Oh my goodness, it has been so long since I updated here. But now that the crazy Fall/Holiday selling season is over, I can sit down, take a breath, and give this blog a little love.

The latter part of 2009 was good to Colour and Light. I did reasonably well at the events I attended (particularly the 15-day Holiday Marketplace in December), I made some online sales, I sold my ENTIRE inventory of soap just before Christmas, and most importantly, I quit my day job!!

I’m very excited about what 2010 has to offer…an entire new year in which I can devote my full time energy to my business! This means that doing shows with (gasp) reserve inventory will hopefully become the norm rather than a fond wish.

I need to set some goals. I want to do some spring shows, maybe some outdoor stuff in the summer, and I’m planning on applying to some of the “big” local shows for the fall. Hopefully I’ll get accepted! I’ve also got some custom work on my plate already, which is great. Need to think about whether this is the time to approach shops, or if I should sit on that until next year, or maybe just later this year. Not sure. I’ve also got some ideas for new creative things to try with my art, and I’m pretty excited about that.

But 2010 isn’t going to be ALL about the business. I’m also looking forward to finding some time to take better care of myself, and I’m stoked about doing some actual gardening this year…not much planned for the front yard this season, but we have one raised bed in the backyard that is waiting for spring. Gotta make a garden plan. I want to grow some food! I’m also going crazy thinking about experimenting with cheesemaking, and a cookbook I received as a Christmas gift is making me want to try curing and smoking my own bacon. It doesn’t get any better than that.

So, I wish all of you a happy 2010!

I have been so busy working in the studio lately that I have been neglecting my blogging duties. But now I am here to say that there is another craft show coming up where you can have a chance to see Colour and Light!

Edelweiss Holiday Craft Sale
Sunday, November 29, 2009 from 10am-4pm
Edelweiss Tavern, 600 Doon Village Road in Kitchener

I hope to see you there!

I also have several new items in both my Etsy and ArtFire shops, so please check them out!

And finally, I wanted to say that the lovely folks at CanArtisan wrote a very nice feature article about me last week! Go here to check it out, and have a look at the rest of the blog while you’re at it to learn all about fantastic Canadian artisans online.

Here are two new Etsy listings for your viewing pleasure:

So! It is that time of year again, and by that I mean November and by that I mean it’s time once again for the KWLT and FASS Free Theatre Workshop Series!!

I am once again running my Stage Management workshop, this time on Wednesday November 11th at 7pm, taking place at Kitchener-Waterloo Little Theatre at 9 Princess Street East in Uptown Waterloo. So come on out and learn everything you ever wanted to know about stage management for community theatre, but were afraid to ask!

Click HERE to get more info and check out the other great workshops that are taking place too!

It’s almost time for my next event!

The Ninth Annual Frederick Art Walk
Saturday, November 7th from 10am-5pm

The Frederick Art Walk is a 2km walking tour through one of Kitchener’s oldest neighbourhoods. Participants can enjoy the beauty of a fall day and the pleasure of exquisite artwork, in a setting of grand maple trees and century-old homes. The 2009 Art Walk will feature an amazing array of works including fabric art, paintings, chocolate, photography, pottery, stained glass art, sewing crafts, tile work, and jewellery.

I will be exhibiting at 60 Chapel Street. I hope to see you there!

It is now less than a week until the Central Art Walk! Mark your calendars!

Central Art Walk Studio Tour & Sale
Saturday, October 24th, 2009 from 10am-5pm

The Central Art Walk is a yearly studio tour and sale in the beautiful Kitchener neighbourhoods bounded by King, Victoria, Weber, and Union streets. Come visit, and get a chance to see artists in their own studios, displaying fine art, jewellery, paintings, food, photography, pottery, glass, collage and fibre arts.

I will be exhibiting my stained glass and handmade soap in my home at 30 Peltz Avenue.

Click HERE for more information. You can download maps and flyers! I hope to see you on Saturday!

Well, it is official!! As of October 1st, I no longer have a day job. When someone asks me what I do for a living, I can’t say, “research chemist” anymore. I’m a full-time artist!

So, I’m working from home now. Things have been going pretty well so far. I’m still trying to find a routine, and clearly I need to learn to strike a balance between what I think I should be able to get done in a day, and what I can actually get done in a day…the new rule is that the to-do list for any individual day isn’t allowed to be longer than the single page in my daytimer. Anything more than that just ain’t gonna happen!

But, I’ve been productive, and in addition to preparing for my upcoming events, I’m working on ramping up both my Etsy and ArtFire shops in preparation for the gift-giving season. In that spirit, here are some new listings for you to peruse!

A bunch of new Caffeine pieces:

And some other things:

You may notice that all of the links above are to my ArtFire shop. Each of the above items is also available in my Etsy shop if you prefer that site…but honestly, I am liking ArtFire more and more as time goes on. For instance, they have introduced the ability to create cool things like coupon codes and gift certificates!

Speaking of coupon codes, I have always said that local buyers shouldn’t have to pay for shipping since I’m happy to make deliveries with Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and Guelph. It was a bit of a chore with Etsy, since the buyer had to pay the shipping fee when checking out, requiring me to manually refund the shipping through PayPal. But now that ArtFire has coupon codes, it’s easier for everyone! So, if you’re local to me and would like to buy something from my ArtFire shop, contact me prior to making your purchase and I’ll send you the coupon code! (I am not going to post it publicly here, since it is meant only for local folks.)

Of course, if you see something you like in either of my online shops, buying from me directly is always an option if you’re local…just drop me an email saying which piece you’d like. If we do a face-to-face transaction, you can pay by cash, cheque, debit or credit card.

Alright, that’s enough sales-pitchin’ for one day! Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

This is the story of the Glass Project of Doom. It’s…long. And kind of photo-heavy.

On July 19, 2002 my beloved Kitchener-Waterloo Little Theatre suffered a devastating fire that destroyed our home at 9 Princess Street East in Waterloo, Ontario. To make a long story short, the years that followed were filled with many trials and eventual triumphs for the company, resulting in a new building (still at 9 Princess) opening for our first show back in our HOME with our production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (stage managed by Yours Truly) back in July 2009…seven years almost to the day after the building was destroyed.

There is this large window above the main entrance door. I don’t even remember how the idea was originally floated, but eventually it was decided that I would create a stained glass piece to fill that (very LARGE) window. I created an abstract design based on the theatre company’s logo. Amazingly, the board of directors liked my first incarnation of the design, and production went full speed ahead. This was at the very end of July. At the time, the official “gala opening” of the theatre was scheduled for August 29th. Could I do this in a mere month? We were about to find out!

I bought lots of glass, lots of solder, lots of copper foil and got to work. Every weekend, every evening was spent in my studio. I even took an entire week off from my day job in mid-August (unpaid, no less, since I was out of paid vacation days for the year already!) solely to work on it. Partway through my week off I learned, much to my relief, that the opening was being rescheduled, and my new deadline was September 26th. I was very happy to hear THAT news, because I was NOT going to be able to finish the piece in time for the end of August, and I just couldn’t work any faster!

I managed to get the piece finished in time. With the help of several friends, I installed it this past week, and the “grand unveiling” happened today at the KWLT Open House. So, without further ado, here are some photos of the process and the finished product. (Click any pic to see it larger.)

Because it was such a large piece (and the design allowed for it) I constructed it in individual panels, and then put the whole thing together later.

A pile of pieces, waiting to be foiled!

Some panels laid out. Foiling is done, they are waiting to be soldered.

And here are some laid-out panels waiting for foil.

Getting ready to start the soldering. I have tacked this panel together with tiny bits of solder around the edges.

Starting to solder the seams!

The front side of the first panel is now completely soldered.

So then I flip it over, and solder the back.

Here is the completed first panel, standing against my studio work light!

Some of the panels needed a little help holding together as I soldered.

Here is a picture of the reinforcing material, called copper restrip, being inserted into one of the long seams.

And now the restrip is soldered in place.

Once all the clear glass panels were done, I started on the yellow glass. Here are all the yellow pieces cut out!

And here is part of the yellow panel completed. The glass is not quite as orange as it looks in this photo.

For the first time, two panels come together!

And here is a WHOLE THING laid out for the very first time! After this point, I had to work on a board laid across sawhorses, because this piece is MUCH too large for my studio work table.

Here is how it looks after it’s been all soldered together into one piece. This is the back side.

After this point, I moved it into the backyard where I applied black patina to the solder lines, and then I did the final polishing in the garage. Then we transported it to the theatre and installed it. I was going to take pictures during the installation, but I was so stressed out I forgot my camera!

And here we are, about to reveal it!

TA-DAAAA!

It was daytime, so we had a light shining on it from inside.

Another view from outside.

Here it is from the inside.

And again, from the inside.

I am very happy with the way it looks, and lots of other people seem to like it too!

So, by the numbers:
273 pieces of glass
53 metres of copper foil
4.5 pounds of solder
76 hours of labour
72 inches wide by 20.5 inches tall

There it is. I am so happy it is finished.

So the Blogfire Guild of Artfire’s blog carnival theme this time around is “Your Home” which really got me thinking.

My husband and I moved into our current house this past Spring. Our previous home was nice, but had some unresolveable issues which came to a head around the end of last year. After a very stressful period of selling the house, finding a new place to buy and going through the actual process of moving, we’re very happy in the new house.

It has many great features, including a great location, a lovely backyard, an actual garage, fabulous hardwood floors, awesome windows in the living room, an updated kitchen (though still not as nice as the one we left behind…ah well) and a spacious upstairs bathroom that has a lot of potential for future renovations. But I think my absolute favourite thing about the new house is…the basement!

The basement? Really?

Yes. The basement in this house is a vast improvement over what we had in the old place. Previously, my studio consisted of a corner of our laundry room. It worked well enough most of the time, but it wasn’t very pleasant to work in when the laundry needed to be done. I did have room for a separate office in the basement as well, but the rest of the space was an unfinished, long-and-narrow room that was horribly impractical for anything other than storing junk.

But the new place has a fabulous basement. I have a whole separate room for my studio! The laundry/furnace area is in another room entirely. I have a separate office with another little storage room with built-in shelves branching off it, and in addition to all this, we have a generously-sized finished rec room.

Here is a picture of my studio:

My work table sits in the corner because one of the legs is broken, so the walls keep it stable. And sitting on the sawhorses, you can see the Glass Project of Doom laid out (carefully covered by my work apron, because it wouldn’t do to reveal the secrets before their time, oh no!) The rest of the room has Ikea shelving units lining the walls, which I use for storing my soap and my completed glass pieces, as well as glass waiting to be used.

I really think I need to do something about the walls, though. It’s nice that they (and the floor) are painted white because it makes the room nice and bright, but it’s pretty dull to look at. I need to hang some art!

So, things have been quiet on this blog lately. What have I been up to?

Well, lately I’ve been working VERY hard (so hard that I even took a week off work so I could work on it full-time) on a very large sooper-sekrit project which I shall call the Glass Project of Doom! All will be revealed in mid-September, so watch this space around then to learn all about it.

I’ve also signed up to participate in the Williamsburg Community Festival on September 13th. This will be my first outdoor craft show! It will be from 11am-4pm at the Williamsburg Town Centre in Kitchener, Ontario. Come on out and see me!

My recent campaign to reach 100 fans on my Colour and Light Facebook fan page was a success. Congratulations to Terry Gole who won the prize for being the 100th fan! Are you on Facebook? Why not become a fan of Colour and Light? Just click in the Facebook box on the right-hand side there. I’ve also been doing some fun account-linking which should hopefully help me keep you all informed. I must say, I’m a huge fan of the new ArtFire Kiosk application for Facebook!

And of course, the Art Walks are fast approaching as summer draws to a close! The second annual Central Art Walk will be on Saturday, October 24th from 10am-5pm. You can find me in my home at 30 Peltz Avenue. For the Frederick Art Walk on Saturday, November 7th (also 10am-5pm) I will be exhibiting at 60 Chapel Street. Hope to see you there!

The handmade soap business marches along too. Check out my Etsy shop to see what I have available for sale. I also have a new batch curing, and I am very excited about it since it features hemp oil and an absolutely lovely scent. It should be available for sale in early September. The waiting is the hardest part!