The Show Must Go On

And so it did! Thank you so much to everyone who helped make Apparatus of Play a success. It was a great learning experience to put up my first solo show, but hey, that's what college is for, right? So, I will take you through a mini-tour of the show via pictures and I will upload video in the near future.

This was the first piece you saw when you walked in the door. It's title is And Time Creeps On and On Like a Slinky Attached to a Windshield Wiper. The Slinky is roughly 4 1/2 feet long and is powered, as the title suggests, by a windshield wiper motor.

This little guy is called The Battle of Four Corners. Its a steel frame with plastic army men inside. About 9 inches square, hangs on the wall.

This is Contemplation Chair (On the Other Hand). It is a found chair with a Slinky on it. You're supposed to sit in the chair, hold the Slinky, and contemplate life.

This sculpture is entitled Heaven. I found the gear in a dumpster a few months ago, put glass panes on either side and filled it with 144 marbles. It also hangs on the wall.

This is Heaven's companion piece. It is called Labyrinth and is made from stone, bronze, and dross. The dross represents the damned who are esteemed as dross and cast out to wander forever under the watchful gaze of Cerberusaurus, the three-headed dinosaur.

This was a favorite at the show. Nappy Noah is a 32 x 42 inch replica of the old Wooly Willy toys. I changed it to be me so it would be a self-portrait of sorts. It really has iron filings and a magnet wand so you can change the facial hair. Man, I look good with a beard.

Parachute Soldier. This is a bronze cast from a paratrooper toy. He hangs helplessly on the board, as his parachute has been caught on the nails in back.

This is a funny one. It is called Permanent Record (GPA 1-12) and it is a Slinky graph of my academic performance from first through twelfth grade.

This is Slinky Self Portrait. This was on display by itself in January, but fit wonderfully into the show. It is 5'11" high and wide (my height and arm span) and has Slinky toys strung across it. The Slinky toys are picked music box style by a steel bar at the bottom. Really fun to watch.

And last, but not least, When Enough is Never Enough. There are four little bronze paratroopers dangling from a real live parachute. They are kept aloft and twirl around because of the breeze from the fan underneath, and occasionally they will ping together.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the virtual picture tour of my show. I will have video up in a week or so, depending on how quickly I edit and compress everything. Have fun until then!

Museum of Glass Red Hot Juried Art Auction

The other day, my good friend and potter extraordinaire Katie Jahner tipped me to a show at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA--the Museum of Glass Red Hot Juried Art Auction. It looked really interesting (and it was free to enter) so I put together an application and sent it off. I entered the piece you see above, Reflections of a Parallel Universe. This was a really fun piece to make, and I'm glad that it will soon be at a show where many people can see it and be able to buy it.
I started out with this piece by sculpting a head out of clay. I then made a mold of the head and cast it in wax. I used the wax, in turn, to make a special plaster mold that would stand up to the intense heat of glassblowing. I then took a hot gob of glass and blew it into the mold, thereby recreating the head I had sculpted in a hollow bubble of glass (Shortly after I blew this head in the mold, the mold broke, so it is the only one of its kind!)
My roommate at the time had recently taken a class where they mirrored the inside of a flask with silver nitrate. I contacted his professor and his TA's were kind enough to show me the reaction and let me perform it on this glass head. I now had a clear glass head mirrored on the inside with silver. I mounted the head inside a hexagonal box that I made and it was done!

Well, I'm excited to box this bad boy up and send him off to Washington, but sad to see him go at the same time. I'll let you know how the show goes in September.

Blown glass

In addition to beads, I also blow glass. When Krista came over to take pictures of our recent bead work, we talked her into taking pictures of my blown glass items. Here they are:

More (cooler) beads

I thought these beads (and the pictures of them) were so cool they deserved their own post. They were created with ivory glass and silver. The glass has a very strong reaction with the silver and creates an intricate webwork of lines and colors. The largest bead in the set is average marble size (maybe 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch in diameter). Krista, our photographer, pulled out all the stops (and the macro rings) to get these shots, and they turned out awesome! Enjoy.

And now, the beads...

As promised, I am posting more from our photo shoot with Krista Wahlquist. There are some really good shots in this group (because Krista is a really great photographer). We will be at the Provo Farmer's Market every Saturday through October, so you should come check these out in the flesh! The Market is located at 100 South and 500 West, Provo, UT. It runs from 9-2 every Saturday, so come check it out!

This is a piece we made for a show in the Covey Center for the Arts, Dreaming of Spring. It has over 20 handmade glass beads with sterling silver beads and findings.

This is a closeup of a floral pendant. I make these in all colors and sizes, but this one was the best example. The pendant is only about the size of a penny or a nickel, so you can see the huge amount of detail for such a small space.

This is a set of blue charms. The fourth bead from the left is a floral bead. With the charms, we string a lampworked bead with some accents on a headpin. These charms are extremely versatile and work great as pendants, as matching sets, on chain, on cord, on necklaces, bracelets or earrings.

Here is an example of two sets of charms: one purple and blue, one pink and green.

Some charms on a loose, dangly bracelet.


This is a great example of some of the new necklaces we are making. We cluster 4-7 charms together on a chain to create a unique sort of pendant. Because the beads are constantly rolling over each other and changing positions, the necklace never looks the same way twice.


This is a necklace we made with opalescent green glass mixed with adventurine.

This is an example of some of the different, fun types of beads we make (L to R): landscape, apple, hollow heart, pig, bird, turtle, pumpkin, tree, turtle, candy.

A close up of some of our birds. These are very popular.

This is a multi-strand necklace with ten purple on purple glass beads. Thanks to Becky for being the model.

This is a fun necklace that combines glass, wood, chain, ribbon, and pearls.

This is a really cool necklace that I made for Becky for Christmas two years ago. There are three pieces: a bracelet, a shorter necklace and a longer necklace. Each component can be worn separately, or they can be linked together to create a really long necklace. Nearly infinite combinations!

Here is a closeup of the bracelet that goes with the above necklace.

Here is a fun necklace with green and purple glass beads, pearls, chain, and ribbon.

Beads, beads, the magical fruit....

So we have begun another year of the Provo Farmer's Market and all that that entails. I'm really excited about it this year. We have a really great market manager and a really great booth. All winter, I've been making beads and stockpiling them like a squirrel so that we would have a good inventory. Last week, however, my wife and I realized that we had no pictures of any of our recent works, so we called up our good friend Krista Wahlquist to take some pictures for us in exchange for some jewelry. Here is a taste of our wares via her lens:

Great job. Top notch. That being said, you should come visit our booth and see all this stuff in person at the Provo Farmer's Market every Saturday through October from 9am to 2pm. The market is held at Pioneer Park, 500 West Center, Provo, UT. You should come and bring a friend.

Red Herring

I am currently part of a group show at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. The show is entitled Red Herring and it is all about false starts, misleading clues, and visual puns. If you're in Provo, UT, you should check it out. It's on the 4th floor in the Juvenile Literature section (south end of the building). It will be up until April 30th, so everyone should take a look!