The Art of Joy Alyssa Day

It was a cool enough day yesterday to do a little torchwork at my jewelry bench. I don't get a chance very often, because it takes a good number of hours that have to be completely uninterrupted once I light that torch. It also has to be cool and breezy so that I don't burst into flames or fill the place up with propane fumes. As it is, my partner sometimes gets a headache from the fumes. I keep trying to open enough windows and turn on enough fans, but his desk is directly downstream from my workbench, so... sigh...

New ways to enjoy my artwork, and they're fun for me to make too. When I started getting my art pieces listed on Etsy and ArtFire, of course I drove around to see what else was selling and at what prices. I found these Scrabble tiles with various images plastered on the front. And immediately I thought "I can do better than that!!!"

It's the singular quote we hear more often from people who see our larger pieces of artwork. "Wow, it's just like Chihuly!" I used to get a little miffed at that comment, because our works are NOT just like Chihuly. Our works are our own and usually meant to depict something in particular, like the Solar System. From the many pieces I've seen of his works, they're a conglomeration of lots of littler pieces into a giant swirly piece. It's the sheer magnitude of all the pieces put together that makes it so dramatic. And *he* doesn't even do all the work himself. We do all our own work!

I got to thinking that for the past several months, I've been discussing the failures with that sink job, both on here and on my Facebook/Twitter accounts. I've gotten comments that maybe I shouldn't spend my time making sinks. Well, it isn't that I *can't* make sinks, it's that I couldn't make *those* sinks as they had to fit a very precise position in the client's countertop.

After working for a number of months, in vain, trying to create two matching cast glass sinks for a client, that would fit into her already made countertop, she canceled the project. I was having failure after failure with those darned sinks - getting the colors to match what she wanted, then trying to get the cast piece to drop through a mold to the right shape for her countertop, faucet and knobs.

Idon't know if it will be completely successful or not, but it combines things from years past that have been, so should be well on it's way to bringing us some more sales. I thought you would get some insight and some tips and hints from it. If you have ideas to add, please comment!!!

Recently I was asked to produce visible light spectrum pendant necklaces. The lady who asked runs a wonderful scientific website called ScienceMall and she had been selling pendants that claimed to be spectrum, but didn't have the entire visible spectrum in them. When she called and talked with the sellers, they didn't understand what she meant. They were not scientists, not educated about visible light spectrum versus simple rainbow or color charts.

It was only a matter of time before our skills producing the blown glass planets for our mobiles, orrery, sculptures and ornaments would join up with our new line of wine bottle stoppers.

Last summer, I went through the most frightening thing I have ever experienced, the California Basin Complex Wildfire that chewed through much of Big Sur.  I had seen wildfires on TV, but had never experienced one in person until then. My partner, BJ, detailed the advance of the fire in photos on his blog as it was happening. We were advised to evacuate, but as we tried to figure out what we could take with us and what we could continue to do as the kind of artists we are if we were to leave, and especially if our studio did not survive, we decided that we needed to stay here and defend our livelihood as best we could.

The new jewelry line came about fairly rapidly, but the website for them took a little longer (isn't that always the case?). The site is now LIVE! - http://glasssculpture.org/artglass/jewelry/

We decided to add it to our Glass Sculpture site, since the technique doesn't match up with my Reverse Glass painting, nor does it follow the techniques used in the art glass marbles & paperweights.