"Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

Well, I am now speaking to you as someone who has been paid for blowing glass!!! Thursday and Friday last week I worked at Wimberley and today, Monday I worked for Morgan Graff, a local glass blower! I am movin' on up in the Austin glass scene I would say :)  Oh! AND, after I just wrote that I have scored myself an interview at Glass Monkey Art Studio on Wednesday! EEEEEeeeeeeeppppppppppp!!

OK, maybe I should tell you about it all in chronological order...

Thursday I went to Wimberley and I had no idea what really to expect.  The day started with some drilling some holes in some lamps.  Then they explained to me that they were doing a photo shoot for this vodka company that had commissioned them to make some drinking glasses.  It is a local vodka company called Dripping Springs which had two photographers and their production manager come out to shoot a picture for a billboard and one for an add I think.  Anyway, it took FOREVER and was really rather ridiculous, there were lots of staged, very dramatic shots of the owner spinning out a plate and lots of steam and such.  Anyway... while most of this nonsense (yes, yes I know, its probably good business strategy... marketing and bla bla but oh so boring for me) I was making flowers.  Yes, on my first day on the job I was delegated to making flowers... yeah... flowers... a little color, some petals and a stem.  Tim (the owner) kept suggesting I make stems that kind of curled around but I don't know how to do that (and no one would show me) so I just made super twisted ones.  They said I did well... but I think they were kind of ugly flowers, honestly.

Friday I cleaned up the edges of the flowers, drilled more holes in the lamp shades (really big fancy ones even!) and then went into the hot shop.  Luckily, I got upgraded to making puntys, bringing handles, necking pieces and heating medium sized pieces in the glory hole.   It felt like a pretty good upgrade to me.  I was super glad not to be making stupid flowers any more :-P

On Saturday I went out to Elgin, 45 mins north of Austin to visit the barn that Justin would be living at when he finally got here.  It is called Bit by Bit Farm and is WIDE OPEN!

"everything the light touches is ours Simba" Just kidding... but it does go as far as you can see.  Its 100 acres of fields and grass!

I went out on a cold and windy day and all the horses turned out were super calm and happy seeming. Which I took for a good sign of place... happy, healthy and mentally sound horses.  Also, the stalls are 15x18 feet! HUGE (normal is 12x12)! Justin is going to be living in a bigger place then me :P

And the red barn with white trim reminds me of Sweden, another good sign ;)

Some of the stalls have runs out the back of the barn and some don't, depends on space and horses' needs.

And they have a nice big sand ring.  The only thing you can't see from this picture is directly to the right, across a driveway is a herd of Texas Longhorns... yes, giant cows with GIANT horns... Justin isn't even really a fan of normal cows... I can't wait till he sees them... I have become obsessed with this type of cow!

Sunday I went shopping for some postcards and etc and came across this Texas stuff... I thought it would give you an example of the place... 

A baby one-sy in camo... with an orange long horn on it... because every infant should blend in the foliage!

Also, every squirrel needs some underpants... otherwise where would they store their nuts?  So weird!

Well over a week till V-day and there are MOUNTAINS of chocolate EVERYWHERE!!! It is driving me crazy! I regularly want to eat it all up and go into a chocolate coma! This one is at Whole Foods so you know its good :-D

Monday morning I got woken up by a phone call from some Austin number and it turns out it was Morgan Graff, who has Glass Blowing Austin and she needed an assistant.  Her's had the stomach flu which turned out great for me (that sounds bad, but you know what I mean).  Her studio is in East Austin and in a sort of ware-house district.  This is her hot shop:

She shares the space with some women who do slumping and fusing.  They make some really neat pieces and have a great space.  Well, they have great equipment, huge kilns (below), sand blasters, polishing wheels, glass saws and grinding wheels too! Now I know where I can take some of my stuff for cold working when I finally start making my own stuff!

Alright, so because I am slow it has taken me ages to post this... I started on Monday and it is now Thursday night... what is wrong with me?  I guess I am just busy and thus tired... but the good thing is I am making money doing what I love, my horse has actually arrived(!!!) and I think I am going to get into flame working... but more on all that later!