Defeat!

Oh the bitter taste of failure. I ruined my beautiful sharp table. The epoxy retained many of the tiny bubbles formed during mixing and it looks bad. So Nick gets his wish, the table will be here in the house. Boo.

That's what I get for not experimenting first and trying a new technique out on something large. This time I'm doing a sharp clock. I think it looks nice enough to stand alone as a mirror. I haven't decided yet if it will be a clock for sure or not.

Anyways, I love working with the mirror mosaic too much to give up. Plus, having access to a place like Art on the Levee is great to try out new products. Especially products that have a wow factor in person that can be lost in photographs.
Some pictures of my sharp clock in progress:


(Don't mind the messy work area!)

Art Gallery

I finally have my work in an art gallery. I had to pay them to put it in there, but whatever. And it's clocks, not paintings. I've decided to focus all, okay 89%, of my creative attention on clocks and making that business grow to it's fullest potential. The other 11% of my creative juices will be working on other stuff. Like my sharp table. And that table is indeed sharp.

I was polishing the pieces of mirror (all 500+ of them) and the cloth I was using is now full of holes. I poured epoxy on it tonight, which was quite nerve raking, and got holes in both pairs of gloves I used. There are little bubbles in the resin I'm not loving, but Nick said it looked like the pieces of glass were floating. Plus it has a great prismatic glow to it when viewed from an angle that it didn't have before.

The sucker better sell! Nick is hoping it won't because he wants to keep it here, but I have literally put hours of sweat and blood, no tears, into that table and I want someone else to enjoy it! That will be my only non clock item at the gallery.

It is Art on the Levee by the way if you want to check it out. I signed up for a month to test the waters. If I make back my rental fee I will stay through Christmas.

The Sharp Table

Working on this.................




leads to this:



More to come as the table progresses...............

Completed Melting Clock Table

The melting clock table is finished! I think it turned out great. I have enough wood on hand to mold two more tabletops so I will be working on that this week. I have a custom order clock to put in the mold first, though.

Did I go a little Dali overboard with the four Dali books stacked on top? It was seven, but Nick advised me that many books looked ridiculous. Oh well. I also considered wearing a Dali t-shirt for the photo, but again, didn't want to go overboard. For future pictures I plan on tracking down a thing of mustache wax and a lobster.

I have it listed for sale on Etsy and Ebay and I'm taking custom orders on my website so it will be interesting to see the response I get. I think it's fantastic, but we'll see if it sells. I think everyone should own at least two. Melting Clock Table.

Table Sneak Peak and Tattoo Sketch

There you go, the first sneak peak of my forthcoming melting clock table. No, it's not the top of the table. I am super excited to get this table put together. I plan on having it built tomorrow and ready to paint.

I was looking around online today for art shows that I may want to apply to. I'm thinking I may just try for Summerfair next year and Hyde Park again. My first year out I think I should take it easy and not over do it. It is already a challenge getting everything done with two kids under six! That's assuming I even get into those shows. We'll see.

I also looked up Art On The Levee, by suggestion of a friend. Once I get a table or two completed I am going to see about getting some of my work in there. It is a gallery in Newport for local artist. Since it is shopping season now would be a great time to try something like that out. I would have to pay rent and split the profit 80/2o with the gallery. I think that is reasonable.

I had the itch to draw tonight. I haven't had that for awhile and it was nice to get an idea out of my head. I'm planning on getting a half sleeve one day and I've had ideas bouncing around in my mind for a long time. I finally got one of them out on paper. Keep in mind it is just a sketch! Not a final drawing. There is something funky about her right arm, but I can't quite figure out what. Something is wrong with the shading I think. Oh well, not bad for my first drawing in months.

Melting Clock Table In The Mold

I realize I just mentioned in a previous post that I wasn't going to mess with furniture for a bit, but I changed my mind. I've decided to build a few small accent tables. They will be molded melting clocks with a pedastool base that I will build myself. I may even consider putting a clock movement in them. A functional melting clock table. The wood I have in the mold right now measures 30 X 19 inches and I imagine I won't cut much off the length. I have a vision in my mind of what the finished product will look like and I'm dying to put it all together. I can't take the wood out of the mold until Thursday. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have my first completed melting clock table!

On a completely other topic I have a little spider pet. I don't get to keep it because after doing some research I think it is a baby black widow. The hourglass is orange so I first wondered if it really was a black widow. I found pictures of brown widows which are not as dangerous, but they are tropical spiders and I couldn't find any mention of brown widow spiders in Ohio. After looking at pictures of immature black widows I'm pretty sure that is what I have. It is actually quite worrisome because this little guy was hanging out on a metal garden decoration right next to our front porch. One of us could have easily brushed up against it. Two years ago while pulling ivy out of the same front flowerbed I spotted a mature black widow. I freaked out at the time because my son, then three, had been helping me pull the weeds right next to where the spider was! So no pulling weeds without gloves on for me, and no pulling weeds at all for the kids. I don't get to keep my little spider because, well, it just doesn't seem smart to have a poisonous spider in a jar when you have little kids in the house. Plus it is kind of creepy to want to keep a spider, right? Hopefully he doesn't bite me on his way out of the jar when I take him to the woods and let him go. Nick wants to squish him, but I've heard that squishing spiders is bad luck. I'm attaching a photo of my find (Well, really Nick found it and showed it to me. He then regretted it because he didn't expect me to want to keep it in a jar) to give you the creepie crawlies. Your welcome.

Oh, and by the way, I am not some odd bug person. I'm actually quite grossed out by spiders, but this little guy intrigued me. Okay, I do like to hunt crickets with the kids and throw them in the garden spider's webs so we can watch them hunt. But that is completely at the kid's request. Sweet dreams.

Hyde Park Art Show

I had a lot of fun at the Hyde Park Square Art Show! Everyone was so nice, from the other vendors to the patrons, it was great. I couldn't have asked for a better response. A lot of people stopped to look and reactions ranged from awe to out right laughter. Everyone knew they were melting clocks and most people knew it was Salvador Dali that inspired me. I also had a good number of sales. I can officially say that my first art show was a success! I will definitely be looking into doing more shows. I may wait until spring, though, so I can concentrate on Christmas orders for the remainder of this year.

I'm very thankful that my husband came along to help out. We make such a great team! I did notice that the few times I took a potty break or went to grab a warm drink he had sales while I was gone. Hmmm, maybe he is a better salesman than me? I'll have to bring him along every time!

Speaking of things to take every time, I had my grandfather's pocket watch with me at the show. I don't know why, but I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to take it with me. It doesn't even work, I need to get it repaired, but I had it in my pocket all day. So after the success of the show, that watch will be with me at every show.

It was a chilly day and the perfect way to wrap it up was dinner at Arthurs right there at the square. Their spinach artichoke dip is so tasty and the giant juicy cheeseburger I had really hit the spot. Especially since it was the only meal I had to eat that day after breakfast at 5:30am!

One interesting thing I noticed was that the bar stool wasn't as much of an interest as I thought it would be. People looked at it, but only one person asked me if it was for sale and what it's price was. I sold the same number of molded clocks as wall clocks. I thought that was interesting as well. I think I may not worry so much about furniture right now and concentrate on keeping my stock level high.