4.4.2014 - Scrollwork Sugar Cookies

April 4, 2014 Jill Symons

Scrollwork Sugar Cookies
jillsymons.com

1 1/2C confectioners sugar
1 egg
1t vanilla
1t cream of tartar
2 3/4C flour
1C butter
1/2t almond extract
1t baking soda

it's not like bead making doesn't seep in to other parts of my life! I thought you might enjoy these sugar cookies - that have been a staple in my kitchen for decades!

Combine confectioners sugar with butter, then add egg & flavorings. Sift dry ingredients together then blend into butter mixture. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Lightly flour surface, roll out - adding flour as necessary to keep from sticking. Bake at 350 degrees for 7-8 minutes or until slight color is visible. Remove to cooling rack.

When cool, can be iced with a mixture of confectioner's sugar, water & vanilla extract. Thicker mixture for piping design, thinner for spreadable icing. : )

4.2.2014 - ... and the winner is...

April 2, 2014 Jill Symons

Sylvia Haydash - it's your lucky day for the drawing this week!!!

The prize is a $50 credit towards something on the site. Perhaps a pair of earrings?

Thank you everyone for participating in the Pinterest Pin It.

Jill

4.2.2014 - just bouncing around.

April 2, 2014 Jill Symons

Lately I've been thinking about the way light enters my beads and releases the colors. It seems that if you have a hard edge or a flat surface, the light spills out of the flat surface and with it comes a concentration of vivid color.

If you have a rounded edge the light gets trapped and is redirected back into the bead.

A round bead has multiple opportunities for bouncing light, adding indentations or raised dots allow the light to bounce in so many different directions - you naturally end up with a lot of sparkle. THEN... I get to thinking about what I can bury deep inside the bead to perhaps catch some more light and bounce it in a different direction! My favorite things to add to glass are copper, silver, palladium and mica.

Although sometimes the simplest things are the most beautiful...

3.26.2014 - stop to smell the roses...

March 26, 2014 Jill Symons

I am as guilty as anyone else, seeing something stunning from my car window, then not stopping to take a photo, dismissing it with "oh, I'll stop on the way back". The time is never be as good as right now. So stop, park the car, get out and grab your phone (AKA camera) one simple click & you have it.

While this post is not at all a celebration of roses or color, it's about making the time to stop and take note.

I see shadows, rhythm, pattern and joy in these photos. I can tell you exactly where they were taken & how overwhelmed I was upon discovering their 'possibility'.

Black & white strips away all the distraction of color and takes it to a raw presence of form, proportion and order. Next time, just stop.

3.20.2014 - my work is relaxing

March 20, 2014 Jill Symons

How's that for an oxymoron? Years ago I met another lampworker, Rona, who said "I get twitchy if I don't torch". I now understand her completely because it is a place to detach and lose myself. The noises are constant, the hiss of the torch and almost rhythmic sound of breathing from the oxygen concentrator - these soothing sounds allow my ideas to spill out and materialize on my mandrels.

This is a peek into one of my annealing kilns where the beads settle in while I continue to work. It's about 1000 degrees in there so the heating element is red-hot! When I'm done adding beads, it processes an annealing schedule automatically and over the next 10 hours will cool to room temperature. This process assures that the glass beads have cooled slowly, releasing the stress that builds inside the bead by allowing a very s-l-o-w & even drop in temperature.

Any questions?

3.19.2014 - hearing its voice

March 19, 2014 Jill Symons

When I receive a new glass shipment I will go through this series of steps.

For glass is malleable when heated, it can be wound, pinched, blown and molded. Some types of glass are appealing to glass artists for certain qualities, Italian soft glass likes to slowly be heated, while German soft glass can be tortured in the flame and never show signs it's not happy. Once I determine the nature of the glass as I work it in the flame, some of the things I have to decide are:

What shapes work best for this glass?
Does light allow the color to transmit easily?
Does this glass react to any other glass I have?
Can I add anything to this glass to make the glass stand out?
Is it possible to take anything away to allow the glass to stand out?

Meet "Ludia", the bead on the left, who proves that glass has other properties than just being hard and shiny. Some colors absorb other colors or if reversed, those same colors float & spread. This Lauscha Cocoa base color is an absorbing color - which leaves echoing ghostly trails of the applied color, making for finer lines and more intricate designs.

Portal Bead (shown below) - do you think beauty is as appreciated if viewed all at once? Are view snippets, revealed through small viewing portals, a better approach? To "allow" the view & "guide" the viewing.

3.9.2014 - my mom's work

March 9, 2014 Jill Symons

It's funny, with a non-traditional career no one ever really took it seriously besides me. That is - until my second son came along. This way of life and my work was all he had ever known, and I often overheard snippets of conversations about why he couldn't have me drive friends on Wednesday evenings - "because my mom has work". Having 'work' and having to work, are two very different things.

While being validated by customers is always fantastic, the same coming from your son is SO important.

I have just crested sixteen years since I melted my first rod of glass and my son is halfway to his eighteenth birthday. I can honestly say that my eagerness to light the torch and let the ideas spill out has never waned. Here's to the next sixteen!