April 11, 2017 Shoshone, Tecopa and the Kingstons, California

We took a drive around the back side of Tecopa, we had never been that way before. We found the Wild Hot Spring. It was lovely, just us out in the desert on BLM land and free.

Then we took a ride up into the Kingston Mountains. Yellow flowering bush, Dork Rock, two photos of purple sage. We went to the Kingstons to see if the Nolina’s were blooming. They were. Here I am with one. The bloom is as tall as I am. Beautiful.

Hedgehogs , yellow blooming bush and barrel cactus. 

 A tall blooming yucca with purple flowers. Hedgehogs and red flowers, a mallow bloom filled up with a bee, cholla with purple flowers.

Blooming nolina with purple and yellow flowers. The view back toward Tecopa, Shoshone and Death Valley on the way back.

Cactus and flowers on the way back.

Hillsides of yellow brittle bush.

Naked mountains over blooming creosote bushes.  On the way home we stopped at Steak andBeer for dinner.

We had a wonderful dinner of steaks. We first had Sara sit with us while waiting for take out and then Amy and Nation having dinner. Great day. Nolina, barrel cactus and Palmer’s penstemons.

Tecopa painted on the side of the hot spring, hedgehog cactus and the tall blooming yucca.

April 7-9, 2017 Shoshone, California

Very windy again and in the 80’s.

John hiking up to the Slot Canyon. Seen in Tecopa- a Rockin’ Chair, a two headed golf cart, a Tecopa bomber- a HUGE fly that bites really hard and a petrified frog. The frog seems to have perished in the running position. 

 John helping George take down an old antenna from his roof before the wind blows it down onto his house.  Ila caught this gopher snake afterwards and returned it to a wilder place.

Judy and I took a pastel drawing class on Saturday. Donna the instructor and Toni working by the pupfish pond. My first two attempts. The second one was too pretty to mess up trying to do the trees.

Me with my third masterpiece. Notice that I have pastel all over me. Donna helping Judy with her piece.

Donna sold me these seed beads that belonged to an artist friend of hers who passed away. 100 colors of tiny seed beads. I will have to get more serious with my bead weaving with all of these. I am declaring this basket- Love nest done. It has a center made from an abalone shell with love birds carved into it and a couple moon stones on the edge. It is 9 x 9 x 2 1/4 inches.

 Also finished this frog basket. John has not come up with a name for it yet. The center is an onyx frog with green needles, that will eventually turn brown and some green beads.  it is 9 1/4 x 9 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches.  I was trying for earth tones in these two.  The desert golds are still going strong around Shoshone. These are on our afternoon hike.

Judy, Sue and John having dinner on our patio by the bus in front of Judy’s house. We had left over pizza from Furnace Creek for the third  time. We are almost done with it, only two pieces left now.

April 3-6, 2017 Furnace Creek Inn, Death Valley, California

In the morning before we went to Furnace Creek Inn was lovely.

I took a nice hike along the Amargosa river trail. The mesquite bushes are spring green with new leaves. The beaver tail cactus are almost neon they are so bright.

Yellow flowers, white flowers, a shot up enamel pot and yellow flowers, tamarisk blooms over the river, white flowers and pink primroses in the garden at Furnace Creek Inn.

My sister's husband’s son Jon and his family met us at Furnace Creek Inn in Death Valley. A desert oasis. We had this great room for the first night.

With this terrace and garden view. Very nice.

We spent the afternoon at the pool. Our room is on the other side of those palm trees. There were only 6 seats left for dinner. Judy, Laurie, Benjamin, Jacob, Sabine and Jon going in for dinner.

 John and I went down to the Corkscrew saloon at the ranch for popcorn and beer for dinner. Also wine and chicken fingers. Judy and Sue in the garden at Furnace Creek Inn.

Judy and Sue in the garden again. We had pizza for dinner on the deck outside our suite on the 4th floor  the second night. Judy, Jon, Sabine, Benjamin, Jacob and John. 

The sunset view was sensational in both directions that night from the deck.

Early morning light on the Panamint mountains and a view of the garden from our suite.  The Inn was so full we were lucky to get a room at all. We lucked out with two very nice rooms.

Sabine, Benjamin and Jacob out for a morning stroll and wild horses we saw on the way back to Shoshone. 

March 29- April 2, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada

The next masterpiece started. An onyx frog as a center and some green glycerined needles. We went on a hike around the loop with Judy before we left for Las Vegas for the Glass expo. Here she is in a field of wildflowers. We drove to Vegas at the beginning of the wind storm.

John and I drove to Las Vegas so I could attend the Glass Craft and Bead expo. There was a tremedous wind and dust storm, up to 50 mph gusts.  We could not see much of anything from the hotel window.  People in the elevator who did drive through it told of broken windshieds and a blown over semi. I took a class Thurs evening till 930 Pm  with Cheryl Frech on use of  satin shimmers, sepia and dichroic slides (decals). Here is Cheryl doing a demo and the before and after of my class projects.  I got up before dawn the next day to take another class. The dust storm went away, but there was still wind. Here is the view of Red Rock canyon to the west from our hotel room.  Since classes started at 8 am I got a room at the casino where the expo is.

On Fri I took a class  called Learn half –tone and dithered processes for glass from Liz Haas.  We learned how to turn photos into sand blasting stencils and how to sand blast them onto glass. Here is Liz in the dress and boots working with us on sand blasting our pieces. I had seirous blaster envy over these units,- I could pick one up as a show special for only around $5,700.  My  piece at the top after I blasted it with the stencil still on it and in the middle after I painted it  and removed the stencil. It looks better with the light shining through it. The bottom one is the piece Jill who sat next to me made. Great class. I spent the afternoon at the exhibit hall and viewed new products and sales. The photo shows the exhibit hall over the Gallery of Excellence. The pieces shown  in this photo were made by high school students. The lower pieces were made by a professional –Eli  Mazet  in the blown and flame worked catagory.  I only bought a few things at the show. . .

Bob was helping us make spiral pendants in the Cress Kiln booth. They heated up strips of glass piled up and at 1400 degrees dropped the bottom of the kiln down and we grabbed them with pliers and rolled them up.  I love these kilns too.  I got this pendant free if I made another for someone else.  Also at the casino was a western horse show in three indoor arenas and a bowling tournament. By the bowling allies was a few exhibits from the International Bowling Museum. There is a photo of a mummy wrapped with a bowling ball and the history of bowling shoes. It was an interesting mix of people, glass artists, cowboys and bowlers plus the gamblers. 

Here are some of the beads I bought for baskets. I love the little glass animal beads, cats, dogs, turtles and giraffs.  I also bought some dichro on sale and a sheet of decal paper for cutting my own decals.  I got this Kiss my Glass shirt free from a booth just by  looking up the facebook page for Glass Campus and telling them their logo and while I was there I joined their group.

On Saturday I took an 8 hour class called the BlueBird of Happiness from Peter McGrain. We learned the Vitri-Fusaille  Technique. Here is Peter helping one of the students with her piece. These are two glass paintings that Peter did that were showing at the Wissmach glass booth at the  show. The second one  is bigger but was not lit as well. It is called Party Animals. 

The class lined up at our kilns programing them and Peter in the background instructing us. My master piece looked like this. The first photo is the cut glass pieces before firing. The next  is it red hot in the kiln. The next one is after the third firing. I  traced in black around it, fired it and   the next step was to add the shadows and fire it again. The last photo is with the highlight layer painted on. It needs to be fired and I was not going to be around the next day to pick it up after it was fired overnight, so I took it home and will fire it when I make it back to my kiln in Colorado.  It was a really fun class. I am looking forward to getting into my studio and working on all these new things I learned.

Flowers on the loop trail above Shoshone. The frog basket is progressing.