Margaret Zinser

Tuning Back In

2011-06-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right. I'm home after a long run of travel to the Glass Art Society Conference in Seattle, followed by a trip to Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee. Both trips were spectacular. My talk at GAS went well, just as I hoped. Just enough people showed up to create a nice audience, but not so many that I was too nervous, either.

photo by Eugenia Diaz de Vivar

This was my second trip to GAS, and like my first time attending the conference in New Orleans in 2004, the trip was enormously inspiring and educational. Of course, I was disappointed that the conference didn't happen in Tucson, as was originally intended (damn you, SB1070!!!), but I love Seattle, so I got over it quickly. Favorite highlights included getting to meet artist (on whom I've had a several-year-long artist-crush) Ginny Ruffner after her talk and a screening of the documentary just recently made about her, and seeing the De La Torre brothers create a border-issue-themed piece at Seattle Glassblowing Studio.

The cool weather in Milwaukee was a nice change of pace, with averages there being a full 40 degrees lower than they are here in Tucson. Over the years, B & B has turned into an odd kind of family reunion, a gathering of old friends, artists, and customers, and I truly enjoy my time in Milwaukee. My UnGlassy Glass class last Saturday was full of enthusiastic and creative students, and I couldn't have asked for a better group!
While there, I signed up for the Bead Bonanza show on October 9 in Michigan (I'm already in the area teaching classes), made a few neat trades, and did a bunch of other wheelin', dealing, plotting and scheming for future classes, collaborations, and shows.
After the show ended on Sunday, friend Devin Somerville took me to a local street-fair on Locust Street. It was a perfect unwinding to the weekend. Devin introduced me to his old pal, Arno Michaels, who recently published a memoir about his departure from being a racist skinhead during the 80's and 90's to becoming someone who teaches, writes, and facilitates discussions about tolerance, non-violence, and forgiveness. His book is called My Life After Hate, and so far, it's a great read. Check it out.

Two great trips... but wow, I'm glad to be home. I set myself up for a crazy summer of travel, and I'm glad this first leg is done. Next week I head up to Seattle again to help out at the David Grisman concert that's benefitting Beads of Courage (see my previous post from yesterday). After Seattle, I head straight to my working vacation each year, also known as High Sierra Music Festival. Hopefully I'll be disciplined enough to write from the road about that trip.

In the meantime, this week has four goals, in no particular order. 1. Get caught up on the paper (emails, breathing life back into this blog and my website, show apps, articles, etc.) 2. Make beads for High Sierra. 3. Get caught up on sleep. 4. Get plenty of quality time with my animals and garden. Wish me luck. So far, so good. However, my cat, Minou, seems not-so-understanding of the goals that involve things other than petting her.

Beads of Courage Benefit Concert

2011-06-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

This great event is first in Beads of Courage's concert series. I'll be there, seeing the concert, and helping out with volunteers and what-not.

I'm so excited to see David Grisman again; I've been a fan for longer than I've been working with glass. This will be my fourth or fifth time seeing Grisman, but I have a feeling this will be my absolute favorite performance of Grisman's. He's playing to support Beads of Courage, and that makes him an even MORE amazing musician! Hope to see you there!

Veggies and follow-through

2011-06-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

About a year and a half ago, not long after I started this dusty blog, I wrote about building a compost bin, and wanting to start a veggie garden.

It took me quite some time to really get that going, but that project is officially underway.

Last winter (2009/10), I planted just a few winter plants: broccoli, cabbage, and brussels sprouts. This past winter, I planted broccoli again, but the deep freeze in February pretty much killed it off. The rainbow chard, I planted, however, apparently took the freeze as a challenge. I put the chard seedings in the ground in November, and now, in June, I still have a regular supply of chard. To be honest, I'm a little sick of chard, and so are my friends. I learned my lesson not to plant quite so much next time. It IS a beautiful plant, though.

On planting day, March 27

This past March, I decided to expand the garden, to start moving toward growing enough veggies that my grocery bills start to shrink. After reading a great book, called Extreme Gardening (by Dave Owens) I planned my spring/ early summer raised bed garden. I found this book to be extraordinarily helpful- a must-have for any desert gardener. I built three large boxes, and one small one, all filled with compost, and composted mulch.

I planted the first two boxes on March 27 or so.

From seed: zucchini, butternut squash, melon (HoneyGirl hybrid), radishes, sunflowers, nasturtium, carrots, basil, dill.

From transplants: cherry tomatoes, an heirloom tomato, chili peppers, bell pepper, snapdragons, marigold, more basil, more basil...

The last two boxes were planted at the end of April.

I wasn't as impressed with the transplants from Home Depot as I was with those planted from seed. So, this time it was all from seed: more zucchini, 2 varieties of yellow squash, bush beans, cucumbers, cilantro, dill, more sunflowers, chiltepin (a native pepper plant), and thyme.

On May 30 or so

Now, just a bit more than 60 days after the first planting, I've had a regular supply of veggies, supplementing my deliveries from Matt's Organics. The radishes were fantastic- and I can't wait to plant more varieties at the end of the summer. The first zucchini has been making the most delicious, small, sweet, and crunchy zucchinis. My favorite preparation has been to sautee it, with just a pinch of fennel pollen and black pepper. mmmm. Tasty.

The cherry tomato plants are doing great, though very few have actually made it in the house. We eat them right out of the garden.

I'll write more on the garden as it continues to develop. This long post brings you up to speed on this little project. I have big plans for this garden- namely, to build 3 or so more areas like this one, so I have a set of raised boxes for each season. Fruit trees are in the plans too. I'm a little garden-obsessed these days. This is pretty fun. Home grown food, great bug-watching... it's hard to go wrong!

Open House Nov 6 & 7

2010-10-20T20:51:00.001-07:00

Etsy! and Caterpillars!

2010-10-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

Yup, that's been my week... Now that the Design Challenge is mostly wrapped up, my focus has been on setting up an Etsy store, and making new Caterpillar beads. These guys are so much fun to make- mostly done in the flame, with a few little embellishments using vitreous enamels. I'm working on a long post right now that explains their 'evolution'- expect that in a couple days. But I couldn't wait to share them, and the new Etsy store. Right now, in the store, you'll find a few of these Caterpillar beads, and another handful of finished jewelry pieces. I'm adding more this week, and will be sending "New Work Alerts" once I have a bit more added. So, this is a pre-preview, of sorts? Please, click on over to my Etsy store, and let me know what you think!

I'm working this week on adding more to my website- more, different caterpillars, earrings, and more jewelry. Maybe some other new beads too... I have quite a few projects in process, and it's always hard to tell which one will be 'cooked' first.

Expect more from me later this week! Until then, happy beading!

Design Challenge Winners!

2010-10-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

It has been a tough week making decisions, and tallying votes! I have to say how amazed I am(and all of the other judges were) by your creativity, innovation, and inspiration in your designs with my beadies. There were 23 entries, which is more than I expected for this first Design Challenge (yes, there will be more). THANK YOU for putting your energy, time, and spirit into this Challenge!

To see the entries, visit my website (captions are coming):

http://mzglass.com/gallery/54-the-amazing-entries-from-2010

or, if you're on Facebook, check them out here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085693&id=1536554639

JUDGING: I enlisted the help of 4 other judges: Sara Hardin (Soft Flex master), JC Herrell (bead artist), Janice Zinser (my awesome mom), and Star Vasquez (bead artist). Each judge picked their first, second, and third best pieces. We worked a little magic and turned those votes into scores (3 points for 1st, 2 for 2nd, and 1 for 3rd). All of our choices were between 9 entries, so this was a very close contest.

So, without further ado,

The WINNER of the 2010 Design Challenge is Christy Puetz with her amazing seed-beaded Beetle neckpiece, which received 8 points in judging. Christy will win $600 worth of my work, and a gift from Soft Flex!

2nd place: AJ Reardon with her "Beetles are Lovely Too" necklace, which received 5 points in judging. AJ wins $300 worth of MZ Glass goodies!

3rd place: Gail MacKenzie with her "Tribute to the Red Hot Beetles", which received 4 points in judging. Gail wins $100 worth of MZ Glass goodies!

Gail was also selected by Sara Hardin for the 'Best use of Soft Flex and MZ Glass pieces', and will be getting a selection of Soft Flex Trio packs!

The other artists that received scores were Rickie Voges, Valerie Fordham (for her entry #18), Rebecca Moore (for her entries #8 and #10), Elizabeth Fensin, and William Justiniano. All of these entries had between 1 and 3 points from judging, so you can see how close this contest was! Every judge commented on how difficult it was to choose winners.

Again, thank you to ALL of you who entered. If you didn't win this year (or if you DID win!), it's not to early to start designing for next year's Challenge! I'm thinking I will have this as a continuing contest- because I LOVE LOVE LOVE seeing my beads become part of your creative process! Expect details on the next Challenge in the not-so-distant future.

MZ Glass Design Challenge

2010-04-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

So after getting so excited to see a few of my beads at my last show "come back" to me, assembled into beautiful jewelry, I decided to have a little fun, and have a contest.

I'm giving away a total of $1000 of my work to show that, even though this contest is to embrace fun and creativity, I'd love to see your best efforts. So PLEASE consider entering!

Here's the info:
MZ Glass Design Challenge

How do you use your MZ Glass Beads? MZ would love to know!

The CHALLENGE:

Use any of MZ’s work in an amazing design project. Any sort of project is fair game: jewelry, wearable art, wall hangings, anything that includes parts that MZ has made. Mix MZ Glass accents or focal beads with your own components to make something spectacular. If you’ve already made a piece with older MZ Glass beads, feel free to enter it! If you have a great idea for any of my current beads, here’s a little gift to help you! Enter CHALLENGE as the coupon code on www.mzglass.com, and get 20% off your purchase. (Now, once you use the coupon, you really need to enter the contest! Don’t leave me hangin’!) You can also mention the design challenge at any of my shows this summer and get an equivalent discount for components you’ll use for the contest.

Then, take great photographs of your piece. You can include up to 3 pictures with each entry.

Send those pictures, with your contact information, and all the important info about the piece you made to mz@mzglass.com. Include DESIGN CHALLENGE in the subject line of your email. I’ll post those pictures to the Design Challenge Page on MZ’s website, and on the Design Challenge page on Facebook.

DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

Winners will be announced by SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Pieces will be judged by MZ and a few other artists and friends. More details on judges and judging will be coming soon. We’ll vote and pick 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. Of course, technique, originality, quality, awesomeness of design, and fabulousness of how you used your MZ Glass beads in the piece will be considered.

The SPOILS:

1st Place: $600 in MZ Glass goodies, your choice at a show or on the website

2nd Place: $300 in MZ Glass goodies, your choice at a show or on the website

3rd Place: $100 in MZ Glass goodies, your choice at a show or on the website

A few pointers:

• Make sure your photos do justice to your creation! Use neutral (not busy) backgrounds. Include close-ups!

• You can enter as many times as you want!

• MZ (one of your Design Challenge judges) is excited to see any of your creations using her beads. She’s really excited about seeing how her new work is being used- particularly the Butterflies, Doodles, and Spirals. She’s also really excited to see her accent beads used creatively!

• Submit your entry on time! You have plenty of time to finish your piece! The contest will close on September 1, 2010 at 11:59 PM. Entries that come in after that will not be considered.

• Send each entry to mz@mzglass.com with DESIGN CHALLENGE in the subject line of your email. Feel free to follow up to make sure I received your entry (in case I don’t respond to your email).

• Be sure each entry includes the following:

o Your name as you want it to appear in the show & tells of this Design Challenge.

o Your contact info (email, phone, address)

o The title of the piece, year of creation, and year of MZ Glass pieces used (if you don’t know this last one, feel free to ask me for help).

o A great description of the piece. Include materials and methods used in the construction of the piece.

o You can submit up to 3 photos for each entry.

Ok, that just about covers it. Design away!

Bead Inspired Mesa

2010-03-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I headed up to the Phoenix area for Beads of Courage's annual board meeting, and one of our fundraisers, Bead Inspired. What a fantastic weekend! The Arizona chapter of the International Society of Glass Beadmakers, one of the first groups to ever make beads for BOC, hosted the event at Mesa Arts Center. The spectacular day included beadmaking all day, performances by several awesome music acts, and culimated in a reception and live auction in the evening. The Phoenix area has several hospitals that participate in BOC programs, so this event brought together beadmakers, caregivers, and kids in BOC programs. It was beautiful and overwhelming to see kids, wearing their strands of courage, enjoying the beadmaking, bead stringing, and all the other fun activities Bead Inspired offered. The event was a huge success, and many thanks to all who put in so much hard work to make it happen!

What's new, what's out, what's coming

2010-03-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Wow! 2010 is shaping up to be a great year, filled with steady positive changes, and that’s what I want to cover in this post.

What’s new?

A month ago, I posted a blog about the new additions to my body of work: Butterflies and Doodles. Just yesterday, I launched a new website, that brings a ton of positive change on its own. You’ll find shopping is much easier, and navigation improved within the website. I think the site ‘matches’ me and my work a lot more- more photos, more color. I’m really excited about it, and about the new work projects. Poke around; let me know what you think! With the launch of the site, I posted work from all of the series I make, but added quite a few Butterflies. A big round of Doodles will come with my next posting.

What’s out?

At the end of last year, as the ideas for the Butterflies and Doodles started to percolate, I decided to do a little creative house-cleaning. I realized that quite a few bead series were starting to feel …ummmm…. too familiar. I firmly believe that my energy and intention get captured within each piece I make, and that in turn comes across in the work. Fresh energy creates fresh work. Stale energy creates stale work. Getting to make a living from beads is a blessing, and at no point do I ever want to take that for granted. If boredom persists, I may as well start looking for an office job… I want to be feeling gratitude and joy when I play with glass, and I want that energy in every piece made and sold. (That said, it doesn’t mean we can’t use art to work through negative emotions. I do it all the time, but boredom is not an emotion welcome in my studio.) So, wanting to foster good, fresh, joyful energy in everything I make, I allowed myself to put a few of my well-established series to bed. So, the Biologicals, Talisman, and the Pendant series (that never really got a name) are done.

Please don’t misunderstand- I still love all of these series. But I wanted to make sure to ‘retire’ them before stale energy ruined them for me, and, a bit downstream, ruined them for you. I still have a few left in each series, and in the coming weeks, I’ll offer what I still have for sale on the website. If you’re antsy to get that Biologicals or Talisman focal you’ve always wanted, feel free to email me in the meantime.

What’s coming?

I’m in the process of figuring that one out. We (my web guy and I) still need to get the Enamels E-Tutorial JC Herrell and I wrote in a comfortable place on the website, and that’s coming soon. You’ll see the ‘retired’ series for sale in a bit. I know that over the next months, I’ll be making more finished jewelry, adding earrings, beaded necklaces, and accessories for my beads to the website. The Butterflies and Doodles will each see more development as I play around within each series. Past that, I’m not sure what’s coming. I have a few projects simmering on a back burner while this website project finishes up, and it’s hard to tell where my attention will focus, and even harder to tell which of these projects will be ‘cooked’ first. I know that, whatever comes, I’ll be excited to share it with you. ;)

Leafcutters are back…

2010-03-10T10:08:00.001-08:00

Moving to Arizona ten years ago was like turning 5 all over again. I grew up in Ohio, and after years of being a biology-nut in the Midwest, I grew pretty familiar with a lot of the local flora and fauna. And then, I moved to the desert Southwest, where the plants had spikes, animals were venomous, and both plants and animals were to be appreciated with a different level of respect than the almost entirely harmless creepy crawlies of Ohio. I had to learn names and biology all over again- and what fun it was, and continues to be! I love living in Arizona- the diversity of insect species is especially astounding. Among my favorites are the leafcutter ants that make a visit to my yard every few weeks in warmer weather. Likely belonging to the Acromyrmex genus (such a good name), these cute ladies pick a plant and form a distinct path between their nest and the plant.

Over the course of a few days, they cut small, portable pieces of vegetation (some not so portable), and bring the plant matter back to the colony. They don't eat it. Rather, the vegetation feeds a fungus colony, which in turn, feeds the ants. Crazy cool biology, huh? A few years ago, the ants picked petals from my blooming orange tree, and left a trail of dropped petals along the top of the wall surrounding my yard. This visit, they picked a common weed in my yard, and I was able to snap a few photos of their handiwork. Not sure why they picked this one; there were many plants of the same variety much closer to their nest in my neighbor's yard. Hope you enjoy the snapshots of these extraordinary creatures as much as I do!

Dallas Craft Guild just earned a new fan

2010-03-10T09:44:00.000-08:00

As I write this, I’m sitting in the Dallas airport waiting for my flight to board. I’m on the tail end of a truly wonderful weekend of teaching at the Craft Guild of Dallas. This class has been in the works for quite some time; a few Guild members took one of my classes at the 2009 Glass Craft and Bead Expo, and wanted to bring me out to Dallas to continue the beadmaking fun we had in Vegas. So, after almost a year of planning and scheduling, we decided on 3 days, in 2 parts: my 2 day Shaping, Encasing, and Color class, along with a 1 day optional add-on class that covered how I use enamels to create un-glassy effects with glass. (This has since become the Un Glassy Glass Class, coming up at 2010 GCE in Vegas, and in May at Brea Bead Works). Oh my, we had a BLAST. This is the first time I’ve been lucky enough to have the same group of students for 3 continuous days, and it was so nice to get to see my students really sink their teeth into the class. I can’t wait to see pictures from the last round of beads we made on Sunday in the enamels class: sculpted Roman-glass-looking vessels, textured rocks, and marbles are what I’m particularly excited to see.

What makes the Guild awesome? Lots. It’s been around for more than 50 years, teaching classes in lampworking, ceramics, jewelry design, silversmithing, painting, bookbinding and alteration, and much more that I can’t remember. Each studio is well-equipped and well-designed. The staff is enthusiastic, and each studio has an open door; teachers and students alike are excited to discuss their projects. The collaborative and creative energy is certainly contagious. If and when I head back to Dallas to teach another class, I’m sticking around for a while to be a student, and take advantage of the wealth of information and equipment at the Guild! Many thanks to my generous hosts/ students/ friends for making the trip to Dallas such a wonderful one!

Back to regular life

2010-02-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

The Best Bead Show (and the rest of the Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows) came and went, and I started the slow process of tuning back in to non-Gem show life. Over the last couple weeks, I slept a lot, slept some more, put my house and studio back together, took a nap, taught a quick class at Sonoran Glass, did a ton of paperwork, took another nap, and started working on my website again. The sleep deficit has been remedied, and I’m back in the studio- two things that sometimes take me a while to do after the February shows each year. Ahhh. Gem show done. It’s always wonderful, but I’m always happy to get back to regular life.

A while back I mentioned starting the process of updating my website, and to make everything work the way its supposed to. That's hard to do... so I recruited and found local help to both assist me with the update, and teach me about the program that runs my site. He's oddly a family member of the guy from whom I purchased my house and studio. Small world, eh? We’re working on giving the site a little bit of a facelift- adding more pictures, a few new features, and most importantly, making the store a bit easier to navigate. We’re making a ton of changes to the site, and Peter, the man behind the curtain, has set up a few things that make the site easier for me to maintain. I’m so excited for this project to be done- Peter has done such a great job, and I’m delighted to share it with you as soon as we finish up the last few edits, and push that ‘on’ button sometime soon. I’d like the site to be live before I head off to teach at the Craft Guild of Dallas next week. We’ll see…

With the launch of the new website, I’ll have a handful of new work available, including a new batch of butterflies. I’m painting wings today, along with flameworking a few Maze marbles and Doodlebeads to paint later this week. Yup, that’s what I’m up to- just plugging away. No big news, and that's just fine with me. Wishing all of you beautiful days!

The new projects

2010-02-02T08:40:00.001-08:00

We here in Tucson are getting ready for Best Bead to roll into full swing. My houseguests have started to arrive, and by a stroke of last-minute changes of plans, we seem to have a smaller Hotel Zinser this year. I’m thankful, to be honest, but I will miss having so many here. Makes me feel slightly less guilty when the line for the shower has less than 10 in it…

JC and Harold kept me company while I photographed these last night, and I'm thankful that they kept me entertained...

There are two new series:
The Butterfly wings are done off mandrel as a thin pendant that hangs from a jump ring. Just like my Beetle beads, they're sculpted in the flame and painted cold (and then returned to the flame) for color and detail. Also like the Beetles, these are completely stylized, not representative of any actual species of butterfly. The wearer can opt to sport one, or mix/ match two to make their own imaginary butterfly.

The doodles are straight up fun. I had a bit of a creative slow-down/ slump last year... It happens- with attention on other projects, life, and all that. These really helped me get out of the slump... uncensored, plenty of room to play, but very simple technical contstraints (white bead, black paint). The doodles are a very literal translation of my journal pages into a bead. The first few I made were meant as a creative exercise- not something I expected to turn into a product.... but then I realized how much time I spent giggling, smiling, and in a generally positive and playful place. So, wanting to bring more of that play into my day to day creative world, the Doodles and Doodlebugs (and there's a DoodleBall not yet photographed) were born.

Master of the Chair

2009-12-16T14:12:00.001-08:00

So when I moved to Arizona almost 10 years ago, I brought with me lots of hand-me-down furniture from my parents. Included in the mix was this rust corduroy-covered short chair, with wood legs. My dad had the chair when he first moved to Oberlin, 40-plus years ago, so this thing has some history... apparently several re-upholsterings, many houses, much use. My dog, Wilson, quickly made it his, though people still sat in the chair from time to time. Somewhere along the way, the chair lost its legs, and it completely became a glorified dog bed. Over the years, I've had many roommates, and Wilson has had many canine and feline roommates. What's been interesting is the politics around this chair over the years. The dog who's on the top of the pecking order gets the chair. Apparently, poor Wilson has let himself get pecked right out of his chair, time and time again.

With roomie Brian and his dogs Iris and Odin, Iris was alpha. She is a 'mother hen' type of dog, and that chair was almost immediately hers once they all moved in. During the two years Brian lived here, it was rare to see Wilson or Odin curling up in the chair. Rather, Iris stayed planted in the chair, a fuzzy queen in her corduroy throne. After Brian, came JC with her dog Kayla, who slid right in to owning that chair. Again, Wilson rarely slept in the chair, but was always on a teeny round carpet or on the floor. I briefly considered getting rid of the chair when JC and Kayla moved out; that damn thing has certainly seen better days. Within 24 hours of their departure, however, Wilson was back in the chair, every day, enjoying his cushy dog sofa. While I know he misses his dog friends, I'm sure he's grateful to have that chair back again… at least for the moment. The politics over the chair aren't done just yet.
About a year ago, Minou, a terrible and quite lovable kitten, came into my life. She and Wilson became fast friends, but it's really only been in this era post-roommates that the power struggles between the two of them have really become clear. Wilson puts up with quite a bit from Minou, including allowing her to chase him away from his own food bowl, allowing her to use his tail as chasing toy, and putting up with this last bit. Here's how the game goes:

Wilson sleeps peacefully in his chair. His nose gently rests on the edge of the chair.
Minou, always the troublemaker, quietly sneaks into the room, and up to the edge of the chair, close to unsuspecting Wilson.
Minou swats Wilson across the nose (no claws).
Wilson stirs, grumbles, and goes back to sleep.
Minou swats again, this time, with claws.
Wilson sits up, barks at the cat, scaring her away. Wilson lays back down and goes to sleep.
Minou makes her approach again. She swats, claws out, and stands her ground.
Wilson wakes again, bothered, and chases the Minou around the room.
By one lap around the room, Minou climbs in the chair, curls up, and goes to sleep.

Wilson sheepishly moves to the couch, or his round little rug.

While it leaves poor Wilson at the bottom of the pecking order yet again, it's terribly entertaining. This happens at least once a day, often more. While neither Minou nor I have grown tired of the game, I have a feeling Wilson is…

Fearlessness

2009-12-08T21:38:00.001-08:00

This morning I went to yoga class. Laura, my teacher, has had a very positive influence on me, and especially in this past year. She inspires me every day to stretch, grow (myself and my garden), and love life. Part of what makes Laura so awesome is that each one of her classes- private or group- starts with a philosophical theme that always seems to be just what I need to hear. On a day when I was "in a bunch" and taking everything way too seriously, Laura's theme was about embracing our inner child. We spent the class finding the joy in those postures we detest, and we spent 90 minutes giggling like little kids, having such a blast. I snapped right out of my sour mood, of course.
Today's theme was fearlessness. And yet again, Laura's message hit close to home. To be fearless, we aren't without fear. Rather, the fearless acknowledge their fears, and continue moving forward. Sometimes those fears are reasonable and justified- when we haven't built the strength or flexibility to attempt a difficult posture, for example. In those cases, we need to pay attention to the fears, allow them to protect us. However, for most, and certainly for me, in my life and my yoga practice, fear creates limits beyond that which is reasonable and justified. Today's class was filled with postures and sequences which are ones I *should* practice every day (because I often dislike doing them, because they're hard to do). So the practice in fearlessness for me today was in staying put and breathing no matter how bad I wanted to come out of the posture, in taking that steadying foot off the wall in headstand, and in general, just staying with the discomfort, be it from a shaking hamstring or from a fearful mind.
And of course the message carries over to life off the mat, too. My practice of fearlessness in the studio today was in allowing a little bit of play on difficult projects. Rather than focusing on tangible additions to my inventory, I'm working on experiments. I'm tuning in to the technical issues and challenges with some of these ideas I have for new beads, and making myself work on them, even though the first attempts aren't what I imagined, even though its frustrating, even though part of me just wants to go back to making what I've been making for years. It's always harder than I thought, putting ideas into motion… It's also really fun.
So I'm going to pay Laura's wisdom forward: here's wishing you fearlessness!

To inspiration and vegetables

2009-11-11T12:25:00.000-08:00

It’s Wednesday, which means that I get together with a few friends for coffee and breakfast, and we chat and discuss our successes and challenges from the past week. It’s great. I’m very thankful for them. Our meeting excites, inspires, and motivates me to get in the studio and try new things, rather than focusing on making tangible contributions to my inventory. (I’ll get to these newish projects in an upcoming post. However, this blogging project seems to be focusing on what happens in my time off… so the work discussion will come when it comes.)

It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s the day when my vegetable delivery arrives. Matt’s Organics is a wonderful local company that delivers a big bin of mostly locally grown organic fruit and veggies to my door every other Wednesday. Its like Christmas comes every other week… My friends can vouch for my giddy joy upon the bin’s arrival each time. The best part is that I never know what I’m going to get. I can make a few requests- they know I love green beans, beets, melon, grapes, brussels sprouts, and kale but know I detest mushrooms and lima beans. Almost always I get bananas, and almost always I eat one while I’m unpacking the box. I know there will be plenty of fruit, greens, salad veggies, and cooking veggies. Past that, who knows. I get a lot for that $36…. Two week’s worth of veggies, in fact.

Since I never know which foods will be stocking my pantry, the dishes I cook with what I get are pretty varied. The beets, sweet potato, and onions from the last delivery turned into a roasted vegetable mix that went on top of creamy polenta. More sweet potatoes were cooked with black beans in a stew. Spinach was sautéed with garlic and olive oil, and eaten with a friend’s risotto. The constantly changing supply of veggies inspires exploration in cuisine, and that makes me really happy. It’s fun. Tomorrow I know I need to make something with red cabbage, to finish off the huge head of the stuff that came two weeks ago. Not sure why, but getting my veg delivery has made me much more conscientious about not letting one thing go unused. For that, I’m thankful. Hmmm. I have a few sweet potatoes left, too. Good thing they’re tasty. We’ll see what they become. I’ll figure it out.

Anything that inspires, whether the muse be a gathering with friends, a torch, vegetables, a few rods of glass, or a sautee pan and butter, is OK in my book.

(straining neck looking out to my front porch) Is it here yet?

Balance and compost

2009-09-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

First grad school, then starting a business, then keeping up a business, along with the trials and tribulations of work, relationships, and travel, I’ve created an awesome, but rather unbalanced life for myself. That’s been the choice- to allow a tipping of the scales. But that kind of thing can’t persist continuously. Burnout ensues. So over the last year, I’ve put energy into other spheres of my life- returning to a regular yoga practice, doing volunteer work, and nourishing my life here in Tucson, at home. While I haven’t achieved quite what I’d call a balanced life, I’m well on the way, and really stoked about that. The journey is really beautiful. Financially, that journey is challenging, but that’s ok. Bumpy roads are more interesting and enjoyable anyways.
This weekend brought big steps along that path, probably ones more significant to me than it would seem to others.

I watered my plants.

While in the last 6 months of grad school and all of the anxiety that came with it, my large collection of desert succulents went dormant, or died, entirely due to the fact that I stopped watering them. It’s funny how that works… I guess plants need water in the desert. And it took this long to decide to bring those plants back… So with the generous help of friend Audra and her plethora of well-loved (translation: watered) potted plants, we refilled a few empty pots with clippings. Surprisingly, quite a few of the old succulents survived the MZ-induced 5 year drought, and in the last 24 hours, these have already perked up a bit. We hung blinds to shade the porch, which is awesome for me and the plants, preventing a little bit of future water loss, and providing some shade from this intense Arizona sun.

It gets better… Monday morning, inspired by Sunday’s successes and a visit to my yoga teacher’s lovely garden, I took the first step toward a *real* garden at home... I built my very own compost bin. Made with cinder blocks found behind the shed, and a few random pieces of wood, I’ve started making scrumptious nourishment for all the delicious vegetables I’ll eventually grow. It’s very exciting. At least for me. The compost bin is far from glamorous, but it works.
It’ll be quite a while before my compost bin is generating usable compost, but I’m jazzed regardless. On a break from the torch today, I ducked outside and peeked in the bin, half-hoping magical composting garden fairies had snuck in and transformed the few grass clippings and veggie scraps into beautiful humus. Alas, no fairies (at least that I could see... microbes are working their fairy magic already), just a few ants and a grasshopper, which is almost as good.

Feeling Technologically Inept

2009-09-17T19:35:00.001-07:00

I used to blog. Years ago. That was before I was doing glass full-time and when maintaining my website was just a hobby, not part of my official job. Nowadays, between shows, classes, travel, and other life adventures, my website has cobwebs on it, I haven't blogged in ages, and the only way to keep up with me and the biz is on FaceBook. This fall, being blessed with months of relatively few planned work-related trips, I've made returning to blogging/ web maintenance/ catching up a priority. That, and working with boro, but that's for another blog post.

Over the last couple days, I've set up this new blog, and started researching the ways to integrate FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, and all those other social networking pages with my website. In a dream land, the social networking pages, my website, and blog will all work together like a well-oiled machine.

We're not quite there yet. Wow, I feel dumb. When it comes to this web stuff, I am officially as out-of-date as acid wash denim. There was a time when I thought I knew what I was doing…. I wrote the code to my first website, after all. But now I'm in a whole new world, of widgets and badges and Tweetdeck and web developer language that may as well be Cantonese.

I'll get there, eventually. I'm one persistent cookie, if I choose to be. Keep an eye out- my successes will be celebrated, trust me.

Wish me luck.

Back to the 'help' sections I go…