Having Fun In Spite Of The Heat

Jeanne taught three students this morning while I re-did some postcards for the "First Fridays Downtown Provo Gallery Stroll." The guy who was going to design it, said he didn't have time this month when Jeanne called him to get them. So I volunteered. I told her that after the third edit of the card, "This just proves the old adage, No good deed goes unpunished."

We went and picked up a 4 x 8 sheet of Styrofoam for packing future stained glass shipments and we got a 4 x 8 sheet of drywall to use to build a glass panel on. Our grandsons, Nik and Drew carried the Styrofoam out by themselves, exclaiming how light it was.."I can carry this with one hand."

Then I was able to cut out an entire mandala that Jeanne had laid out. I had to cut 8 pieces with the saw in order to keep from breaking them. The picture I uploaded is the table with the pattern and a pile of cut pieces ready to grind and get fit in place.

The Artistic Path

Lately we've had many new projects come our way. There are some that pay (which is good) and many that are either built as consignment items or pieces that are for trade or for us. This puts a strain on the budget, but allows us greater freedom artistically.

We finished one of the angel panels for our home and began the second one. It's fun and challenging and will be a great addition to our December show at the Covey Center, but it takes up space needed for other projects.

Lynde Mott has given us a rebuild to do, it's a little funky, she wondered if we could leave the holes left by broken pieces and just make the window stronger. We came to a compromise, where we replace the four or five badly broken pieces with clear textured glass. The idea is to show care for the window, but to leave it's imperfections.

Connie at The Finer Designer had us measure some of her windows at home and we gave her some designs. She liked the simple design for her 6 bathroom panels, and she loved the more formal windows. So we get to build them, there's a trade involved, but the sandblasted elements will be a challenge and should be beautiful.

And Alicia has approved her design for a panel in the large square transom area over her front door. It'll take a while since many of the pieces in this panel will be fused glass.

It's fun, exciting and rewarding. We can focus on good art and creativity, instead of chasing jobs for a couple of weeks. (I've heard that summer time is slow in the business, if this is slow, I'm going to have to learn to work harder and faster!

Copper Foil Is The Best

Recently I got in a running discussion about the merits of the copper foil method. A reader saw that we had taken apart a leaded window, redesigned it and rebuilt it using the copper foil method.

"Why would you do that when leading is so much more versatile and strong?"

I was dumbfounded. You can see more pictures of the rebuilt window and the condition of the lead at rebuild.htm

It really was a sight. Just terrible condition.

I've discussed how superior the copper foil method is in articles before. The article at typeandquality.htm covers the subject very well, but in this running discussion (argument) that I had, I pointed out something that wasn't in that article which has been read and republished thousands of times.

Lead came deteriorates and crumbles and loses it integrity in as little as ten years and certainly within a hundred years unless encased in between glass. Copper foil doesn't because it isn't lead alone, but a mixture of tin and lead which is much stronger and stands up to the elements. Lamps and windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany sell from $30,000 to millions. But you don't see that price being commanded from lead came windows because they deteriorate so badly.

Her comment about lead came being more versatile is wrong in my opinion, this can be debated by others, but since it's my article, I say it's wrong. How many times have I seen lead came windows by really good artists that have a copper foil section in the panel because they need more detail in an area.

The only reason one would ever choose to use lead came is that it is faster to build, since only joints must be soldered, or that they were trying to achieve a certain perfection in laying out beveled diamonds in a French style window.

Thinking About Starting A Stained Glass Business

I got an email the other day. It was from a fellow who was laid off and thought he might start a stained glass business. He was asking for advice and wondered if we ever gave free stained glass classes. It was hard to answer his email because it seemed so silly, having never even built a stained glass panel, he's considering starting a business in stained glass. Do people look at stained glass and think, "That looks like a pretty easy thing to do?" or do they see us at the farmers market each week with our displays and thousands of dollars invested in labor and glass items and think, "Well if they can do that, I could too?" My answer to him follows:
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We charge for our stained glass classes because it costs us to teach. There are supplies and materials that we use up during a class. The cost for a class session is $150 and that includes over $50 worth of supplies and materials including a glass cutter ($20) safety glasses ($4) copper foil ($15) sharpie pen ($2) flux brush ($1) fid ($3) zinc outer bar ($6) 1 lb solder ($18)and then most of the glass for a first panel measuring 12 x 12. We also let you use our equipment, grinders, tables, soldering irons, etc. Plus there are cleaners and chemicals that we furnish. We also have to buy extra insurance in case someone gets hurt and we have to heat and cool the place.

So, while it's true that we make a small fee after the cost of class, it's not much. We used to charge less for classes, but found that we were losing money and even though we enjoy teaching, we just have to make a profit or at least break even. You can read about our classes at
http://www.gommstudios.com/aboutus/classes.htm

We do have many lessons at
http://www.betterstainedglass.com/index.htm
Visiting there and reading all the articles will teach you a lot about stained glass. And finally, we sell a video at
http://www.betterstainedglass.com/Videos/Stained%20Glass%20Videos.htm
which will teach you the basics. We worked with several other folks for five years on the beginning video and share the profits with them, so even that video can't be free.

Make sure and read the article at
http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/stainedglassbus.htm
and start in business slowly. Stained glass is one of the hardest businesses you can try and last year we only made $5000 for the year. That's $5000 for two people working full time so $2500 for me and $2500 for my wife. That works out to $1.20 per hour. I'm not exaggerating. You should consider stained glass work as a hobby, under no circumstance will it make you a decent living without years of trial and error. Ask yourself some hard questions..is no one doing stained glass in Tooele because it's not appreciated there or is it because it's hard to make it as an artist. LDS employment offers free business advice. They will help you with a business plan and it's free to anyone who wants their help, you don't have to be LDS for the help. They will help you to get realistic about planning a business.
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People don't believe you when you give advice on business matters, articles I've written on business are as follows:

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/clientfromhell.htm
I tell the story of how a difficult client robbed us of joy for some time.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/neversweat.htm
I explain some of the happy stress of running a business

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/dont%20be%20milo.htm
I tell of the student who broke me and caused me to give up stained glass completely for over a year.

http://www.betterstainedglass.com/Newsletter/Archives/5-12-2005Dec-marketing/marketing.htm
I give some ideas on how one may market stained glass.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/tradeorcash.htm
I discuss pros and cons of bartering in business.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/howcanImakeit.htm
I discuss in detail the "eyes open approach" to entering a stained glass business.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/overcomeadversity.htm
I discuss dealing with the adversity and discouragement of running a business.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/nocompetition.htm
I explain my philosophy that competition doesn't really exist.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/whenenoughisenough.htm
How long should I bend over backwards to satisfy a client?

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/thebusinessdream.htm
I tell of the feeling of having a good day in business.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/appreciatingstained.htm
I explain that the majority of folks just don't appreciate stained glass.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/artisticgoals.htm
What are worthy artistic goals?

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/problemteaching.htm
I complain about teaching classes.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/runningbiz.htm
I express how little we know about running a stained glass business.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/stainedglassbus.htm
I answer the question Should I Start My Own Stained Glass Business.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/Howdidthathappen.htm
I tell of a mistake we made.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/Salmons.htm
I explain about fighting to stay alive in economic tough times..this was before the bubble burst..we were struggling during the BOOM, ha.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/twokindsofpeople.htm
I explain our open about art philosophy.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/diabetes.htm
How health is important to us.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/pricing.htm
I give our formulas for pricing stained glass.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/internetseek.htm
How the Internet keeps changing on us.

http://www.betterstainedglass.com/Newsletter/Archives/9-09-2009Sept-SurviveWStyle/SurvivalGuide.htm
This article is another installment on how to market stained glass.

http://www.gommstudios.com/stained-glass-articles/teachstainedglass.htm
I teach because it can lead to happiness.
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After all that, people still look at you with disbelief when you tell them that it's a struggle to run your own business. They are sure that you're lying to them, trying to keep them out of the game. They don't see the fact that you've been late on your house payment over half the months of the last year. They don't believe that you often only made $15 a week at the farmers market and that was all you made for the entire week and that the end of the summer you had to pay sales tax on it. They won't believe the despair you've felt as artist friends and gallery owners gave up and took menial jobs to get back on their feet. They don't believe or even imagine the number of times you've almost thrown in the towel and given up. And they especially don't believe us when we write articles and give lectures and we are positive about today and tomorrow..because it's told to us that we must be constantly positive and surround ourselves with positive affirmations to draw good things towards us. They believe our PR and won't/can't believe our reality.

Working On A Newsletter

In our April newsletter I showed half of the procedure to setting up a sandblast cabinet and I'm finishing the article for our May newsletter as I finish my own cabinet. It's nearly done. The photo with this blog is what you have to wear when not using a sandblast cabinet.

When I learned to sandblast in Missouri, I would suit up (with a much better respirator) and rubber gloves that extended to my shoulders. I ran the sandblaster on the back porch and nothing else could be done back there since it created such a mess. Many times the humidity would be so high that it was difficult, sometimes impossible to get the sand to flow.

Now that we reside in Utah, it's so dry that I can blast even when it's raining..it's that dry! In fact, I often get static shocks from the cabinet through my clothes. I'm not a masochist but those shocks are almost..almost enjoyable because they mean I'm getting very good sand flow.

The art that you can produce with sand carving is worth the expense and effort of setting up a system.

Working on Sandblasting

I wrote about the first half of setting up a sand blast system in our April newsletter. Now I'm working on the second half for May. It takes awhile because I have to set up the system to write about it and you have to make things up as you go. I put the sand blast hose through the cabinet and I don't like it, so I have to figure a better way. So if you do things by trial and error, you've got to get to the right way to do it before you go writing an article about it...don't you?

Working On Shutters For Our Dining Room

I started working on a dining room area during the middle of last summer. Jeanne and I decided that it would be nice to put stained glass shutters in dining room. I first had to trim out the window. That went fairly quickly, then I had to build the shutters, but they were long and I also had to figure how to put them together so they would be strong. It took a long time for me to figure it out. So we got the frames put together.

Now we're working on the stained glass design. I printed out the one we had designed a few months back and both Jeanne and I were unhappy with it, so we're back to the drawing board. I suppose that when the project is done, we'll have a good article for the newsletter, but right now it's a wood working project.

Teach Stained Glass Or Something

After building and designing stained glass projects for a few years, the newness and joy of it all began to fade for a friend of mine. He found that it wasn’t as much fun and he would put off projects because they didn’t drive him to the heights that they once had. This feeling lasted until he began to teach another round of classes and he rediscovered the joy that had been missing through the eyes of his students.

It was magical, as he began to teach the basic principles of how a window went together and the students cut their first pieces of glass, there was an excitement that went through the entire class. There was a joy in learning something new, there was an excitement as the students began to taste success.

And their excitement sparked his own. It rekindled the flame of burning joy that he had felt when he was in the process of building his first successful stained glass panel. He re-lived the feelings of anticipation as he selected the glass for his first piece. The feeling of success he had felt as he created pieces of glass that fit together the way they were supposed to came back to him as he saw and felt the successes that those students were feeling.

This new feeling was a rebirth of the old excitement and love that had caused him to embrace stained glass. It had become an obsession for him for some time, this building of artwork that was so beautiful. And he had embraced the art of stained glass wholeheartedly. But then, as time went on, it had become a job, a way to make a living and the joy of creation had begun to fade.

Most of us at one time or another may have had times when the joy of a hobby or an avocation goes out of it. I felt much the same as my friend at one time about stained glass, giving up entirely for a period of time. But I also found that same rebirth of enjoyment as I began to teach students of the art.

If this has been the case in your life, I propose that you try an experiment. Think of that skill that brought you joy and teach a class. This can be as simple as volunteering for the local after school mentoring program. You can volunteer to teach computer literacy classes at the library or read to children. The point is that this experiment doesn’t have to be a big deal. It doesn’t have to be about money, in fact it may be better if it isn’t about money. Just look within yourself and discover something which you have knowledge or which you excel in and then find a way to give it a try. Find a way to teach it to others.

I’ve done this several times in my life. I volunteered to write a review about movies playing at the theatre in our town and wrote a review every week just for the fun of it. It wasn’t paid so the paper was happy to print it and it turned out to be a lark! The girl who checked us out at the grocery store called me, “Mr. Movie” and I gained some small notoriety in town while enjoying movies at a whole new level. The theatre manager invited me to view pictures after the last showing while they were cleaning up. So I no longer had to pay to get into the movies and I could take a friend (usually a daughter) and he even gave us complimentary popcorn. The fun of reviewing movies and talking about them was a great deal of fun.

Recently we hosted a party at our home for some close friends. We taught each of them how to make two stained glass decorations, a pair of hearts were sandblasted into red glass and installed into a wooden frame. Then we made a two piece stained glass heart. Everyone had a great time and we were all successful with our projects. Afterwards, we enthusiastically brainstormed about what other projects we could do. A fellow who is gifted at wood work wondered what project he could teach us and the woman who is a gifted card creator was considering a class. The point is that we all had so much fun leaning and sharing, that we want to do it again.

If you will look around yourself, you will discover an interest and you should find a way to share that interest. Our stained glass studio sends out a free monthly tips and tricks newsletter. We do this because we are interested in stained glass and we like to stay in touch with other artists.

Does it make us rich? No, not at all, but it does make us friends. We get comments and photos from stained glass artists from all over the world! And this fills us with the joy that others have for the art of stained glass. When we started selling stained glass instructional videos and dvd’s on Amazon, we started to hear from a different group of artists. These were folks who were trying stained glass for the first time. And their enthusiasm for the art rekindles the “newness” of the art for us all over again.

Finally, we sometimes discover some very talented people who teach us and inspire us to become even better artists ourselves. There is a synergy that you can develop when you teach others what you know.

Hosting A Stained Glass Party

It's the middle Of February already! We enjoyed Valentines Day (the day before) by inviting some friends over for a Stained Glass party. It was so much fun, our friends had a great time and really enjoyed the projects.

What we did to make it a success was to select projects that would be very easy and quick to complete. We started with a sand blasted design with two hearts. The glass was pre-cut before they got here and we had the frames pre-built. We introduced the project by showing what the completed project looked like. Then we showed how they would clean the glass, apply the rubber resist and the paper pattern. We then passed out craft knives and turned them loose. The sand blasting step went quickly, each person got to do the first blast as they got ready, then they went back to the table to remove the second heart cutout while other finished theirs.

The second project was a quick two piece heart. This gave each of them a chance to cut, grind, foil and solder glass.

It was so fun, we think we'll do it again and we recommend that you think about hosting one of your own.

Being Enthusiastic

The other day at a business meeting, I illustrated a point by talking about the gorgeous window we had laying on the bench in our studio. Later, I was told that as I present our message to potential clients, we need to be cautious not to be overly enthusiastic about our artwork.

This was a surprise. Apparently, you can be too enthusiastic and you wear the people out with your enthusiasm. This is funny to me, yet I can see the point. I've met people who wore me out with their energy. But so many of our clients, especially during the first weeks of getting a window, get so excited and happy about their art work, they can't contain themselves. So the lesson I'm learning is that excitement must be limited until the person has experienced it for themselves.

Stained Glass At The Covey Center

The opening gala of the new show at the Covey Center went off well. You can see Jeanne explaining to some people how the silent auction worked. We raised over a hundred dollars for the Childrens Art Program at the Covey Center. My photo of the artists is incomplete, we posed and then Lynn came back and we took another with someone elses camera.

The show will continue for the rest of the month. We had 24 stained glass pieces that we built last year on display.

New Series Of Women

This new Series shows four women at various times through out the day. We named each panel after a Greek goddess that was associated with the time of day shown in the scene. The one pictured here is Aurora, who is the goddess of the morning.

We also show Iris who rules the daytime and Persephone goddess of the evening and finally Selene who rules the night. It's fun to research these fictional deities. The Greeks had great stories and descriptions of each of them.

Each of the four panels are loosely based on famous painting and illustrations to give them a more historical, heirloom feel.

I Like Mondays

No really, I like Mondays! There are so many songs that are negative about the first day of the week, "Monday, Monday can't stand that day.." "Just another Maniac Monday, wish it were Sunday.." You've heard them and believed them. But Monday is the day that we look at the world and the next week with fresh eyes. We take our trash to the street on Monday and it gets hauled away so we get to start over fresh!

And we review our progress from last week and plan for the next week. So it's all about a re-birth, kind of like when the seasons change, but it happens each week. Review the past, plan the future. It's pretty good!

Address Icon For Your Website

I've wanted one of these little logos next to my website address ever since I first noticed them. Now Favicon has created a site that makes it quite easy to do it. http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/ is the place to learn how to do it.

Websites are funny things

If you look at the little Google bar on your browser (if you have it) You'll see that little bar that has a bit of green in it. When you hover your mouse over it, you'll see text that announces that the page has an importance rank assigned to it by Google. Several years ago, our little bar announced that we had an importance of 4/10 which was pretty good. But Google changed everything and our rating dropped to 2/10 an okay rating but nothing to brag about.

We hired a company who guarenteed that if we paid them a hundred dollars a month they would help our numbers improve. After one year, our rating was 2/10. So we keep trying to improve on our own, but just haven't found the key.

In the meantime, we continue to provide good content on our website. I post new projects to the Gomm Studos Portfolio Pages often and Better Stained Glass has a new article every month. Maybe those statics just don't mean that much. Please tell your friends about our sites and link up to them so others can enjoy the articles!

Farmers Market In June

Last weekend we setup at the Provo Farmers Market. We plan to keep going throughout the summer. It was nice to get a chance to talk to people, it wasn't too hard to set up and the weather was nice. A pleasant way to spend a Saturday.

There are so many projects to try!

There are just so many stained glass projects to try! I often wonder why I haven't done more. There are just so many different ways to work with glass and techniques to practice and get better at, it's just a lifelong practice to dedicate yourself to. I keep finding more things to try, to perfect. What a joy it is to embark on working on new skills and returning to techniques we've put aside for awhile.

We're Working On Sidelites

They really look great. The client has spent some time in Africa and will be going back after getting some Masters classes in. So there is a distinctive African flavor to the windows. Jeanne had fun hand picking the colors and after we got them cut and fit, she swapped out some of the pieces so the windows would be perfect.

I soldered for a few hours today and have to admit that it was pretty fun!

GLASS show at Terra Nova Gallery

The place is Terra Nova Gallery, the show is called "Glass" and was put together by Andy Kosorok. This is a really good show, lots of different examples of different glass art (we were the "traditional" example) If you love glass, you'll love this show. The Gallery is at 41 West 300 North, Provo, Utah and the glass show runs from May 1 to June 26, 2009 They are open Monday -Friday 10 am to 6 pm. There will be a LIVE Glass Demonstration Friday June 5, from 6 to 9 pm.

Jewelry Boxes Make Good Gifts

We stacked up a bunch of Jewelry boxes yesterday when Dallas Golden came over to shot the second video in our project series. He also brought the first draft of the picture frame video. It's very good, just needs to have some sound adjustments. While watching it, I'm amazed that I can see some of the soldering better than in real life. I have to admit that it may be better than our first video. The first took over five years to get complete because we kept having to change people and pick up the project, do a piece and then find someone else. Dallas got this together in less than a month and it looks so good. It's longer than the first video, right at 1 hour.

When You Don't Get The Job

Okay, some folks are just weird. About two weeks ago, some people called us and made an appointment to come to our studio to talk about a piece of glass. They came and Jeanne and the woman talked about the design they wanted for a stained glass window. They drew a sketch and they picked out all the colors for the window and set them out on a table, ready to cut.

I had a nice time, showing the husband different projects in various stages and telling him about how stained glass was built. So..they left and I drew the design on AutoCAD, sent it to them with a price (around $400). A day or two passed and I called to see when they wanted us to start. Husband was out of town and he'll call when he gets back. A few days go by, I call again. "Oh, I'm not sure what my husband has decided, I'll have him call tonight." We wait. I call mobile phone next day. Husband says we've decide to go a different way. I ask if they've decided against stained glass. "No, but we've decided to go with another company." So I start quizzing the guy because I want to know what lost us the job. I mean we drew drawings immediately to their specifications and were poised to start cutting glass. Maybe it was price..no they are getting the other design done for about $600.

Bottom line, I still don't have a clue why they went with someone else and why they chose to pay more money for a lesser piece of glass. People are really weird. Jeanne says I'm taking this too hard. She points out that we've not gotten jobs before and it just rolled off my back, no big deal. But this time I seem to be taking it to heart. And I guess she's right, but it's just that I can't explain any good reason that these people went with another artist....hmmm

The Chipboard House

We went to meet a client the other day to measure for stained glass. It was a little surprising when we arrived to the home and found a chipboard box. No finishing details yet. So we're a long way from actually being able to measure for windows. At least we're talking to the home owner early in the project.

Elk Window

I've metioned the Elk window we've been working on on facebook. It's really looking good. I think the client will really like the great colors. Jeanne spent a lot of time and care picking the colors so they would be realistic.

Platter For Wedding Reception

We're making some platters so we can make some cupcake stands for Katherine's wedding reception. We thought it would be cool to make them ourselves so that we could put some custom colors into the platters. The two in the foreground are the two largest and were quite complex to create, but they really look good.

A New Look For Our Website

Every year or so, I get the feeling that things look a little tired on our website and I feel driven to do a makeover on it. So that's what I'm up to now, the photo above is a work in progress, it's not the final new look, but it's a step towards a new look. Content won't change that much, but I'm reorganizing hoping that the flow of the user experience is smoother.
If you want to see the new look as it progresses, go to www.gommstudios.com and click on the temporary link to the working page.

Summer Bear Life Balance

Here's a screen shot of the opening page when you get to the Summer Bear Site.
Nadhirrah (na-dear-uh)is an author and healty food advocate. We meet each other at many small business functions. Our small business are growing at about the same rate, so we have many concerns in common. I volunteered to write web pages for Nadhirrah several years ago and she took me up on the deal. (The price was right-$0)
She now has announced a facebook group called "Summer Bear" and you can also join "Utah Raw Foods" on facebook.

Picture Frame Video

Last week we met with Dallas Golden and shot video for an instructional video on "How To Make A Stained Glass Picture Frame." We notice that most stained glass students have from one to three windows in them and then they start to run out of ideas.
This video and subsequent ones are designed to help breathe new life into the art of glass. So we think it will help to inspire stained glass artists to dust off the old tools and make some pieces for their homes and gifts for their friends.

Closet Glass

We had the Art Nuevo window we built in Nov/Dec in our front window. But now we're ready to put it in the space that we made it for. So we took it out of our front window and placed it in the window in our bedroom closet. It took awhile, we had to clear the area out and modify the window to fit. I took it and placed it in the window this evening. I still have to put in some hooks, but it's so good because it gives us a new level of privacy. And the window still lets in plenty of light.

More "Hope" Stars - the mini size

We decided that we needed to make some little "Hope" stars. These are so very cute and I'm glad because I was up till about 4 in the morning stacking them together so they could be fired. Hours later, we were able to look at them and most were successful. Now we plan to make some this size with clear glass behind them, to avoid edges, so they will be suitable for children.

There is something happy and whimsical about these little stars that fill you with hope and joy.

Katherines Cake Topper

Katherine is very original and Scott is a good sport. She wants a certain topper for her wedding cake, but hasn't seen one, so she's making her own. She made one yesterday out of playdough so she can model the one which will be made out of something more durable.

The "Hope" Fused Star Necklace -Mar 2009

This month, it took forever to get the newsletter out. This, because we needed to write a new article from scratch. Why? Because we really wanted to feature the "Hope" necklace.

To us, it seems like the country is filled with naysayers who are trying to convince us that bad times are here and they are only going to get worse. But we choose to believe in HOPE and we're sure that good times never really left and that better times are just around the corner. It's all a state of mind and we want to promote that sentiment with the HOPE necklace.

Click on the title above to go to the article. Click Here to go to our Etsy store and order one.

Cultured Sea Glass-Mostly Colored-On Etsy

We are proud of the "cultured sea glass" we make. We came on the idea when a student suggested it. A rock tumbler and a little experimenting later, we made our first batch. It's been for sale for a while in our glass store (click here)

Now we've added it to our Etsy store (click here) but it's strange because many folks seem to be doing a fine business on Etsy, but for us to date, we haven't yet sold anything and our grandson Landon who has been doing it longer, has yet to sell anything (click for his store).

Charm School

We taught Melanie how to make charms because she wanted to make them as a business. Now, that pays off for us, because she has offered us a chance to solder charms for her to keep up with orders! These are the same type of charms that we offer kits for (click here to see kits) Melanie has a flair for design and marketing that is world class. We hope that hanging with her and her organization will let some of that talent rub onto us!

So we went by the other day and the girls showed us how they make charms, just like we do. It's a little strange, first we teach Melanie how to make charms, then she creates a charm business and then, when I told her we were working on a video on how to make charms, she got a little upset. In her mind, she taught us how to make them not the other way around...weird

Having Fun Building Glass Panel

Working on this divider is great fun, you can see that Lynde and Jeanne are having a great time. Look at the window, it's coming right along. We finished cutting out all the clear Artique background and cut some pink for some of the flowers. We're going to hold off till Lynde's folks get a chance to look at it Saturday so they can have have input into the color palete of the panel.

We Went To The Big Business Fair

We went to the BIG Business Fair today. It will be held tommorrow as well. It's a yearly event sponsered by the Orem/Provo Chamber of Commerce. This year we didn't hear from as many of our small business friends about the fair and saw very few of them there.
We try to gather pens each year as a kind of game to force ourselves to visit every booth and I really do try to make connections with people that might be able to help our business grow. But, it's getting hard to find new faces and new companies. We find that we've attended so many that the fair is becoming predictable. Dexter & Dexter Attorneys will be handing out pizza at the entrance and we appreciate that.

But we really try to listen to each exhibitor, to get to what they really have to offer and hope to make one or two good contacts. All in all it was a valuable experience today and we did come home with a few pens!

Working On A Window For Lynde Mott

We are really having fun working on this divider panel for Lynde Mott. She is going to install it in her parents home between two rooms and then she will paint a beautiful mural which will extend out from the scene in the window.

Her Dad wonders if they deserve such a wonderful piece of art in their home. Lynde assures them that they're worth it!

Keepin On With The Work

Things have been slow recently. January and February have been slow at times in the past, but business has been more slow than usual.
So we've been taking this time to work on projects that we've wanted to do in the past and see if they might develop into something worthwhile. Jeanne has been working on her Mandala Pattern Book, the photo is a drawing of her "Tree of Life" mandala.
Our DVD is available on Amazon now and you can even order it from our website by clicking here and so we've done some preliminary work on another one. Why is it that everytime we try to work on another element of video instruction, we always seem to need another piece of equipment. Maybe we'll eventually have it all!

Etsy Store

A few weeks ago, there was an article about Etsy in the Daily Herald Sunday paper. They made it sound so easy and simple to sell your art, that we decieded we better advertise on Etsy.

Last summer, Landon and Christy started an Etsy store for him (click here to go to it) So we had some idea that it wasn't going to be an easy, overnight success that the newspaper article seemed to imply. But it does look really good and they have a little code that let me put the items we have for sale right on our website (click here to see it). So we're giving Etsy a try!

"Falling In Place," The Stained Glass Cube

We spent several days building "Falling In Place," The Stained Glass Cube." It was a fun challenge, coming up with a concept that would show the steps of creation for a show in February. Around the outside of the box are the words "Imagine, Create, Share and Inspire." These are the words which describe the process of the creative cycle. On the bottom of the base is a paper pattern with poster patterns placed on top of the print. This demonstrates how we start with a paper pattern and then cut out cardboard pattern pieces to be able to trace the glass outline. There are seven pieces of glass that have been cut out, inside the cube at different heights to look as if they are being placed onto the pattern. The first couple of pieces are cut and ground, the next are cut, ground and foiled and the last have been foiled and soldered to give the impression of the steps that the construction will follow. On top of the box is the completed panel.

Getting Close to publishing our DVD

I couldn't have done it without a lot of help from friends. Ammon Ehrisman did almost all of the production. But when he was getting ready to move, he just ran out of time and washed his hands of the project. I can't say that I blame him, because it really took a long time to get this project complete. His website is www.3squaremedia.com/ He does excellent work and I wish him well in his ventures.

After Ammon left, Micheal Drebot took a crack at getting the video in shape for publication. He was going to do more, but the guy who was expert in Adobe editing first wanted too much money and then moved. But Micheal did get it into the format that we sold for awhile. Micheal's website is www.imagehiker.com

Finally, I persuaded Cammon Randle of CopperRain to help with the video. He took pity on me and did work for a fraction of his normal charges. He cleaned up some problems with the video and then created "chapters" on the DVD so that people can easily skip from one spot to the next. His website is www.copperrain.com

To get the great artwork for the DVD, we did it ourselves several times and then we turned to the talents of Mark Ishii. He was able to help us come up with a more professional look while keeping the ideas we had that were good. His website is www.ishiidesign.com He really was a big help and we feel the money spent was worth it.

So finally, we're publishing the DVD and it will be sold on Amazon, another electronic store and our own site www.betterstainedglass.com-videos But it's not there yet, we have to send the DVD via mail to the production company. But we do expect to see it for sale by the end of January (which to me is record time!)

How To Sandblast Stained Glass

Sandblasting stained glass requires as much pre-planning as any other stained glass project. Select your glass and your pattern before starting.

Sand carving glass is a great decorative method when you need more detail than is easy in conventional stained glass. Sign lettering is a good example. Also it's a good way to get paint to stick to glass, see The Painted Leaf project.

Click here to read the entire article.

Art Show

I've got to admit that I was getting tired just before the Art show. We had to handhold and babysit several of our artist friends. I even told the director of shows at the Covey Center that I wasn't ever going to do this again (meaning being in charge of all the artists). She said something like, "Until next year."

I balked at the idea until things started coming together and by the 5th, the night of the opening of the show, I was starting to feel pretty good about things. So now I'm recharged and we're thinking about what the show next year will be about. We're even planning pieces of art for it.

If you happen by the Covey Center for the Arts, located at 425 West Center Street in Provo, Utah, you ought to stop by and see the show. They are open from 10 to 5, Monday through Friday and then have additional hours in the evenings and Saturdays when other events are scheduled. It will be going through January 2nd.

To see pictures of the show, you just need to go to facebook.com and find me and look at the photos. While you're there, become my friend!

The December Newsletter

We add a new article every month, this month we teach How To Trim And Cut A Stained Glass Panel That's Too Long. It's a technique that you don't need often, but when you do need it...it comes in handy!

You'll need to click on the link to read the article.

Don't miss the Show at the Covey Center For The Arts..if you're anywhere close. It will be ongoing From December 5th till January 2nd. Learn More at http://www.coveycenter.org/ or call the Ticket Office for Information: 801-852-7007 to know times and dates. We'll be displaying several pieces and many of our friends are in the show.
Plan to visit the artists at the reception on Dec 5th from 7pm to 9 pm.

Getting Ready For An Art Show

We are working on preparations for an art show in December at The Covey Center For The Arts. Usually, we just work on the art and someone else puts the show together, but we did a show last year at the center, so we didn't have enough new work to carry the whole thing. So we deceided to invite friends who are artists to be in the show.

Have you ever noticed that many very creative people are also very flaky? You would think that at least artists who make a living at their art would be somewhat organized, but that isn't the case.

I called several friends to see why they hadn't responded to the invitation. The answer? Oh I opened that e-mail but didn't have time to read it!

Then there were the worriers, what kind of art can it be, how big should it be, what medium should I use, can it be mixed media, where is it, detail, detail and more detail? On and on, I just want to say call me when you make a decision.

It's been really fun to work out the problems. We've lined up some really wonderful pieces. And the show will really be great!

The official name of the show is “A Collective Season Of Joy”. It will run from December 5th to December 29th, 2008. And if you want to meet the artists, you should come to it on the 5th, same day as the gallery stroll downtown. There will be refreshments that evening. It's at The Covey Center For The Arts, 425 West Center Street, Provo, Utah 84601

How To Put Metal Around An Octagon Shaped Panel

We sometimes find it useful to put 1/8" "U" zinc around a panel. It can be used as a permanent frame on panels where the gap between pieces of glass on the edge are less than 5" apart. One of the things we find 1/8" metal useful for is in strengthening a panel with a weak design that we have to ship off for someone else to install. The 1/8" zinc adds enough extra to keep the panel from "folding" up. Click here to read the rest of the article with pictures.

Internet Hide and Seek

In the movie "Field Of Dreams" a voice whispers from the fields that says, "If you build it, they will come." And that was my belief a long time ago when I first created a web site. I thought that if I made a web site that was full of good information, people who were interested in stained glass would find it and we would build a community of stained glass enthusiasts.

But unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. The search engines, Google, Yahoo and Ask are the resources that Internet users have to find web sites and information. You would think that it would be easy for these engines to find your website and realize that it is so good, lots of people will want to see it.

But then competition enters the picture. See, everybody else thinks their website is the best. So the engines have to figure out ways to rank the websites they find and figure which ones people find useful. They do a pretty good job. It becomes a kind of popularity contest.

The popular become popular and the obscure stay obscure. So we hired an SEO (search engine optimization) company and they took money from us for a year. Our popularity is the same as it was before.

But the other day I realized that I must be doing something right. Even though very few people seem to be visiting our web sites (27,380 and 23,321 and 4,168) I am starting to get a lot more junk e-mail. This means that someone found my e-mail address and put in on a junk list. So, someone's finding us!

How To Cut A Tight Curve In Stained Glass

This technique works with tight curves.

These are pieces of glass where the curve is radical enough that the tips of the glass break off using conventional methods....click here to read the comple article with pictures