The new studio

The new Aura Sun Arts glass studio is nearly ready for action.

new studio in a sunny corner

I have the glass canes in easy reach, and ones in current use arrayed on a hotplate.  A second hotplate on the left out of view keeps the finished beads warm as they slowly cool down, a process called annealing.   The sunny window will give me plenty of ventilation, as will the fan.  I still need a warm enough day to keep the glass happy.

Now that I am back in Seattle I will have to make a pilgrimage to the Tacoma Museum of Glass.  I saw a delightful special on Evening Magazine featuring their exhibit of glass designed by children.  52 different fantastical sketches by children were made up into finished pieces by the glass professionals, who had a great deal of fun in the process.

The links above will show you a video and a slide show of some of the featured work.  Here is a cucumber guy by kdg.

kdg-cucumber

the mo report

Hello Mo fans!

The Mo report is back, after a break to relocate to Seattle from Medford.  We will miss the deer in the backyard, but Mo is glad to be on familiar turf and Miss Nimbus adores the place.

I have noticed Mr Mo is a little hesitant about going outside lately.  He must be intimidated by the neighborhood bullies.  I encourage him to go out now and then, but he seems to enjoy luxuriating in a spot near a sunny window, usually lying half in sun and half in shadow.

Mo finds a sunbeam

This funky old farmhouse has a door at the foot of the stairs, and I have cut a small cat portal in this door so the cats have free passage.  I try to keep this door closed so the heat doesn’t all drift up the stairwell. Sometimes the cats knock the door open, like when Mo tries to drag his stuffed buddy Heath through the opening.  In the wee hours of the morning I heard Mo open this door and I trotted down and slammed it so it was securely shut before going back to sleep.

Heath hanging out the cat door

Ha ha, morning arrives and when I try to open the door the handle is not turning the latch and then it falls out of the door, leaving me trapped in the attic.  Kicking the door didn’t free me and I feared having to climb out an upstairs window and leap for a tree.  Luckily I found a pair of cuticle scissors and used those in the lock mechanism to twist the latch free.

…

The nerve of that trickster Mo.  I suppose he loosened the screw on the doorknob too.  It is fixed now, and it’s a good lesson to consider one of those attic escape ladders.  That and a spring so the door shuts itself!

the mo report

The fawns are back for a return visit.

fawns settle down

Here they are resting in the afternoon sun, their mother just a few feet away, taking a load off those long legs herself.

One morning as she grazed, they sprinted among the pines on the hillside, zig-zagging in a game of chase, their white tails up like flags, the extra high leaps reminding me of pronking springbok.

mom by their side

As they were resting here, one of the cats leaped up on the deck in the foreground, startling the little guys before I could get in any more shots.

Click for a larger view of these delightful visitors.

Aura Sun Arts

Welcome to Aura Sun Arts!

Aura Sun Arts

I love color and glass is a chance to play with liquid color in three dimensions.  Each bead is one of a kind, and most have a thick encasing of clear glass that makes them resemble the marbles I collected years ago.  Come explore my world.