hey... rainy days are mondays... and tuesdays... and wednesdays... blah, blah,blah

that's right... raining again! how odd... not like tulsa in june at all!

all this rumbling thunder is tough on our dog, daisy. she is afraid of storms, and when it rains, she always comes to wherever i am... she doesn't want to be alone when she is afraid...just like people, i guess.

i finished my second prototype for my above and below series over the weekend. i have titled it primarily, and it is pretty obvious why. it went very smoothly, and i am already planning for the next few in the series.

the next one will have five planes, at three heights... 12 shades of orsoni gold... and have not settled on the background yet, but it will be smalti.

my 16 year old son and i are also working on an interesting design... he gets most of the credit... which was inspired by primarily, but is much different. it will be quite a challenge, at 12 planes and possibly 4 heights... yikes!... leave it to your 16 year old to really push you...

these are some instructions that i whipped up rather quickly for someone, and i thought i might as well post them on my site. if you want to know how to score and cut glass into squares or rectangles, perhaps you will find this helpful.

my friend ruth was able to participate in ilana shafir's spontaneous mosaic workshop earlier this year. she has just finished the piece that she started in the workshop, and here it is.

i love it! i was kind of going for something like this when i started my own spontaneous mosaics, but they turned into collages, and became more of an attempt to let go and just play... influenced by michele cassou's point zero painting philosophy. i like ilana's and ruth's results much better!

this is an entirely different style for ruth, and it seems that she really grasped the concept, and created a very fun and colorful piece. can you believe that she didn't even start with a drawing?... i think that is amazing! and it all began with the round red sun-like piece, which was the inspiration piece.

you can check out ruth's website at mosaicsbyruth.com.

i met pam givens at the sama conference this spring, and i am so happy that i did. i have recently come in contact with her, kind of collaborating on a van gogh project.

here are pics of her entries for the orsoni prize. they are fabulous! click on the thumbnail to see the full-size pic. the first one is gypsy madonna, and the second one is euboean transformation rite.

here is what pam says about the second piece: The "Euboean Transformation Rite" is a depiction off a tall-necked amphora. In this period, sub Protogeometric, the decoration on the pottery was very stylized. I have kept this design element in this piece keeping the figure stylized, the background, as well as the golden Greek border.

aren't they wonderful? from what i recall, pam is relatively new to mosaics... but you sure wouldn't know it from her work. very impressive smalti pieces!!!

i can't believe it... it is raining again... still... we are having an unusally rainy spring this year. perhaps it is global warming, i mean global climate change...

i am really working at this journal concept. so, with this post, i am refraining from posting any pics of mosaics, or talking about mosaics... just to see what i can come up with. hmm... um... hmm...