Where I am

Stay-at-home Mom strikes me as a riduculous apellation when I really should be referred to as “Familial Chauffer”. Some weeks I do a crazy amount of driving for the kids. It’s a good thing I have my iPod loaded with many books and podcasts. I’m lucky too, because my husband does a big share of the driving. I know what a difference that makes because he couldn’t do much if any of the driving while we were in New Jersey. I have to keep reminding myself that we’ve only got 2 more weeks of the insane schedule and then things quiet down to a more normal and manageable routine.

I got 2 great books yesterday. The first one The Art of Jewelry: Paper Jewelry is the second in a wonderful series by Lark. They’ve really raised the bar as far as project books. This one and its predecessor The Art of Jewelry: Polymer Clay feature very contemporary art jewelry. Just the stuff that makes my socks roll up and down. LOL The paper jewelry volume definitely has ideas that can be translated to polymer clay, especially the strange new Sculpey Ultralight. It feels a bit like paper after its baked and you can do some amazing things with it, but it’s such a different feel to work with. Kind of fluffy. I’m looking forward to exploring its possibilities once I get the studio arranged.

The second book is Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. I heard Faith Middleton talking about this book on NPR last week and I had to order it. The pictures are fantastic and the recipes look even better. It’s got some killer hard work showy type desserts, but it’s also got things that seem pretty straightforward. Not that I should be baking these days.

I’ve got my metals class at the Guilford Art Center this morning. Today is week 5 out of 10. We are at the mid-point and I am still only halfway done with my intro project. Missing a week really set me back and last week I had to leave early. It’s really fun though. Linda Edwards is a great teacher and it’s a congenial group. I hope I can get into Linda’s winter class at Wesleyan Potters because I’m not going to make the one hour winding back road drive to Guilford in the snow. Wesleyan Potters is only about a half hour from me, but there’s a lottery to get into the class. If I can’t get into that class I’ll be on my own with silver until the spring.

Studio Progress:

My wonderful husband put up shelves for me over a cabinet in my primary work area and in the double closet.

So I spent some time this weekend unpacking boxes and getting things arranged in approximate order in the studio. I’ve still got loads more boxes to unpack and a bunch of rearranging as I move things into the Ikea drawer cabinet and shift beads into their new cabinet.

Bear in mind that the pictures show things in a very rough arrangement. More unpacking and substantial tweaking to come.