The week at a glance...

WEDNESDAY: morning started off with a visit to the eye doctor and getting another injection in my left eye. Sure wish the medicine would kick in and clear up the blurry vision, makes it a little difficult to work in the studio. Later that day Bryan's folks came into town.

THURSDAY: took day off for a dentist appt. which was then canceled an hour or so before the visit. So, with this extra time I ran some errands and bought some frames that we will be using as display pieces for our jewelry at the NYIGF in August. I also worked in the studio and made a new pair of earrings(to be seen below momentarily).

Well, there is always something interesting going on at the Plaza. Thursday evening we were sitting at our usual hangout(Latteland) when Elvis himself rolls up in a limousine. He was looking pretty snazzy and was gracious to pose for me. I took a couple of pics and still couldn't get a clear one, darn it.

FRIDAY: Back to work- dressed men's forms, put up shelving in Mens dept., cleaned shop, dismantled flower arrangements made the previous week. At Latteland that evening I was able to deliver to my friend Mac Tonnies a custom made alien pin.


SATURDAY: Spent morning shopping with my mom on the Plaza then back home to work in the studio. Earlier in the week I had come up with this layered flower pattern that will be eyes for a skull brooch and thought that the eye itself might make a nice earring. I plunged right in and started cutting out enough pieces for 6 pairs. After laying all the pieces out I then looked at them and wondered if I even liked it that much! Do you ever do that when designing a new piece?

SUNDAY: Breakfast with Bryan's folks before they headed back home to Manhattan(Kansas). We both then crashed for a couple of hours, takes a lot out of you having house guests. Speaking of which, all but one weekend this month we've had em!!

It's late but I have got to go watch a couple of episodes of Dark Shadows before bed.

Art Show Tent

Our new tent is in and we put it up for the first time this weekend.


We have been doing local art shows and design shows around town for some time now. Until recently our tent of choice was a pop-up style tent, (around $200 at Costco). It is quick to put up and take down, easy to carry around in the car, it isn't very water proof and the wind does knock it around quite a bit, but all in all a nice tent. However some recent circumstances have led us to believe we need a new tent. We have been trying for and getting into some bigger art fairs. We have noticed some of the other artist have very grand tents with custom features that make them look very professional. We have also noticed those tents are waterproof and seem to hold well in the wind. Last month we loaned out our tent to a friend that was doing an art show in Oklahoma. While there our little $200 tent withstood torrential downpoors with ankle deep running water and 70 mph strait line winds. Our friend added extra weight to the tent and worried about it all night. The next day our tent was one that was still standing although it did have a few tears in the side walls and everything on the inside was completely soaked. We decided that we didn't want to go through this ourselves and started the search for the perfect tent.

After much searching we decided on the TrimLine Canopy from the Flourish Company of St Paul AR. The reasons were many: it has a steel frame (heavy) both good and bad really, it has a sun roof of sorts to let more light in, vents in the top of the canopy for those really hot days, it is very customizable, and the guy I talked to on the phone seemed very knowledgeable and nice. So we ordered the tent on a Friday and it came in the very next Thursday. We assembled the tent for the first time this weekend, and this is how it went...

Stage 1:
We threw all four heavy boxes out on the back lawn opened them up and set aside the instructions. Then we contemplated the impending rain.




Stage 2
Deciding to ignore a few sprinkles we started to look for the now lost instructions. After finally finding the slightly wet instructions the rain was coming down a little harder, but is was too late, we had already started, there was no turning back. We slowly and painstakingly set out all the parts to the top of the canopy, then located the correct parts to the top of the canopy and set them out as well. Once we had the top part of the frame assembled we layed the top of the canopy over it. After taking a few minutes to admire our handy work and a brief discussion about who's idea it was to start a project like this in the rain we quickly moved on to the walls as it seemed to be raining a bit harder now and we needed shelter.




Stage 3
After searching for what seemed like hours and not finding the Easy Riser Kit we ordered with our tent we decided to put the legs on without it, Then immediately took them off sized them to the correct height and put them back on again. We were moving along at quite a fast past now, and we finally had something that would shelter us from the impending storm.




Stage 4
Now having a dry place to work we drug the wet boxes in under the canopy and zipped the walls on. This was a great time to relax in our new dry almost complete tent and contemplate extra parts. There seemed to be a disturbing number of extra parts but we soon realized in our haste to build cover from the rain we completely neglected to install the front and rear Awnings. With that mystery solved we quickly moved on to stage 5.




Stage 5
Finally we put on the front tent wall! This was the last step and cause for celebration. All in all we didn't quite get all of it put together and we got very wet but for the most part we accomplished what we set out to do, so we played around in it a little. About thirty minutes later it stopped raining and the sun came out. Not long after that we took our new tent down, now full of pride knowing that we too have a big fancy tent like all the other artists at the art fairs. Taking it down went very smoothly and quickly, and I'm sure the next time we need to put it up in the rain it will be a much smoother operation. In all I would highly recommend the TrimLine Canopy however don't bother trying to put it up for the first time in the rain.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Bryan's First Blog

First off thanks so much to my wonderful wife Andrea for such a great introduction. This is my first blog ever. Hopefully the first in a long line of fasinating stuff you never knew you wanted to know.

Andrea did a great job of introducing me, and some of you already know me, but how well do any of us really know anyone? This is your opportunity to get to know me. Not just the superficial on the serface me, but the real me. Really get to know me from the inside out. So the image below is an X-ray of my teeth taken last Friday.

Yes this is a real X-ray and yes these are my real teeth. As you can see I'm not perfect. My teeth are a bit crooked, but non of us are really perfect, we just pretend to be, at least I do anyway. If you have any questions or concerns about my well being please leave a comment and perhaps it will be the subject of my next blog.

Thank you for reading. I am looking forward to many more blogs about fasinating as yet unknown subject matter.

Bryan's art

Not too long ago Bryan (my husband & co-owner of AMUCK) had the opportunity to take a mosaic workshop at work. He made this very industrial looking frame, I LOVE it. His talent just never ceases to amaze me!

I definitely think he should do some more mosaics, don't you?


I really like these little cogs in the corner. I would also like to announce that Bryan will be doing some blogging himself right here! He just recently started a Twitter account and is very entertaining on that form so Im sure we will be seeing some funny and interesting blog posts here. Stay tuned.....

Back in the Studio

Finally got back in the studio this evening after taking a pretty long break. Since the Brookside Art fair I've been feeling really tired and a bit unmotivated to work but it is time to get back into a daily routine of making things.

This is a sterling bracelet that I made years ago and didn't like the way it turned out. I picked it up this evening and gave it a matte finish then thought that it might look cool with some disks of street sign riveted in between the hollow rivets. They are just taped on right now so i could get an idea of what it would look like. It happens quite a bit that I will make a piece, not like it, then pick up years later to change a bit and finish. So, never throw out a piece because it may just inspire you at another time.

Working on a completely new design of an alien head. This first one is going out to my friend Mac Tonnies. I hope to finish it this week , think it's looking pretty darn good so far!