While digging through hard drives the other day, I ran across a folder filled with some self portraits I took while trying to figure out how to do lighting. This was from April of 2004. I didn't really look at these very carefully at the time, but now that I'm seeing this one tonight, it's one of my favorite photos of myself.

While digging through hard drives, I ran across a folder filled with some self portraits I took while trying to figure out how to do lighting. This was from April of 2004. I didn't really look at these very carefully at the time, but now that I'm seeing this one tonight, it's one of my favorite photos of myself.

Most of these are photos when I was in my early 20s, just after I met Jill, as well as when we were dating. I ran across them after not knowing where these were for a long time, so I scanned em and thought some of you might like a look at the early me. Enjoy

My Mom lived on the Morongo Indian Reservation for a few years, which is where these desert photos were taken. It was on this trip that I was away from Jill and realized how much I needed her in my life. I went home, proposed, and here we are 30 years later.





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GEEK HELP! I have this mobo
It has SATA sockets. Does anyone know- do you have to use them sequentially- as in one drive into SATA0, the next thing into SATA1, the next into SATA2, etc? I'm having some really weird drive issues and wonder if this might be the problem. Figured I'd ask before I tear this pigboat down again.

These are all small samples she did when she did my bowl, trying to get an idea on how details will hold on small pieces. I'm pretty impressed. I need to see the original images she used to print these, so I can compare the original color to how it looks fused, but it's pretty cool.





























As you can see, the colors turn sort of.. what, it's not pastel per se, but sort of turns them into "earthy colors" if that makes any sense. These are all pendants, so the wire dealie at the top is the bail, so these are pretty small pieces, and I'm really impressed at how well preserved the image ended up. I think I'm on to something with this stuff.

Well, it's finally, FINALLY come true. For as long as I've been doing digital art, I've wanted to embed my artwork INSIDE glass. I've been collaborating with a local glass fusing artist, and after a year of searching and researching, we've been able to pull it off. We're adapting a process that was designed for printing artwork to be fired onto ceramics. We went back and forth with the people that print this stuff out, and it's a huge, crazy experiment. They've done printing and fusing onto glass, but it was architectural glass work, not done as fine art like this. What you see below is the first piece that came out of the kiln, and I'm blown away.

My artwork is printed onto a decal, which is printed with fine powdered glass. The decal is applied to a sheet of glass and fired in a kiln. The backing burns away, and the glass powder melts and becomes part of the glass. This is the result of the first attempt of doing this, Jill had commissioned this for our anniversary back in May, and it's taken this long to figure out how to pull it off. This is my artwork, permanantly part of a sheet of round glass, which was then slumped in the kiln on a second firing, turning the glass disc into a bowl. I can't remember off the top of my head, but this might be 8, but I think it's ten inches across.



There was no way of knowing in advance just how much light would show through, so this is the bowl held up to a light in the ceiling, and yes, light goes through it. I'm going to do some experimental burns on glass on a small scale with varying transparency of the image, which will allow more light through. My thinking is that if we can dial in the right amount of light passing through, I can do sun catchers. Or better yet- make a piece and use it as the centerpiece of a stained glass window, or even a beveled leaded glass window. I can also see doing this in a square format, and using it as the lid of a  decorative beveled leaded glass box, maybe with a mirror on the underside to reflect light upward.



I had her do a few smaller pieces, I think this pendant is 2 inches square if I remember right. I think this will work out.


The weird thing to work around is the colors. Since it's printing in glass powder with a binding agent, it's not like a regular inkjet, you're limited with the colors that can be made. Reds turn out rather odd according to the decal priting people, and it's not as vibrant as a regular print. A real mindscrew is that this is printed onto a transparent film. When you print on paper, you're depositing it onto a white background. WIth transparent glass and film, it can't print white. So everything I do has to be fused to white glass. A lighter color that's not pure white is going to have varying transparency to it. So this is a mind screw, trying to plan and figure out what's going to happen with each image as I prepare it.

Now, what you're seeing with both of these is a surface fuse. The decal is placed on top of the glass, and is burned into the top. The next experiment will be encasing it in clear glass, I want to put a sheet on top of it as you see it, which will give it depth.

Another thing I want to try is to do layers. Fuse a design onto the surface of a piece of clear glass to be the bottom. Then create another image that will float on top of it, and fuse that to a second piece.  Take the first piece, flip it upside down, so that the surface with the image is facing down, at the bottom, then flip the second piece on clear glass upside down, facing the back. Then you'll have a background, a layer of clear glass, the bottom of the top layer is next, with a layer of clear glass on top. This will add depth to it, and I suspect if i can find two images to do this with, and they work well together, the effect will ROCK. I can see a fractal spiral galaxy floating over a starfield on the bottom layer. Or, if the glasses are compatible, which is crazy to find out there's so many types of glass compounds that aren't compatible, float a design over a piece of cool stained glass, or for a small piece like a pendant, over a piece of dichroic glass. I think her kiln is large enough that if I were to come up with a mold to slup the glass over, I could even do art glass sit-on-the-bathroom-counter artglass sink bowls. Or artglass birdbaths. Or artglass lampshades. Dude. This is mindboggling.

I had the glass artist I'm collaborating with do a few test pieces with photographs on small pendants, and they came out beautifully. So, I'll be able to offer photos in glass. I can place a couple's wedding photo into glass, do the same thing for an anniversary gift,  and fuse it into a commemorative plate. Or create various photo based items- family group photos on a plate, pets, diplomas, anything that can be printed can be fused into glass. The possibilities are endless.

I think I'm going to experiment with my fractal snowflakes- they'd be cool as a pendant, but could also be done as a really cool bowl for the Holidays. Or make a wreath similar to this design, but make it green, and add some ornaments to it, and make a Christmas wreath bowl. Honestly, my brain is running in overdrive thinking of all the uses of this.

So there you have it. This has been a year and a half in the making, and there are physical pieces made. I have yet to see these in person, all I have is these photos she took and emailed me. I'm heading over to her studio on Wednesday to pick them up and check out the other test firings she's made. Colors of real world things are sort of odd color wise judging from the photos, but that could have been the lighting or reflections making it sort of off. But since my stuff is abstract, and if you don't know what the original looked like, you'd never know.

Judging from the rave reviews from the people that have seen these photos, I've already got two people that want to order one for themselves, and they haven't been given any indication of the price. And to me, that's a very, very  good sign. The bowls will not be inexpensive, as the costs to make them is pretty high, but sometimes owning something unique and beautiful should hurt a little bit in order to own one.

I think I'm finally on to something cool with these. Color me geeked. :)

I just launched a new website, inviting musicians to download his writings and put it to music, in hopes of selling said tunes to raise some money for my brother, Greg. He's spiraling downward very rapidly, and if something magical doesn't happen soon, he'll be out of his home and living on the street. If that's the case, he told me, point blank, that he'll go for a long walk out into the desert and let nature do it's thing. He's very close to the end of his days, and I can't bear the thought of his last days being spent freaking out and worrying about being able to continue doing landscape work to keep a roof over his head.

This is just so messed up.. some of you recall he awoke one morning in a writing frenzy, frantically writing out all these words that were in his head when he woke up. That was over a year ago, and it's taken until the other day to finally crack open that notebook and read his thoughts. I've scanned the pages and have put it online, linked in the sidebar of this new website.

I wish I could figure out a better way of helping him out, but at the moment, this is the best I could come up with at the moment. If you know of any musicians, please spread the word. Hell, spread the word anyplace you can think of, I really need to get the word out on this project. The internet can be a powerful thing, there are so many networks going that can be a huge help when it comes to this sort of thing. Exposure, exposure, exposure is what's going to help make this happen for him.

I've already gotten a few nods from friends of friends of mine, a few are professional singer songwriters, so that's a good start. But it would rock for Greg to be able to see total strangers jumping in to lend a hand. He's not going to be around too much longer at this rate, he's overdue to have surgery again, this time to remove cancerous patches in his throat, and they fear that when they cut, it's going to spread all over the place.. so yeah, it's grim, and I'm trying to make the time he has left as good as it can possibly be. I can't fix him, I can't make him better, but I can at least try to make his time here a little bit easier.

You can download his writings and read them, as I scanned his hand written notes. There's a link in the sidebar to download them, and when music comes in, it'll be linked in the sidebar as well. Please help spread the word, I'd greatly appreciate it.

http://songsformybrother.com/

Threading the Red Needle.
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