Fox & Clover’s online shop will be closed from June 9th to June 25th while I am out of town. To make up for the long absence, I’m offering a vacation promotion! The first person to purchase a necklace when I re-open the shop will get a 50% discount on any necklace. For the record, that will be sale #131 in the shop. I will reopen at noon (US Pacific time) on June 25th.

I’ve been experimenting with different finishes for the reclaimed wood that I use. Today I was bleaching wood. I bought oxalic acid to bleach the wood, which I found rather funny because it’s the same acid that’s in rhubarb. Seriously, oxalic acid is what gives rhubarb its distinctive flavor. But apparently it also bleaches wood. I love the things I discover at the hardware store.

The area around my studio is what you could call “a neighborhood in transition”, or in other words, it’s rather shady sometimes. There’s one street that’s particularly dubious, with a skanky dive bar at the corner. This dive bar is the kind of place that already smells like booze from the outside by 11am and has flashing cop lights out front every other day. Anyway, I had to walk down this street to run errands the other day and to my surprise, in the gloom of this street I found this charming door decorated with butterflies. It was so incongruous with its surroundings that I had to take a picture.

It was the first sunny day for awhile here in Seattle, so Marco and I went to the Olympic Peninsula for a hike. It’s always amazing there, from the biggest mountain vistas to the smallest lichens and moss. The day before that we had a completely different experience – seeing roller derby with friends. I wasn’t that enthusiastic to go, but I ended up having more fun than I expected. I think the best part are the rollergirls’ nicknames. My favorites were Yok O-no-you-didn’t (funniest said out loud) and Sarah Impalin.

The past several months I’ve been developing fine art using reclaimed window glass and reclaimed wood.  I’ve experimented with wood finishes, enamel painting techniques, color choice, glass drilling. It’s kind of like pioneering in a new land — all very new to me.

This week, after several test pieces, I’m finally making my second full-fledged work. Here it is on my work table. The glass pieces have been cut and painted, but most are not yet fired in the kiln. It’s about half-way finished.

My Two-Feathers Necklace is featured today on the website The Daily Green, a site about consuming sustainably.  Many thanks to them for highlighting my work!

This blog has been quiet recently, but I’ve been busy in my studio. One of the items I’ve been inventing this fall is fine enameled glass art. I’m using kiln-fired glass painting techniques on clear glass, then riveting the pieces to wood panels. I’m so excited by this!

Now that I’ve got my blog up and running again, I must mention Craftland in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s a great new boutique featuring independent craft, including my own Fox & Clover necklaces. Even more intriguing is that Craftland is the creation of well-known illustrator and artist, Jen Corace. I enjoy her work, so I was thrilled when she asked me to contribute work to her new shop.

So this inaugurates Fox & Clover’s re-entry into the world boutiques-and-gallerie-selling, which has been on hiatus since I moved to Seattle ten months ago. I’m excited to start in such a promising new shop. If you’re in the area, go check it out.

I’ve been quiet on my blog recently because I have been immersed in my studio, experimenting with new enameling techniques and design. The result is my new Chinoiserie Sauvage dishware line. I have adopted a more antiquated painterly technique, essentially like porcelain painting, in classic delft blue and white. Like all my work, I create this with glass enamels that are fired on in the kiln at 1300 degrees.

This series of dishware combines antique decorative style with modern images of flora, fauna, objects and ornamentation. Each plate is a unique combination of imagery – no two plates are alike.

Then we should be back to normal. Stay tuned….