Almost as soon as I arrived to set up for class at Stirling Hall this afternoon there was a pervasive smell of smoke. Grounds outside the windows were saturated with the milky mist of prairie bonfire. I walked into it- we assumed someone had called about it- and found a firefighter seeking the root of it. He communicated to another person in a vehicle with flashing lights that he would drive to the other side of it.

I entered the thicket to see three cardinals, a female fluttered to a nearby branch and two bright red males flew past each other repeatedly and without minding me. I went on to find the source of dense smoke just beyond, several jagged lines of flames on the east side of the hiking trail.

I went to share the news and found that the firetruck had just arrived. Wish I could have lingered longer.

A more extensive portrayal of the journey of Ondine the Barred Owl. What a fun project, though in the end the Torres family decided not to hang it on the wall it was originally designed for, instead opting to have it flying down above the stairwell in the open foyer. So, something else will have to be done for the original spot.

Over the course of 2023, I built three hanging owls for a commission from some bistro regulars, the Torres family. They wanted it to hang above the sliding door on their enclosed porch, on a narrow and long section of wall. Over the previous year, discussion of mosaic ideas started as a flat landscape and morphed into a suspended owl, as owls were a favorite of grandma Torres.

I started taking welding classes at Chicago Industrial Arts and Design Center, and then worked as an open studio monitor, which was great for consistent weekly access to the weld shop. The first owl was a good size, but angular and a bit aggressive-looking, with its disproportionately large talons and open beak, After filling its frame with bits of insulation foam adhered with liquid nails adhesive and carving a set of fairly chunky wings, I thought maybe I’d try again, and use this attempt instead as the first in a series of mythological women- in this case a harpy. This owl is currently suspended in my walk-in mosaic closet, stripped back down to its cold-rolled steel frame. I think I might instead turn it into a bat.

The second owl, pictured in its bare bones state on the table next to the first, was better in terms of its disposition, but turned out larger than expected. So I began work on a third. Beatrice, as you can see from her expression, was both dismayed and indifferent to the production.

Throwback to September 2023 when I helped my mom begin a giant mermaid mosaic to be put on the side of her new home in Scotts Valley, and then a couple months back in January of this year when I went back to grout. Mom designed the mermaidenlady (looking much more fierce after being tiled!) and had done all the mosaic work in between with the help of my sister Lauren’s dog Cody. He is going on eighteen years old and is such a good helper! We have yet to hang her up but hopefully this will happen when I’m back home in a couple months.

What a fun project, and a pleasure to work outside in the California sun. Thanks again to Christine for the extra stained glass!

Last September when I was back home for the triathlon (but really to help my mom create a large mermaid mosaic for the front of her house), my mom introduced me to a stained glass artist she'd met at the Scotts Valley Art and Wine festival some time before, but whose work she had seen and admired around town: Christine Charter Moorehead! Christine kindly invited us to see her studio in Boulder Creek, just down the street from where an old friend used to live (hi Joe!).

Christine's garden and studio were overflowing with activity- she was preparing for the upcoming Open Studios weekend which I can only imagine is all-consuming, on top of several large ongoing projects. What a treasure of a spot, and light! What a life! What a vibrant spirit.

Thank you again for the boxes of glass shards, Christine, you really enabled us to expand the mermaid's color palate and personality.

New tool wall progression! Very happy with this light lavender bargain gallon from my treasure trove of bargain mistints. Now that it's painted and the tool wall and shelf have been mounted, I am somewhat less overwhelmed with how messy my studio is. No doubt it is still overcrowded with gathered supplies for upcoming projects, but it helps to have all those little jars stored out of the way at the very least.

A worthwhile studio improvement project, as it took a week away from progress on my owl, but definitely heightened my spirits, which in turn renewed my vigor to work upon return!

Sublime from the hard edge at the top to the hard edge at the bottom, and all the points wherein they meet between. Thanks to Austin Kleon for sharing this in this week’s Friday newsletter.

Praise be the algorithym for introducing me to Rachael Dadd, whose video Heads Down just made me very emotional- in a good way- thinking about training for the triathlon which takes place in one week exactly, and my strong female friends whose company I have so cherished this summer, whilst trying to be more active (in keeping with my designated title of 'Least Prepared Triathlete' as deigned by my brother, who will also be joining the Santa Cruz festivities (after placing in the last triathlon he did a month or so ago)- eleven years after our last (my first and only other) triathlon attempt). I have been keeping my head down! I might just be inspired to take up boxing upon my return.

John Mahoney would have turned 106 yesterday. A mutual friend, Michael Burke, told me this on Sunday when he and his husband came into the restaurant. Michael and I met in real life through the magic community, and then discovered our random, wonderful connections to this fascinating man.

After I stopped attending the writer's workshop where we'd originally met, John and I would arrange to meet in one park or another and take pictures of each other. Most of these pictures have disappeared into the ether, though now that I've acquired a digital converter for old 35mm negatives, I'm hoping I can spend some time sifting through images and savoring these otherwise lost gardens.

In celebration of his long life here is a poem entitled At Last, from John's book of poetry, Lost Garden.

The day the hour the moment which we cannot guess are set. A pin will stick in some point of time to one in space and you and I will be there face to face. We may be passing on a bridge or holding our hats down in a March gale or ducking into a shower-shelter in a doorway or even waiting in some dentist’s vestibule leafing through magazines that elsewhere we would never touch and suddenly we’ll both look up, and —I don’t know— it may be the curl overhanging your left eye or a dimple at the corner of your mouth or a whiff of lilac from your hair or the shadow hovering beneath your cheek or just the way you catch your breath but all of a sudden i will realize as you will that the quest is over.

Super happy with my cross-disciplinary collaboration! I welded the steel frame to fit a piece of found metal (a zinc etching plate, I think) that served as inspiration. I made the tiles and as soon as they were out of the glaze kiln I set them in place with epoxy, then grouted as usual. Table number two in the works!

#madeatciadc #madeatlillstreet

So far, I think May has been my favorite month of 2023, and this stained glass commission was a big part of that. A friend of a friend of a friend who is also connected in several other roundabout ways, Liz, emailed me on the 18th of April to ask if I had any mosaic pieces for sale. A woman she worked with would soon be retiring, and they were trying to find her a gift. We went on to talk via zoom with a couple of her other colleagues, wherein I floated the idea of working in stained glass. We also found that several of them, including the woman retiring, had been at a series the mosaic workshops I led a few years ago, commemorating the life of a woman very dear to them. What a special connection.

Afterwards I sent them three sketches plus the book border idea, based on Virginia Woolf, books, and the English countryside. Our mutual friend Carla suggested that I look into some quotes by Virginia Woolf (who I have really yet to read, though I’ve just started The Lighthouse), as many are visually suggestive. Liz’s colleagues found the following: “And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees.”-from The Lighthouse, and “Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” from A Writer’s Diary. I will keep an eye out in future readings of Woolf to pull these elements together, to perhaps glean a title.

Below are some of the pictures of the process, including my ‘learning edges.’ After grinding down the sharp edges of each piece of glass guided by its affixed pattern, I found the pieces did not fit together perfectly. Instead of cutting them down to fit, as the patterns are cut to take the diameter of the copper foil into account, I continued on, cleaning and then soldering them together- only to find that they indeed still didn’t fit as expected. At this point I had the impulse to abandon this attempt and begin again. I spent a good chunk of time on Monday and Tuesday re-designing, tracing and cutting out the pattern (twice) before looking at the first version again, and sitting down with it a little longer. It ended up being so much more workable than I had anticipated. I heated up the solder at each book-end joint and removed the sad thin came border, and copper along the pages of the book, and then re-soldered fresh came with a deeper well that more closely resembled the width of seams between the glass. I filled in the gaps in the design with newly cut and foiled pieces. I learned how to have a bit of a conversation with it.

After handing this project off to Liz last night, I realized that, though Ive been doing site-specific work for a few years, somehow this piece confirmed how thoroughly I enjoy the process of designing specific pieces for specific people or places. I love the conversation I get to have with the person who wants the piece, and that later on, the potential conversation I imagine someone can have with or about each piece wherever it is in the world.

I think one of the drawbacks to this experimental methodology is that things take time, often creative ideas are slower to arrive, and sometimes the same goes for ideas about materials or technique. I am thinking here of a friend’s entryway, promised tentatively over last winter, which I’m still working through in my mind. Just thought that the peacock feathers she wants don’t have to be made from a homogenous material, but instead could be a representation of the time we have lived, and carry a history of their own, so that there will be a story that goes along with it. What is a story? My answer now is different than when I studied fiction writing twenty years ago. I find glints and threads in objects passed through space, given and received. They are both enormous and insignificant, encountered and remembered. Thinking thought-fully about future projects.

Thanks to my friend Judy for showing me her foiling techniques, as well as all the YouTubers whose videos I continue to devour; and thanks to Mr. Jardine for holding the stained glass in the photo above. Thanks to Liz, Liz, Donny, Carla, Mike, Dale, and all others who connected us. I am truly in love with this Chicago community of makers, and am glad to be part of it (albeit one in her recluse/hermit phase).

For the last week or so I've been trying to expand/collapse/fill out my powerspieces website, since the business is proper now (on the windy path, anyhow!). Going through old photos in order to update my portfolio pages, I found this gem from the last time I had the clip lights positioned.

Thinking about my overall online goal, I realize it hasn't changed so much due to my hesitation to delve into the inner-workings of the OPP. I've wanted to put individual projects together in both mosaic and ceramics galleries on the website, ideally detailing the conception, intention, production and installation processes for each. People have suggested I put a price list on the 'about' or 'contact' pages, but I'm thinking of instead just highlighting past work. I hope the prospective viewer would have an idea of something they would like to collaborate on or commission, and then we could work together sorting out the details once we have at least one IRL conversation, if not several.

There is still a ways to go on the site as my process has been distracted and usually winds up crashing in a ditch. If in the kindtime you happen to swing by the site, please let me know what you think of the progress!

Shout out to Ravi Zupa for the hanging print behind the sweep (https://www.ravizupa.com/artwork/#prints).

Let the eight foot-long wingspan carving commence!

I’ve been experiencing exhaustion for what feels like the first time in my life. The situation seems to be affecting my ability to gain the requisite kinetic energy for what comes next creatively, and to meet the low bar of telling someone “I’m good!” when asked, “How am I doing?” Should I adjust my expectations? Is this just what it feels like to be a part-time career waitress slash woman with a pressing need to prove the value of her existence via productivity?

PTO has been a debate of late with my two hardworking-but-human sisters who can claim salaries and 401ks(?). They affirm the need to rest, and navigate feelings and politics from there. My body is telling me to stop but, still, I have necessary paid and unpaid things on the calendar, and those things take more time than scheduled. And this brings us back to the kiln firing on Monday that started this week.

Mysteriously, an hour past when I thought I would be leaving after a 12-hr firing, I had more unanticipated time to play. After making some forms that might hold future mosaics, I started to form a skull, possibly the future form of a phrenology mosaic for my elementary school friend-turned neuropsychologist, whom I’m ever so proud of, Kim.

Grateful to the undying work ethic that resides within me, at times propelling me forward into 4am and grouting tomorrow of this Viroqua mosaic whose timeline I am at the mercy of.

It’s been forever since I felt this way (stunned at the beauty of new worlds, amazed at the skill of those who build these new worlds, and other emotions further down the rabbit hole) about a music video. Today I am grateful for the music of Cihangir Aslan and Dilan Balkay, and most incredible visuals by Zeynep Aslanoba.

I’ve been working on this Viroqua-bound fireplace mosaic for my (very patient) tax guy Mike and his partner Dale for a very long time, indeed. I am happy to share some progress of my discordant ideas, merging with other meandering loose ends, forming a somewhat-coherent visual narrative. Tiles flowing in gaseous, solid and liquid state loops that may or may not calm the overwhelmed eye.

I am currently proceeding to cut and place tiles as I wait for feedback from Mike and Dale. Depending on what they say when they see it, or my interpretation of their body language or facial expressions, I will either begin again or begin installation. Whether or not this project is nearing completion or sent back to the drawing board, it is hard not to appreciate the slow flow of time. I have repeatedly berated myself for my inclination to procrastinate, working myself into a dead-end with these leaves and branches, and the reflection of these leaves and branches. The last year has been spent grappling with this design, and the limited color palette, getting up to get a beverage, and then another. Every tile has been considered and placed, then replaced, and adjusted to fit with what’s placed and replaced and adjusted to fit next to it. I have never before experienced this pleasure before, as I have with these pieces: being led, one by one, and submitting to their will.

Flashback to Odile the Owl, nesting happily in her new home. She was wrapped in between layers of foam core and shipped out to my hometown, Scotts Valley, California, with huge thanks to Jim Callihan for teaching me how to properly wrap framed art for shipping purposes at MCM Framing, where I worked for the first five months of 2021. Three layers of foam core, three layers of cardboard (thanks, Judy!!). Out west, I met the UPS delivery guy when he dropped off the package, and later that October day did a little spot grouting and clean-up, then left Odile to watch over Nicole and her two little pups, Stanley and Alfie, from her perch at the top of the stairs.