I have been playing with line for a couple of hours this morning and found myself at first just placing lines next to each other. As I continued I started to see a pattern of a picture emerging from what I was doing so I started another one with a purpose. I made a sail boat with the lines and now have so many ideas dealing with just line and what could I make with it. I think I could take some glass rods and make something completely new (or at least new to me) in the medium of glass. Here is what I started with and the boat.

As I work on my first art project for class I feel a little change coming on for the piece so here are some photos of it in progress. It will only have two spheres and I will ad more aspect of line that flows through the piece. And only time will tell what happens next. This will be the first ever abstract nonrepresentational glass art that I have made. I have been blowing glass for over ten years now and it has all been for production. This is very exciting.

So I saw this photo in a Costco Connection magazine and thought it very appropriate with its use of line and skin.

Michael Church is another off-hand glass blower that I researched today. He live in our neck off the States (this beautiful landscape in the North West) and also works primarily with the media of glass and steal. From the web site http://www.glassartistsgallery.com/artist-bio-117.htm they say, "The creation of his art involves high temperatures, electricity, fire, and earth elements. The topics and feelings of the work reflect those natural forces". These are the elements that drive me to follow my dreams of becoming a great artist in the medium of glass. Here are some of his works. His "nesting bowl" in pink is very unique the concave & convex shaping and the use of line (with a pattern) draw your eyes around the bowl then to the curly point on the end (very nice) of the bowl. The wall art with its concave flower patterns and use of "warm colors" and line really make this piece feel real almost like someone took it from the Earth and somehow preserved it then hung on their wall. The next piece is a representational fish aquarium. The time this must have taken "WOW" it uses so many influences from the ocean the fish, star fish, rock, and plant life is so very representational of life, and the use of space along the wall is used very well "incredible". This is so very inspiring to find artists like this when I thought I had seen them all and every time I find one their works are even more incredible, beautiful, and flowing.

Peter Greenwood is another glass artist that I admire. He is a off hand-glass blower ( there are two types of glass blowers off-hand and lamp-worker) that pushes his use of glass to the extreme. I particularly love his functional glass like his furniture, lighting, goblets, wall sculptures, and so much more. Here are just a few art pieces in a display of his. In this display note the glass table to the left is done in clear glass and ultra-violet glue and his use of organic shapes to create the base for the table top as if the base was blooming and pushing the top up-wards. The sun flower and the multi colored wall sculptures that look like some sort of bamboo or other stems of a plant are very beautiful and quite large. His ideas for the shelves were also great and I have never seen anything like this before and it really is inspiring for me. I would invite you to look at his web site at www.petergreenwood.com

As I said here are two more art pieces. I wish I could get a picture of the shapes these lights put on the walls and ceilings. The wall sconce puts beautiful shadows and rays of light from one end of the stair-well to the other and this was a great unintended surprise that gives me a whole other factor when thinking of glass lighting and just outright placement of any glass art that I might make. Lighting has been mostly a factor only in that I needed good photos of my work and placement of exterior lights to illuminate a piece never thinking of how the light would bring a new life to what I was making.

Matt Dean is a glass artist that has been making functional glass art. His chandeliers (very much like Chihully) are very beautiful. He has pushed the glass lighting even further with his flush mounted lights and use of large leaf shaped pedals instead of pulled points.The new lights he is making look a little like plants and sea animals (squid or jellyfish) that are swimming toward you, or a plant opening up to swallow you whole. The use of lies in the pedals and on the ends of them draw you to the mass of the light. His chandeliers were the first ones I've seen in BOROSILICATE glass and very inspiring. After seeing the chandelier in the garden I started on my first one (out of Bronco colors) that is much smaller than Matt's and hung it in my office. Here is a pic of it. It was so much fun I wish that I could afford to do this all day every day. It's so much fun. I have made one that hung in Boise at a high $ salon but now it is home I will post a pic of it and my new wall sconce soon.

Here are some sketches that have been giving me ideas to do with this first project.

Today I picked a different design for my first project. We are working with line and a skeleton & Skin idea. So instead of a bridge, I think I will try a sort of hand or fingers coming through a film or skin, and all of that on a base of three large spheres connected to each other by lines with different flow to them all, but still connected as one motion or line. As the glass is molten it becomes one mass of glass and it knows what the feelings or emotions of the person who is attempting to manipulate it into something that is beautiful. So the idea of learning, bonding, feeling, and becoming one with the medium that you choose is a very real thing and way more than an idea. Many times have I had I glass piece crack or even shatter in the middle or even end of a project. Anyway here are some rough sketches of the new idea. I will try to attach some small cobalt blue twisted type lines running up the angular three shafts that will hold the top sphere and the five shafts that will represent some sort of abstract fingers from something. Then I will (hopefully) cover the whole thing with a type of clear wrap ping as to be able to see inside of the abstract pyramid.

This is it, I have attempted to do a copy of this and found it to be the hardest thing I have tried and very unsuccessful; None-the-less this piece is so very inspiring as a clear sculpture of BORO.

Hans Grabel's work is so flawless that like I said before he really inspires me to do the best I can and to take the time to do it right. Here are some trees he has done for President Obama. Here is some bio. info. for Hans Frabel from his web site www.frabel.com . I visit this site often to get inspired or to think about how he has done something and sometimes for hours. I truly love his use of clear BORO glass and makes it look so flawless. The hammer and nails piece is so beautiful that I must put a pic of it. It is as if we could use these items for hanging a piece of art with it.

Two of the most famous “trademarks” of the Frabel name are the “Hammer and Nails” sculpture from the New Glass Art Exhibition which is currently housed in Washington D. C.’s National Building Museum; and the playful, cavorting clowns which received worldwide recognition with the Absolut Vodka advertising campaign in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Hans Godo Frabel was the first glass artist honored with the title of Absolut Artist. Other famous artists that were chosen as Absolut Artist are Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

Until the mid nineties, the Frabel Studio created art pieces almost exclusively in clear borosilicate, a strong, brilliant crystal that is resistant to scratches and which if broken can usually be restored without a trace of damage. In the mid 1990’s the artists of the Frabel Studio began exploring the use of color. Since that time, color has formed an increasingly important part of the Frabel repertoire. Other techniques the Studio employs are sandblasting and painting. Sandblasting gives the sculpture a frosted, highlighted appearance, which is an interesting optical illusion. This optical illusion is produced by the human eye, which cannot handle the diffractions of the fine indentations in the glass. The indentations or facets on the surface of the glass reflect all colors of light from its surface and confuse the human eye, giving an impression of a whitish tint.

On January 17, my 16 year old nephew was taken from us, as a result of a tragic accident. While in McCall over the week to celebrate his wonderful life we were battling the cold as the snow fell. However, on the day of the funeral the sun came out and warmed us all, as if someone had blown away the clouds and warmed us with his presents, just as Skyler would have done for the one he loves. Here are some photos of this beautiful day that Skyler gave us. I want to make something to commemorate his life and have found some inspiration in this tragedy. "Sixteen Tears" seems to be a common factor for me so I think that some glass tears to start and then we will see where they feel like going. So here is the start of my rough sketch. Rest In Peace my nephew I love you and will miss you. On another note my current art project has my thinking about skin and skeletons and the use of them in different art applications. I am choosing the media of glass and plastic wrap to create a "Bridge to Nowhere" and here is its conception. More to come on this and I hope today to start physical work on it.

This is at the Colorado Fine Arts Center and is also a Dale Chihuly as are the next ones. The purple and blue ones use of line is incredible and totally inspires me to try something big. I love the medium of glass as it is so limitless. How about a salad anyone? This garden piece is great with representational portrayal of organic fruit and veggies..

Some of the most inspiring glass artists today for me are Dale Chihuly with his chandeliers and so much more. Han frabel with his masks ect. Their use of three dimentions, concave, and organic shapes draw your eyes to so many plases that you could look at these pieces for ever it seems. There are so many more artist in the media of glass. there will be so much more to come and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

The inspiration from Salvador Dali, Hans Frabel, and my art prof. Erin led me to attempt my first glass mask. "The Eye" from Dali led me to photo my kids with the mask. They are beautiful. My son Tony and daughter Patianze

Artist of the week is Salvador Dali. His works inspire me to push the limits of glass to the extreme and think outside of the normal glass blowing of glasses, bowls, and small figures. It pushes me to find hew ways of sculpting with the glass. I love this piece called "The Eye" and it can be found at http://www.virtualdali.com/#galleryClassic1. Here is his bio. from the same web site. As an art student in Madrid and Barcelona, Dalí assimilated a vast number of artistic styles and displayed unusual technical facility as a painter. In the late 1920s, two events brought about the development of his mature artistic style:

• His discovery of Sigmund Freud's writings on the erotic

significance of subconscious imagery; and

• His affiliation with the Paris Surrealists, a group of artists

and writers who sought to establish the "greater

reality" of man's subconscious over his reason.

Surrealism

To bring up images from his subconscious mind, Dalí began to induce hallucinatory states in himself by a process he described as “paranoiac critical.” Once Dalí hit on this method, his painting style matured with extraordinary rapidity, and from 1929 to 1937 he produced the paintings that made him the world's best-known Surrealist artist.

He depicted a dream world in which commonplace objects are juxtaposed, deformed, or otherwise metamorphosed in a bizarre and irrational fashion. Dalí portrayed these objects in meticulous, almost painfully realistic detail and usually placed them within bleak, sunlit landscapes that were reminiscent of his Catalonian homeland.

Perhaps the most famous of these enigmatic images is "The Persistence of Memory" (1931), in which limp, melting watches rest in an eerily calm landscape.

With the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, Dalí also made two Surrealistic films:

• Un Chien andalou (1928; An Andalusian Dog); and

• L'Âge d'or (1930; The Golden Age).

Both films are similarly filled with grotesque but highly suggestive images.

Renaissance

In the late 1930s, Dalí switched to painting in a more academic style under the influence of the Renaissance painter Raphael, and as a consequence he was expelled from the Surrealist movement.

Thereafter, he spent much of his time designing theatre sets, interiors of fashionable shops, and jewelry, as well as exhibiting his genius for flamboyant self-promotional stunts in the United States, where he lived from 1940 to 1955.

In the period from 1950 to 1970, Dalí painted many works with religious themes, though he continued to explore erotic subjects, to represent childhood memories, and to use themes centering on his wife, Gala. Notwithstanding their technical accomplishments, these later paintings are not as highly regarded as the artist's earlier works.

Number one

This is my first entry to test the time and date. As well as just seeing if I have what it takes LOL. Flame on. This is a hand blown glass globe done at the first ever international flame off in Las Vegas in 2009. There are so many beautiful pieces there for inspiration. The first place went to a good friend named Scott Deppe. The skull chandelier. The medium is glass and metal skeleton.