Today I received pictures from my daughter, Gretchen, of the State Fair of Texas ribbons we all won. What a joy for me to see my family involved in creating art and getting recognition by the Judges in the Creative Arts division.
Avery, who is 5, won a ribbon for her sculpture of a ballerina. Her Pre-K class at her school did a whole series of studying art by the Masters. The ballerina was part of deGaus The Little Ballerina.

Her teacher did a remarkable job of presenting the artists and the kids loved making the statues out of polymer clay on the armature I set up for them. Yes, believe it or not.... the kids did the majority of the art. One little boy's ballerina wore a batman cape when he finished. That's art!

Zachary, age 9, created this little polymer clay guy one day while fooling around in my studio. Then before I know it, he made a skateboard for him.

He had fun and now he has a ribbon too. For 9 years old, he's got a lot of creativity running through those fingers! He is always drawing something. When he's waiting for something, he draws - when he's anxious about things - he draws. Now he's making up his own comic book characters. I'm anxious to see what he comes up with next.

Gretchen, their mom, has been taking great photographs for a long time. She has always had an interest in photography for as long as I can remember. She said she thought her pictures were as good as some she had seen at the State Fair so she sent in this picture and won a ribbon as well. I'm delighted! I wish you could see the picture up close. The art in this picture is how she captured Avery's eyes as she was measuring herself to see if she was tall enough to ride that ride! When Gretchen gets her picture back from the Fair, I'll take a close up shot of why that picture is too cool!

And last - my ribbon for polymer clay work I did. Hope you like seeing the pictures. I'm happy that I've got such a creative family!

Thought I’d show you a little of what I’ve been up to lately. I've just finished a 6 week glass fusing class at the Creative Arts Center here in Dallas. I had so much fun I can’t stand it. My teachers were super! I've diddled around with small jewelry pieces, but never any plates, bowls or platters. I realize I've got a long way to go, but I'm vey happy with my first pieces.

One of the things I liked best was the time we did a Vitrigraph pull. That's Becky Johnson on the left there showing us what to do. A kiln with a hole in the bottom is set up on cinder blocks with a huge metal tub beneath it. Glass was put in a flower pot that also has a hole in the bottom inside the kiln – in this case the glass was a mixture of greens and clear. Anyway after a few hours when the kiln reaches over 1,700° F, the glass wants to fall down through the hole in the bottom. So we took strong tweezers and began slowly pulling it down. We’d stop a second or two and add some decorative bends to the glass and then using Dollar Store scissors, we’d just cut it near the top hole and then gently lay that ‘thread’ down in the metal bucket below. Next we’d go up and grab the next blob of glass with heavy tweezers and begin another pull. This goes on for an hour or so.

We also learned how to make curls on a very long rod that has a hole drilled in one end. You take the glass stringer that is coming down and by “hook or crook” you put the stringer in the hole. After that is in the hole you start turning the rod. This really takes 2 people as the rod is heavy and unwieldy so you really need someone on the other side to steady the rod and support the weight. You slowly move the rod forward as the molten glass curls around the rod. After you are finished, you simply lay the rod down and wait for it to cool so you can break the part through the hole and slip it off of the rod. Very cool stuff. I didn’t get any of the curls, but perhaps next time I will. I’m not very forceful and guess I should be sometimes!










Here is my artistic endeavor with the Vitrigraph pull pieces that I took out of the bucket. There were 6 of us that had to share the pulls.

Here some of my other pieces. I have a couple more that I'll be showing you in a few weeks. They are at the Center being fired.

This is my first platter. It is 10" long. First you build your glass pieces that you cut on a clear fusable glass which you cut to the size of the platter you are going to slump into. The piece needs to be fired. So you wait a week for that to happen, and then put the fired piece on the platter slump mold. Next week you are able to take it home. That waiting is HARD! I have a glass kiln at home, but nothing beats letting somebody else do it for you!







I got a little fun streak going on with this little 6" bowl. I just gathered up all the glass pieces I could find in the "Class Glass" boxes and put them in this piece. It's a little silly looking, but I really like it. I think I will sand the edges flatter and put it back in the kiln to fire polish the edges.

This is a fun little piece that we just tack fused for fun. I did another which I will make into a business card holder.



I still love my metal clay and bronze clays, but boy this glass is a whole lot of fun. . . . er . . . and it can get expensive too. No wonder artists have to charge so much for their platters! I'm learning - I'm learning!!