio back together in it's entirety in it's new location. I will be so happy to get it finally back together and get to work casting glass and doing pate de verre again.

In the meantime we have been doing commission work. We have two new jobs, a residence and an orthodontist's office. The residence is three windows in the master bedroom and the orthodontist's office is three wall mounted panels behind the receptionist's desk. If you would like to see the sketches for these jobs you can go to my blog here.

Starting tomorrow, we will be teaching another workshop here in Houston at Hot Glass Houston, a new teaching studio and Bullseye Glass resource center. And speaking of workshops, we are scheduled to teach a new workshop at O-AT-KA School of Glass in NY in August on model making and mold making, both reproductive molds and casting molds. If you have taken a glass casting class and want to work on your model making and mold making skills, this is the workshop for that.

4/23/10 - Spring has finally arrived. Held back by winter like a dog restrained on a leash, it exploded on the scene when winter finally released it's grip. Everything is blooming at once. I know I'm not alone when I say that it is a welcome sight.

We knuckled down in March and completed the work for St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Chappell Hill TX in time for it to be installed before Easter. If you scroll down to Recent Installations you will see a picture of the wall. Be sure to visit the client page to see more pictures of the work.

These past couple of weeks we have been taking some time off relaxing and getting ready to start some pate de verre and cast glass work. It's been quite a while since we have had the time or motivation to work in this technique. I'm ready now though and will be doing a new body of work this year.

We heard from Tom Riley Gallery last month that the Kiddush Cup sold so we are very pleased about that.

As mentioned previously, we will be teaching a workshop here in Houston at Hot Glass Houston June 14 - 19. We are also teaching a new workshop August 23 - 27 at Oatka in Batavia NY. This workshop will focus on model and mold making, covering reproduction molds as well as casting molds. No glass will be cast but students will take whatever models and molds they make home with them. Scroll down to the class section on this page or use the jump button top left for contact information.

If you haven't been to my blog, check it out. Although it is not specifically about glass, I do write about our work quite a bit.

2/24/10 - Is spring ever going to get here? This has been the earliest, coldest, longest winter I can remember for a long time. the plants know it's time to be spring and are valiently trying to come out. Now if the weather will just warm up a little, I'll know it's spring.

We are still busy getting our commission work completed. The Oklahoma Heart Hospital chapel wall has been installed and even if I do say so myself, it is beautiful. You can scroll down to the bottom here to Recent Installations (or use the jump button above) to see a picture and a link to more information about the job. Also down there is a picture (and link) of a small job we did for NiSource Gas Transmission and Technology. We have finished the altar window in the chapel at John Wesley United Methodist Church which involved adhering about 550 glass jewels to the existing window. We still need to go back and clean up the excess adhesive on about half the jewels. I still need to get some better pictures. And, finally, we are about to begin on the fabrication for the glass for St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Chappell Hill TX.

We have just returned from teaching our workshop at Helios in Austin TX. It was a great workshop and you can read about it on my blog (with pictures). We are also going to do another pate de verre workshop here in Houston at the new Hot Glass Houston studio. Haven't settled on dates yet but they will be determined in the next week or so.

The nice thing about teaching this past week is that it has gotten me anxious to start on my new body of work in the pate de verre. The plan is to finish the catholic church job and then turn our attention back to the pate de verre. Being away from it this past year and a half has given me some time to rethink my position. Pursuing the galleries and collectors has not made me happy. I still want that but I can't make it happen. If it is going to happen for me, it has to happen by itself. I'm just going to go back to making things I love and let go of everything else. I still have my work in several good galleries and that is good enough.

1/3/10 - I'm sure I don't need to tell everybody how dismal last year was. Everyone one I know, know of, is glad to have it behind them. For us, it was a year of drawing in. It was supposed to be the year things happened. All the investment the past five years or so of time and money and travel and exhibition fees and shipping work back and forth was all set to bear real fruit last year. Except the economy crashed and investment firms turned out to be thieves and the buyers of art suddenly found themselves contemplating having to count their pennies. The galleries have been struggling to hang in there with some giving up the struggle. The ones that continued to do the big shows (and continued to lose money) became more selective in the artists and the work they took to those shows. And so we disappeared from the scene for the year we were poised to take flight.

I completely understand their decisions, it would have been hard for us to attend if they had carried our work to the shows last year. We found ourselves facing many of the same problems and so we have put our energies into the work that pays right away, into paying off some of our debt, into not increasing our debt. I have not applied to any juried exhibitions nor bought more glass. I have not worked in the pate de verre all year with two small exceptions...an Oleander bowl for the Mint Museum of Craft and Design's annual Gala and another Oleander bowl as a special order for a collector.

Add fatigue from working basically 24/7 for the last four years to the financial instability and you had one brain dead puppy. I've not given it up, doing pate de verre, in fact have several pieces waiting to be finished and lots of ideas, but the energy to get in the studio and back to model making just never surfaced. My creative energy was instead focused on doing the commission work. To getting back on level financial ground.

Of course, the fact that we still do not have the new shop building put up at the country house, having the mold making stuff and kilns in a different location than the model making and glass has not helped. We did get our residence completely moved, the country house is now home but we still must go back to the shop in the city to work. Hopefully, this spring will see it all in one place again.

The first half of last year was spent working on the entrance to the new chapel at John Wesley United Methodist Church in Houston TX. The rest of the year has been divided between the window behind the altar at JWUMC (which is in progress), the four large and 8 small panels installed in a false wall and lit from behind for the chapel at Oklahoma Heart Hospital (installed and pictures to come), and the new entrance wall and doors for the historic St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Chappell Hill TX (still working on the full size drawings).

No shows coming up though I plan to submit to Craft/Texas 2010 at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft later this year. We have two workshops scheduled. One coming up in February at Helios in Austin TX and a new one, Models and Molds, at O-AT-KA in Batavia NY in August (see 'class schedule' below for details on both).

May the new year brings blessings for all. You can follow along on a more or less daily basis (because I am, of course, intensely interesting) by reading my blog.

Class Schedule Pate de Verre - 2011 (dates TBA) in Austin TX. Contact Helios Kiln Glass Studio for information.   Recent, Current and Upcoming Shows and Exhibitions 1. 11th Annual Glass Now Auction; National Liberty Museum; Philadelphia PA; October 30, 2010 2. Palmbeach 3; Thomas Riley Galleries; Palm Beach, FL; January 15 - 18, 2009 3. Hot Glass, Cool Collections; Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; Houston TX; December 13 - March 15, 2009 4. The Chair Project; Austin Museum of Art; Austin TX; November 15 - February 8, 2009   Recent Installations 2010 - 11' x 5' - panels mounted in a false wall and lit from behind for the chapel at Oklahoma Heart Hospital. For more information visit the Client List page.

2010 - Wall separating the entrance from the sanctuary. For more information and pictures visit the Client List page.