Glass Art in Richmond

These are called Macchia. They look like giant, variegated flowers.

Boats filled with blown glass, and globes that float.

WARNING: THIS STORY IS JUST AN EXCUSE TO POST SOME COOL PICTURES

Chad and I drove to Richmond Tuesday night to see the exhibit of glass art by Dale Chihuly. We fell into thick traffic as soon as we crossed the bay, and a 6-mile back-up at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. So, rather than wait in a nail-biting line, we bailed out and ate a leisurely meal at Nara Sushi, our favorite across-the-bay restaurant. Good stuff. I drank a large sake, which probably wasn't a great idea. But it seemed appropriate at the time. Gridlock! Ugh.

Finally the traffic cleared and we flew up the highway to Richmond. We stayed with Chad's brother, Landon, whose wife is a docent at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. As a volunteer and member, she was able to get us free tickets to the Chihuly exhibit.

A small part of the Persian ceiling.

Chad blew through it in 5 minutes, clearly uninterested, and headed up to the Asian Art section. But I was captivated. Glass in all its forms fascinates me. Although Chihuly has shown his work in Tidewater, I wasn't able to see it then. So for me, the Richmond display was a "can't miss" opportunity.

Entering the exhibit, you encounter two boats filled with blown glass on a black, reflective riser. Intense light on the brightly colored glass made the tendrils vibrate like living things in the darkness. Stunning. As good as it gets in the basement of an urban building. But I would have liked to see them floating in a lake, as they were shown in a video at the end of the exhibit.

Then visitors walked beneath the "Persian" ceiling--clear glass above your head, layered with 1,000 pieces of blown glass. I felt like I was under some very crowded water. Every square inch was different from the next. Just moving all these pieces to the museum must have been a monumental job.

A wall of Navajo blankets lined the next room, and the glass bowls there were inspired by Native American baskets. Beige. Subtle. Gorgeous and very different from the rest of his work.

The biggest room housed a huge collage called the Torcello Lagoon. I don't know how many hundreds of different objects were used to make the piece, but it looked like a jumble to me. If you spent lots of time looking at the smaller groupings or individual pieces of glass, there were some beautiful pieces. But I didn't think it held together as a whole--no big picture, just a lot of little scenes crammed next to each other. I'm sure Chihuly fans will wail disapproval of this critique. But the Lagoon felt more like a crowd scene than an underwater garden.

Finally, Richmond's exhibit displayed a room filled with tall blue glass reeds embedded in driftwood. In contrast to the Lagoon, it was peaceful. Calm. Refreshingly un-jiggly. My sister-in-law didn't like the reeds, but I thought they were awesome.

So...what would I give to work with molten glass and make stupendous stuff like this? Another lifetime. Not an arm and a leg, though, because then I wouldn't be able to manipulate the "metal" (as molten glass is called). Chihuly himself did very little of the actual glass blowing. He had a large team to help, since he lost one eye and injured his shoulder.

He's a pretty funny looking guy. Stocky, with curly grey hair and a black eye patch. The museum is selling some of his work, and the docents say the VMFA wants to beat the number sold in Boston--seven, at more than $7,000 each. I hope they reach their goal. I like to think of a team of glass artists making money. It has a wishful feel.

 

Low Tide, Wider Beaches



Winter sunset in Cape Charles. But the sand spit is still covered with water, so the tide isn't all that low.

 Thanksgiving weekend jiggled with activity for the Mason Ave. merchants, thanks--in part--to the annual Artisans Guild studio tour. This year, the Guild had "passports" to stamp in each venue, with prizes for guests who visited the most tour stops. So people who would not normally do the whole tour made an effort to go to more studios.

In my shop, art lovers swirled around, recognizing the work of other Guild members who show in my store. It was interesting to see how familiar the crowd was with Mary Miller's work, and Kitty McCarthy, and Dan Weeks and Dan Bowen.

People from Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, New Jersey and Tidewater left their passports with me, and most of them were full of stamps. They had traveled from Chincoteague to Cape Charles, enjoying the Shore and buying local art.



Low tide at the old ferry dock.

Pretty cool. But, by the end of the tour, I was exhausted. So, yesterday, I rode my bike along the waterfront, enjoying the quiet. I examined the north end of the town beach and the area behind Seabreeze Apartments, which had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

To my surprise, the northern beaches were much wider than they had been. The dunes had been cut back by wave action, but apparently the sand washed down onto the nearby shallows. People say the new Wave Attenuating Devices off shore didn't work because one of the Seabreeze buildings was undermined during the hurricane. But I'm guessing that, in the long term, that beach grows wider and firmer with each tide.

I didn't look for glass. I don't know why. There certainly was a long stretch of sand that usually is underwater. The moon, nearly full, hovered on the eastern horizon, masked by haze. Then the sun set, and it was time to go home.

Sometimes I wonder why people--including myself--become obsessed with Cape Charles. It's like Brigadoon, a magic town wrapped in a bubble, out of step with ordinary time. The tides roll in and out, the sun sets, the moon rises, beaches shift and seaglass pops up like gems from the bay. And we, the lucky few who live here, have no daily traffic jams, no malls, no high rises or billboards between us and the horizon.

Sometimes I talk about leaving. But I probably never will. Who willingly abandons magic?

Mary Miller--Generic Genius

Mary with some of the glass creations she sells at Cape Charles Beachglass & Stories

Some of us bloom earlier than others. Mary Miller--whose talents span fields as diverse as fashion, writing and community leadership--points to fishing lures as her childhood introduction to commerce.

"My brother made some flies, and I set up a marketing program to sell them," she said. Mary and her brother wrote to local fishermen, or called them, and sold every one.

 "I love retail. I love commerce. It made me a 5-year-old capitalist."

Mary insists that she learned everything she knows about business by playing store in kindergarten. The children created knickknacks out of buttons and whatever could be scraped together after WWII.

"I learned how to figure out what people wanted, how to get it, how to display it, how to restock and still make a profit," she said. "That's business."

Miller trained as a theater designer, took courses at seven different fashion and art schools in New York City, and even studied pre-law.

"You run a business, you ought to know contract law," she insisted.

Her designer wearables were marketed through the American Craft Council, the Smithsonian, and in arts venues from Maine to California. So how did she end up on the Eastern Shore of Virginia?

"There was an ad in the Wall Street Journal that said, 'Tired of the fast lane? Send for our free brochure.' The brochure was blurred and runny, but we found a house that we wanted. That was 30 years ago," she said.

Now, Mary and her husband David Handschur live in Eastville and run The Gallery at Eastville. For 10 years she has been organizing the Artisans Guild Open Studio Tour (which, by the way, is a blast). The first year, she expected 30 people to attend the tour, and got 300. Participation has grown steadily since then.

This year, as usual, the tour will start the day after Thanksgiving and run all weekend.  Twelve artisans will open their shops to the public, as well as Chatham Vineyards. Mary is already getting calls from customers, asking what kind of soup she is making.

It's always good.

Another Day on the Beach



Many sets of footprints at the tideline. But I already have my beachglass stash.

My husband Chad took one look at me--languishing in the shop on a glorious day--and said,

"You need to get out into the sun."

Oh, hell yeah. He took over the store and I grabbed a bag, hopped on my bike and headed for the beach. After Hurricane Sandy and the nor'easter, the snapping blue sky sang to me of easier days.

The ride got scary in the usual place. The bend in Old Cape Charles road is completely blind from both directions, and usually crowded with pick-ups, concrete plant employees racing to or from work, and delivery trucks. It's been partially improved with a shell path (I worry about my tires) but the path isn't complete. So there's no option but to brave the blind curve, unless you want to walk the bike in the grass--which I do sometimes, when the trucks are thick.

Once off the main road, the ride gets pretty. Fall blooming azaleas, pines and towering magnolias, late roses, and then, the beach.

I wasn't surprised to find ten people stalking the tideline, looking for beachglass. It was a gorgeous day, and Blue Heaven is no longer a secret. But I gave up on finding glass, and focused on taking pictures. I didn't even look for shells.

Suddenly, Erin Harvey swooped by in his kite boat. It doesn't go very high--maybe 100 feet. Probably less. But it gets high enough to see the sandbars glittering amber beneath the sea green water. They're so beautiful! Like a wrinkled, golden carpet spread from the beach to the deep, twinkling with waving sunlight.

I know this because Erin took me up in his kite-boat last Spring. I'll never forget his kindness, or the intense beauty of the flight. To get above the shoreline--not jet height, but just high enough to see the sweep of the land, and the roll of the bay--is an experience I will always treasure. For this picture, Erin slowed almost to a stop, coming so close I could have run out to touch him.

The rest of the trip was meditative. It's interesting to see the repairs to the golf course. Sandy ripped through Blue Heaven's dunes, sweeping the sand out onto the beach. The beach itself is much wider. But the golf course took a beating.

So! My friend--mystery writer Tom--says I need to decide what I want to write about in this blog. I can't describe too many trips to the beach, because that would get boring. But be assured, I'm riding out there every chance I get. Hopefully I will find some glass, but if I don't....well, such is life. I need to look up from the sand and keep my focus on the bigger picture, anyway.

The Frugal Silversmith

"Don't waste anything!"

That's what my Mom, the teacher, would say. She saved egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, styrofoam of every description--anything that could be used by her young students for art projects. Clothing passed from our neighbor's daughter to me, to my younger sister, and then to our cousins (if they weren't ruined). Mom considered wasting resources a sin. Literally.

So what do I do with pieces of silver left over from other projects? Use them! Sometimes, the accidental, zen-like quality of a "leftovers" creation is more interesting than an intentional design. And silver is an expensive medium, not one you want to throw away casually. Some businesses buy leftover silver (and silver dust--you should see how much dust I've saved over the years). But they don't pay anything close to what I buy it for. So I'd rather use it.

First, I search through my leftovers to see what might work with a certain piece of glass. For this project, I also had a carved bone, crystal and turquoise necklace that didn't have a pendant, because a customer had bought the glass and rejected the "chain."  The chunky turquoise pieces prevented any of my already made pendants from sliding into place, so I needed to make something with a big loop if I were going to get any use out of the necklace.

This morning, I sifted out some oddly shaped silver and rearranged it several times to see what would work. Several of the cool leftovers--wave-shaped pieces that I had melted or otherwise ruined over the years--just didn't fit. I really wanted to use the waves, and a snaky piece of hammered wire that looked great on the glass, but they didn't gel with the emerging pendant.

I sawed off some jutting points and joined the frame with hard solder. Hard solder melts at a higher temperature than easy solder. Using it on the frame made it possible to do the four additional solders without melting the joints on the frame.

It needed to be drilled so I could make the all-important large hanging loop. Then there were hours of filing, soldering, and shaping the metal with an 80-grit radial bristle on my handy dandy flex shaft grinder. I usually wear a mask and magnifying lenses while grinding. My husband says I look like Darth Vader.

Finally, I set the glass in the prongs. In this case, it didn't fit the way I had intended, so I turned it upside down. That worked.

Now, I have an odd but oddly lovely necklace to offer my customers. Did I design it? Yes and no. I rode the flow, and it worked.  This time.

Back in the Store

Elections completed. Status quo established. Time to get ready for the Artisans' Guild yearly studio tour on Thanksgiving weekend.

Twenty local artisans sell their work in my shop. Not all of them are juried members of the Artisans' Guild, but many are. One thing I'm proud of: that my store puts money into the hands of talented Eastern Shore of Virginia artists and crafters. It's hard to make a living anywhere, but here--where the population is thin and prices for art are low--it can be a super challenge.

Eleven studios and one winery are open for the tour this year. My studio is located in my store, so it's always open. But most of these artists work in their homes, and it's a treat to see their shops and what they produce in them.

It's a free, self-guided tour (you follow a map), so it can be a leisurely toodle through the Shore or a dash to see how many studios you can visit. Most of the artisans will have snacks for their guests. Mary Miller brags that her customers call in advance to see what kind of soup she is making.

Meanwhile, I'll be working up a storm, trying to get as much unusual jewelry made as I can. It should be a fun weekend.

Making Stuff

Today, I am making a beachglass mobile.  Funny, how I focused on collecting the big pieces, at first. But it's the smaller ones that make better jewelry. The gorgeous large chunks are pretty much gone from the beach, now. So I guess it's my duty to make stuff with them.

Stuff....

Years ago--probably as much as 20 years ago--Jim Wells died. He was a handsome man, very smart. He created the Seagate Bed and Breakfast with Chris Bannon, adding the visual artistry that made the building beautiful.

Jim cared about his community, and served on the town planning commission. I was a reporter back then, covering the news with a mixture of aggression and regret. He saw how I felt...he SAW me. Even dying of lymphoma, he could see beyond himself, which is something so few of us do, so seldom.

One day, near the end, I went to visit him. Jim was about to be hit with another round of home-administered chemotherapy. An "infusion." He had minutes to talk. It would be our last interaction.

Sitting on his front porch, Jim tried to encourage me, to give me strength to do a job for which I was emotionally unsuited. But the shadow of death, and the tsunami of drugs had clouded his mind. Everything he said boiled down to the word "stuff."  Stuff, stuff, stuff. He wanted to say something important, to be kind to me one last time, but the words had dissolved into darkness. "Karenindistinctmumble, and stuff."

Stuff. The last word to crystalize in a fading mind; blowing, like salt, though the latticework of life. And what do I do for a living? I make stuff.

After Hurricane Sandy--when I agonized over the possibility of losing all my stuff--I wonder how useful my efforts are. And not just mine. The whole Stuff Mentality needs to be questioned.

I did, however, spend the storm getting the art out of the flood zone. I guess that says something about how I feel about art. Beautiful things make me happy. I love sunsets and shimmering waves and bold paintings and just about anything made out of  beachglass. So, stuff may come and go, but if it's beautiful, it has meaning.