Hello

Nothing extraordinary happening. We have been extremely busy at the restaurant and blowing chandelier parts for a commissioned chandelier. Busy, Busy, Busy.

Platter, Platter, on the wall .......

We are in platter mode for a few sessions again. We have sold so many platters (rondels) that the walls are looking empty. I haven't been taking pictures of the platters since I had previously taken so many and we had moved on to try the mastery of other things, but these three came out so vivid and wonderful I wanted to photograph them for posterity.

Something New

Here is a new cane vase with a window. It is about 16" tall by about 6" wide at the widest part. Thanks to Andy and Roy for the help with the Sandblasting!!

Pink & White Lace Vase

Heres the white cane lace vase that was pictured earlier with the pink (which is really stiff white with Amethyst Blue overlay on the stiff white) and made to cane.

Micah's Platter and Vase

Here's a new vase sculpture and a twisted black/white cane platter that Micah did. He's ahead of me when I was only blowing as long as he has been.

Another Cane Lace Vase

Here we are doing our 2nd cane lace vase. This time we cased the white with amethyst blue. Once it cools you can see the amethyst blue better. A photo of the completed vase will come in a day or two. This time when making the cane, we did not gather clear over the spiraled color. Hence not clear gaps between the canes in the vase. I think I like the clear gaps better.

New Cane Vase

Micah and I have been experimenting with cane a little bit. As a matter of fact, we have decided to really spend some time focusing on cane in our glass blowing. It really helped us a lot to see Dante Marioni and Janusz Pozniak and the team @ Tacoma Museum of Glass in our recent trip. Some of the things we observed have already helped us quite a bit and will continue to help us. We have many more things we are gonna get into.

We made this vase based also on a technique that I saw Lino Tagliapietra and crew do earlier this year. It was our very first attempt and we made it look pretty easy. Not as easy as Lino, Dante, or Janusz, but for us, a huge big deal!!!! It couldn't have turned out much better. It's about 12-1/2" tall x 9" wide.

We are really excited about the cane. Stay tuned as we progress. We have several commission pieces to blow, so we will ease into it as we can get to it.

Did You Miss Us?

Micah and I snuck out of town and got to spend 5 solid days watching Dante Marioni, Janusz Pozniak, Paul Cunningham, and the great gaffers at Tacoma Museum of Glass blow extremely good glass! Without exception, Micah and I were the first two spectators in the hot shop every day of those five days and with one exception we were the last ones to leave. We learned alot of stuff. We met "Gabe", "Ben" and "Alex" (all very talented and competent). Heather and Jeannie were great announcers! We even got a tour behind the scenes and got to see the "cold shop" at the Tacoma Museum of Glass. Many thanks to Ken for some great shots!
I've got over 300+ photos. I'll post a few.

Also, here's a couple of pieces Dr. Kelley and Nan commissioned that we just got done after we got back.

"The Oklahoman" link & OETA

Heather Warlick with the "Oklahoman" came out and did a great interview and even shot a few minutes of video. The lead photograph for the story they did on us made the front page next to Sam Bradford's picture. (WOW!) Then the story was in full color on the front page of the "Life" section of the newspaper. It took up almost all the front page and then ran over to another page!!! Again, thanks to Heather and her photographer for such a great story. Click on this link for the story and in the body of the story you will see the video for you push the "play" button.

As many of you know we were recently featured on OETA's "Gallery" program. Randy and Susan came out to the restaurant and the studio and shot some video over a few days and I also went into their studio for a sit-down interview. Again, thanks to them for such a nice piece! We still get folks come into the restaurant and say they saw us on OETA. Someone told me this week that they had the video up on their website. I was going to put the link here, but could not find it. If someone out there finds it let me know please and I will post the link.

Finally Back!!

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been so long since a post. We have been incredibly busy. First thanks to Elaine and Greg Dean and the crew at Dean-Lively Gallery in Edmond. Our show there was a success! We had a great turnout and want to thank everyone for coming out and taking a look and buying. Here's the new 75 piece chandelier at the Dean-Lively Gallery in Edmond. Come by there and see it in person.

Micah and I have been busy on a number of commission pieces and didn't even get pictures of several of them.

We are falling in love with some new shapes and our work is evolving a little bit. We will still do what we have been doing but we are entering into another dimension and are excited about it. Our skill level is increasing and so it the size of our work. Our tallest to date is a little over 27".

Some pictures of a new style for us are posted here today. Right now we are calling this style, "Raffinato". It's Italian for "Elegant".

The "Raffinato" right now has at least two versions. The first is the "Redento Raffinato" and we don't have a name for the 2nd one yet. We have yet to make a third version, but we know what it will look like and it is coming. The "Redento" is Italian for "redeemed". We have taken trimmings and scraps from other things from off the floor and out of the trash and "redeemed" them and made something beautiful out of them. Kind of like God does with people. He picks up people off of the scrap heap of life and makes something beautiful out of them if they will let him. Whoa! weren't expecting that were you?

Anyway here's some stuff we have been doing. The guilded olive green raffinato is 20" tall. Most of the others are taller, up to 27".

I''m posting a couple of pictures of some things Micah did by his self. The grayish granite looking one is about 15" tall and the blue/sandy beach one is over 20" inches tall, maybe 22". We don't know for sure, it sold before we measured it. Micah is really doing great. Together we are blowing the best glass we've ever blown. We are fixing to get started on Aaron's chandelier in January. He ordered one that has lots of warm transparent colors in it. Oranges, ambers, reds, gold browns, etc... We are really excited!

TODAY'S THE DAY!

Dean-Lively In Edmond 5 - 9 pm!

New Technique!

Micah and I fused pieces together and rolled them off the pastorelli and blew it out. We were very pleased with the way it turned out. It stands slightly over 17 inches tall and about 5 1/2 inches wide.

We also have another Indian Basket set in olive green with formal black accents. It's about 11 inches wide.

Micah's Blue Voyage

Micah did a great job on this one!

Art Show @ Dean-Lively Gallery in Edmond

New Blown Glass Christmas Ornaments and a bowl!

More New Stuff!

We are busy making Christmas orders and replenishing our blown glass on hand. Here's a couple of things we did yesterday. Also we are posting another photo of our new red Chandelier.

New Blown Glass Chandelier!

Congratulations and thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Lance Haggard and Lori Dobbins, the proud owners of a new Bella Forte Glass chandelier. In case you can't tell by the photograph, it qualifies as red. It's beautiful! It has 51 blown glass pieces in it! It is about 30 inches tall by 30 inches wide.