Really, a "retrospective" after just one year?? YEP.

Let me begin with an alert:  aside from the first image, there will be nothing new to see in this post.  


It has been a year since I started applying my mosaic designs to glass, so I'm interested in seeing them all together at once (or at least most of them). "What better place than this blog?" I ask myself.  If you are only interested in new work, here's what I've just finished:

This is an experiment with a lovely art deco/nouveau design that my wonderful colleague Shelley Barish has come up with for the department's next theatre production.  Sadly, I do not think that I have been able to capture it in glass.

Now, in roughly chronologically order from the first piece I made last winter/spring to the most recent, here's the "oeuvre" to date:

This was the very first -- and the picture is pretty poor quality.

                                                                                           

                   

                               

Well, save a few that I neglected to photograph, there we have it:  a year of glass on glass.  Every piece is an education, so I'm very curious to see what the next year will bring!

On turning 50 while sick in bed...

Even though I've spent my birthday in bed with Griffin (both of us are sick), I'm not too sick to feel enormously grateful for all the love and greetings that everyone has sent me -- through email, facebook, phone-calls, visits, gifts, and flowers.  Thank you to everyone!  I am so lucky to have a life full of so many good people!

Here's a lovely picture of an acacia tree in bloom to remind us all of spring and regrowth (acacia was always in bloom on my birthday when I was a kid in Santa Cruz, so it holds a special place in my birthday memories).  Too bad I cannot convey its extraordinary fragrance through an image!
Happy Birthday, Marlowe

Thinking of the Ocean

Here's a little something that I just finished.  The clear rounded pieces are sea glass from my prowling in Maine.

Happy Valentine's Day!

As I've mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I love gathering and gleaning on the beach.  With all my years of hunching over to look for treasure, I have collected a number of heart-shaped stones that now live on my crowded windowsill and remind me of warmer days.  Here are a couple of my favorite stones:

And on the subject of things I love....  Even though I have been slowed in my window production by my return to work, I am quite pleased with what I have been able to finish recently.  It's a red tree with its roots settled into pieces of brown sea glass.  Tell me what you think!

Anticipating a Birthday

February is my birth month.  


It's a sketchy month in New England -- so I'm usually fighting my winter blues all month and feeling funny about aging.


Well, this year is even trickier.  I'm turning 50.  


In addition to spending a lot of time looking back, thinking about what is ahead, and trying desperately to live in the moment, I'm just plain old longing for warmer weather, green things growing, and time by the sea.  So, here are a few shots from the ocean visits I had last year -- to cheer and remind me of places I want to see when the weather warms up. 

Martha's Vineyard in June

Morning low tide, Southwest Harbor, Maine

Beneath a building on the water in Eastport, Maine

Still under that building in Eastport, Maine

Ivy growing under a building in Eastport, Maine