Loaded with Stars

It's a popular time of year for stars, They are perfect for gift giving and decorating and hanging on the tree. Nearly everywhere you look in the studio are stars in progress and pieces of more stars ready to be assembled.

The Covey Center Show " Wrapped In Color" opened Friday. We had a good reception, which was fun. 

It's nice to spend time with other artists, like Inez Harwood. As the night went on, it was fun to hear how much effort it took for Inez to create the 3/4 mile long tie dye piece that got her in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous tie dye piece in the world. Five fire truck hoses to pump up the amount of water needed to tie dye the fabric. Water had to be trucked across two counties to get enough for the 400,000 gallons needed to tie dye that huge amount.

Jeanne decided that we need another copy of  "Aurora - Morning" for the show so we worked on it and got the whole panel cut out and foiled in the last 2 weeks. I was able to solder it for five hours on Friday but only finished half of the back of it when I was soldering it. (No one will ever know (unless they read this)

The show is scheduled to be up through the end of January so there is plenty of time to see it. We plan to be at the reception in January on Fri, Jan 08 from 6 to 9.

What Goes Around Comes Around

​"What Goes Around Comes Around", Jeanne's Dad used to say.
 
We dropped the panel off to the Springville Art and Religious Show last week hoping to get in the show.
​Scriptures refer to this philosophy, "Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters," in Ecclesiastes. As ye Sow, so shall ye reap, Do good unto others and they will do good unto you. Good advice!

Making Pendants

Jeanne encouraged some of the students at Independence High to create a design for a pendant, then she brought them home and fired them. They will be for sale at their Gala "Teen Act."

They can be used as necklaces or Christmas Ornaments or any number of creative uses.

We made 25 or so gold stars to be boxed for an "Now I Can" event. 60 fused stars to be passed out to Earth Science students at Independence High. A "Starry Eyed" week us.

Classes Finishing and Classes Starting

Rita finished her last class this week. She made the new January pattern, but used her own color choices so it has a more "year round" color. Now we are getting ready to start a new round of classes so this is a good time to register so you can get those Christmas presents underway!

Stained Glass Frames

Working on frames for two large stained glass panels for our dentists office. The stained glass took around two months to build and another two months to gear up for the frames. Had to get wood, mill it, put a dado down the edge, get a new blade for the saw so they could be split. Now they need to be cut to fit and painted or stained and finally we'll silicone the windows in the frames. Lots to do for such a small amount of wood work.

Here are some sketched flowers that Jeanne drew up and I'm using AutoCAD to trace them to get them ready for a full sized pattern that we're making so we can build a transom window that will go in the Hines Mansion Bed and Breakfast in downtown Provo.

Stars for Gifts

 Jeanne's making stars for the "Now I Can" organization. They fit nicely in a cotton lined box. She fused 60 small stars for a Earth Science  class at Independence High. She made a teal star that she may trade with another artist.

We are entering the "gift giving" season and stars make a wonderful gift. They are affordable and lovely.

Covey Center Art Show

The Covey Center For The Arts opened in 2007 and we were fortunate to be able to put up the first December show. The show was so successful that we were able to do an exhibit four years in a row. They changed their policy to allow more artists a chance to display in December, so 2010 was the last show we did on that scale for them. We just got a call.the other day asking us to do the December/January show this year. Seems another artist fell through at the last moment and they felt we could organize a decent show in a short time frame. Whatever the reason, we will enjoy putting a show together with the entertainment and enjoyment or the community in mind.

Sourcebook 2015 2016 completed

David just finished editing the new Utah County Artists Sourcebook. What's that got to do with stained glass? Well, a lot of art work is the work of selling it. We have a lot of stained glass hanging around our studio and home. There are precious few places to exhibit it, so we've got to sell, if just to keep from running out of space, not to mention making a living. The book advertises the work of 122 artists, but Jeanne is one of them and David is another. You can download a free copy of the book atwww.utahcountyart.com or you can order one online in a couple of weeks.

Show In Sugar House Area

Jeanne has created a
​"Seven Continents In Glass" series that will be displayed in Sugar House at Brittney Golden Jewelry Studios this month. The picture to the left is her page from the UCAB 2015-16 Sourcebook.

Getting Inspired

Inspiration can come in many forms and from many different sources. There really are times where I look for inspiration and nothing comes, I sit wondering if I'm no longer creative, if I need to find a normal job because I can't create any longer. Then, the dry spell ends and I'm inspired by every little thing that crosses my path. The wind inspires, the colors in nature inspire, the stories I hear, the quiet of a moment. It's really amazing the difference between the dry spell and the storm of inspiration. The other day, the floods came. We hiked (walked) to Bridal Veil Falls, inspiration! I attended the Creative Collaborative meeting http://www.collaborativecreative.com/ inspiration.

Jolynn Foreman told me stories (http://www.utahcountyart.com/jolynn-forman.html) that sent me off on creative imaginings. I found a drawing that was similar to one I was planning, so I saved a lot of repetition and got a lot of work done in a short time.

Just a great sense of joy comes when the muse hits!

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Cabinet Door Examples

Jeanne posted about using stained glass in kitchen cabinets today. Glass door fronts can really enhance the decor of a home.

This set of doors were designed to compliment the look of a rug kept in the kitchen.

Here is a set of doors where the scene continues on from one panel to the next.

Here, Jeanne holds a door so we can see it in bright sunlight

Getting the Sawdust Flying

It looks like snow, but it's sawdust on the camera lens. I dug out the router, nailed the window frame to my work table and routed a clean grove in the frame. Sometime the bottom of a frame has a slot for the glass to slip in. It's great for the original window but doesn't allow us to put a new piece of glass in the frame. This is for a frame that belongs to a local decorator store, Brambles and Blossoms here in Provo. We build stained glass panels for them to resell occasionally. They are quite popular (stained glass in old window frames). We spend way too much time on preparing the frames for the glass, removing glass and putty and metal points.

Jeanne used plyers and a chisel to pull out the old glass. They thing that worries me is that we expose ourselves to lead paint on a lot of these old frames.

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Making the most of our Resources

Recently, Jeanne and I attended a Creative Collaborative meeting where two gals that work on sales in their business on Etsy.


We've had an ETSY webstore since 2009 and since it's been lackluster, we've just put up items on rare occasions.

Our daughter-in-law, Christy has a pretty successful ETSY store (christygomm) and has been encouraging us to do more with ours. So between the seminar and the encouragement from Christy, I'm adding patterns to our ETSY store.

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The New Year Blast

We Like To Start The New Year With A Blast. We do this by making as much artwork as we can each day. So far Jeanne's ahead of me, but we've made some nice pieces together. She let's me doing the boring stuff, like repairs. But also lets me do the drafting which I find inspiring, working with Right brain and Left brain considerations at the same time. 

click here to visit our website

click here to learn more about our instructional videos

Visit www.gsg-art.com for more about stained glass