June 22-28, 2018 Fort Collins

Sunset tonight from our deck. I have been playing with dyeing the pine needles. The top green looking ones are what they look like before dyeing. The bottom ones are dyed tangerine. They came out nice. The right ones are dyed navy blue, I left them in the dye bath too long  and they are black. Raven wing black, kind of shines a bit blue. 

The masterpiece after the first firing, painted with gold-you can't see it until it is fired and in the kiln getting ready to slump.  Below it is slumped into a plate and done. 

John cooked a scrumptious dinner tonight that we ate out on our deck.  Still dyeing pine needles. The bottom are what they look like before. I picked them green from a fallen branch and dried them in the dark so they would be light colored. The colors so far, left to right are wine, navy blue-they look blue in the sunlight here, black inside and tangerine. I will have a rainbow of needles soon. 

I drove down to Firestone to visit with my friend Ila who is visiting some friends today. My brother Jerry came with me. Jerry, Ila and Suep. This young girl Nora took our photo. Afterwards she wanted her photo taken too. 

 

 The gathering was an annual family affair. They were honoring relatives who had passed. Here is the George Ross memorial with his coffee. Jerry and I.

 Jerry as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow near his house. Sunset tonight. 

I stayed up most of the night last night making this beautiful balloon piece in memory of my dear friend Barb Flowers who passed away last week to enter into the next glass show that I needed to send in photos of the pieces on Monday. She loved flying in  hot air balloons so this is her flying to heaven. This Monday morning when I opened the kiln the piece was shattered. I used a piece of not compatible glass in it so they cooled at different rates and shattered the glass.  It was so incompatible that I was able to lift the balloon up off the shattered pieces and John suggested I set it in resin for a basket center.  So all is not lost. 

Here is the seasons piece I am sending to be juried in the show along with the above The Space Between piece.  Golden grasses in the sunset by a lake on my bike ride tonight. 

 Sunset over the baseball fields along the bike path. A Mexican hat flower and brome grass along the bike path.  Sunset over the baseball field along the bike path.

I worked in the glass/pine needle mines today. I went to invite Jimjim to dinner at John and Mandy's and he was deep into the work on their  rental house. He demonstrated the cake decorating style of mortaring his foundation that he invented Dane his hired hand bringing more mortar and Jimjim pointing to the hole they dug to get to the leak in the foundation. It looks abut 8 feet deep to me. I rode my bike to John and Mandy's on the hottest day of the year. I actually only rode half of the way and then John picked me up and took me to John and Mandy's for dinner. John fixed the tire on my bike. It has had a tack in it for about a week. John, John and Mandy went kayaking this afternoon while I was in the mines. 

June 16-21, 2018 Fort Collins, Colorado

Sunset tonight from the bike path.  I have some aspen pieces I am working on in the studio. Woo hoo, it is fun to make glass. 

Still working on the masterpieces. Getting close to the first firing. We had a wonderful dinner with Mandy, John and Jimjim tonight. It is such fun to see them. 

The masterpieces in the kiln at 1450 and 1100 degrees. The heat changes the colors, they will be back to green and blue when they cool off. I can't open the kiln again till tomorrow when they are closer to 100 degrees.  I fused a bunch of old earrings together and they are set in resin here. I will cut them apart and use them as basket centers. 

Mammatus clouds tonight at sunset. Looked surreal.

Sunset mammatus clouds. We got a big hail storm today. The big ones were bigger that a quarter, but smaller than golf balls. Sounded huge on roof and windows, but no damage that we can see. Haven't checked the bus yet.  

Sunset downtown Fort Collins tonight from the rooftop of Illegal  Pete's. Some artwork in downtown Fort Collins. I probably should take better photos during the day, but I liked the way these were lit. 

The aspen pieces are done. The top on Seasons has winter-fall and a fawn-buck in it. It is 17 x 7 x1 inches. It is for the Transitions glass show coming up. The Call of the Wild has an elk bugling in it and is 12 x 6 x 1 inches.  

Sunset last night from the bike path. I stopped on the way back at Old Town square to listen to the free concert and sit with Mandy, John and John.  They said the whole concert was a bit repetitive but the end that I caught was good. 

My studio exploded last night. Every surface is covered in piles. You can't even really see the 4 boxes of glycerine pine needles drying, the needles in a dye bath or there are three more tubs of needles above the work bench. I spent 4 hours of total concentration building the trees in my day/ night/yin/yang piece. Didn't get up from my chair or anything. Totally lost track of time. It is now in the kiln and I may be able to open in it in a couple hours when it cools down to look at it and start the next steps on it. 

June 12-15, 2018 Wray to Fort Collins, Colorado

Woo hoo we are back in Colorado. On the very eastern border.

Traversing south western Nebraska we  passed the Harold Warp Pioneer Village in Minden. It is supposed to be a nice museum that depicts America's progress since 1830. 50,000 historical items 28 in buildings and 350 antique automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, snow mobiles as well as 100 tractors, airplanes, early locomotives etc. Will have to stop another time, AAA says to allow 3 hours minimum. We passed the town of Funk home of the Funk Lagoon, which is a large wet land that has 1000's of migrating birds in the spring and fall. Entering Dundy county, declared livestock friendly county,  we crossed over into the mountain time zone, lost an hour, will have to be getting up earlier for the same time of day. Past Haigler in the south westernmost town in Neb, and called the CornerStone of Nebraska, into  Colorado. We are now camped in Wray, Colorado- All American city at the very eastern edge of the state at the Hitch'n post campground. It is a commercial park, nice quiet part of town, but not much shade or grass and next to some kind of heavy farm equipment place.  Nice place to stop after driving 4 hours today.

John took me out to dinner in beautiful historic downtown Wray tonight. Sunset through the farm equipment next door to  the RV park tonight. The sun turned red from all the smoke. Colorado is starting to burn up.

More sunset tonight. The lid to the basket is taking shape now. 

We drove from eastern Colorado to Fort Collins today. Eastern Colorado looks alot like Nebraska, except instead of corn as far as the eye can see it is grass and hay. 

We have never been to this part of Colorado before. We drove through Otis (with a garage sale sign on the welcome sign) and Akron. We have been below 1000 feet all winter and all of the sudden the elevation is climbing. Saw a cool bicycle sculpture in Fort Morgan and came through  Ault- a unique town. When you turn off I-25 into Fort Collins where we live the exit is Fort Collins/Ault. I always wondered what Ault was like. Now I have seen it. Driving into Fort Collins you can see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon.

Sunset tonight from old town Fort Collins. We had dinner on the patio at the Rio tonight with Jimjim. He is in town from Carbondale working on his rental just down the street from us. It was nice to see him and nice to be home. 

We finished our 8th year of living in the motorhome today. Each year is a different color. This year I used white so it would show up on the map. I quilted this map and have kept track of our travels. I am always amazed each time we come back that I have this fabulous glass studio to play in.

So far I have made a batch of earrings and am fusing a bunch of old earrings that never sold together into larger pieces to use as centers for my baskets. I sent home 37 lbs of long leaf pine needles from the south this year, plus brought home at least 15 more. So I have 50 pounds of pine needles to sort, boils some in glycerine and dye some.  The needles start like the lighter ones, then after glycerine look like the ones drying on the lawn.  Should keep me in baskets for a few years. 

I rode my bike right before sunset while it was still light. Here is the sun at that time.