Kinetic Sculpture Weekend was last weekend - one of my most favorite local traditions

Hobart Brown invented the Kinetic Sculpture Race in something like 1974, I believe, because he wanted 'kids to see adults having fun so that they would want to grow up too.'

Anyone who knows me knows this right up my alley (I have an email that is iheartrandomsilliness, after all).

Anyway, it was last weekend and too much fun to remember to take tons of photos, but I took a few; here they are:

Hahahahahahahahaha. See, I Told You Guys.

Overheard in my house last night:

"Honey, have you checked if Bird needs water lately?" said Mike, casually.

"Uh, not for a few days." I responded. Just as casually. (In my head I'm doing the Champion Dance, but I don't dare crack a smile or let on that I noticed he just called our plant by name.)

* * *

We had friends over for dinner last Friday night, and the menu was fabulous: Mike made steamed calamari and prawns, baked Tilapia fillets; I made steamed asparagus, jasmine rice and fruit pizza for dessert; and one of our guests TJ (who is Mike's new shopmate) brought over "Lion's Mane" mushrooms that he just grew. And then we served it all with local organic red wines. It was a feast! And an absolute success!

Our friend Ted took this photo of us, which he then gave us a copy of:



It was a wonderful night that reminded us of the important things in life: family, and the moments you have where you get to enjoy one another's company (as well as eat delicious food, let's be honest here, who doesn't love that).

* * *

I had wanted to make this recipe, but got kicked out of the oven (when I was recipe planning I heard Mike say he was frying the Tilapia but he was baking it, so fine, I'm nothing if not flexible), so I steamed my asparagus instead. I had leftover uncooked asparagus, so I made the roasted sesame asparagus for part of our dinner last night; and it was really easy and really delicious. So here's the recipe, try it and love it:

Roasted Sesame Asparagus

Ingredients

•1 lb asparagus, washed and trimmed
•1 teaspoon sesame oil
•1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Rinse asparagus and pat dry.
Place on jelly roll pan or a pan with sides.
Drizzle sesame oil onto asparagus, tossing to coat, then sprinkle with salt.
Roast for 10 - 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the asparagus. I like the ends to be a little crispy.

Note: I drizzled about 2 teaspoons worth of sesame oil and did not measure the salt at all, just eyeballed it. Super easy, and tastes awesome. Enjoy! (Oh and I bet it also works well with broccoli.)

The other part of dinner last night was something Mike and I made up together that we are sort of calling "gumbalaya" and/or "mush," though mush is deceiving as it tastes awesome and is super easy, so here it is:

Ingredients:
Rice of your choice (we used jasmine rice)
Black-eyed peas (the canned kind is just as delicious but you can also do the dry kind)
Sausage of your choice (we used sun-dried tomato chicken sausage)
Rita's Hot Salsa (okay, Rita's is a local thing so for you Wisconsin folks, just try to find a red-pepper based salsa that is blended and saucy)

Directions:
Cook rice in pot
Cook beans in a different pot - spice beans with cumin and garlic if desired
Slice and fry sausage in skillet (use oil if necessary and/or desired)
When everything is cooked add the rice and beans to the hot skillet where the sausage is, toss it to get the flavors all mixed together
Mix in salsa to taste

Eat and enjoy! It's yummy.

She's on Fire!

Wow wow wow wow, our second Etsy sale and guess what it was... (drumroll please):

KAYA'S BANANA SLUG!

Watch out, she's unstoppable! This girl never ceases to amaze me.

Meet Bird, and Other Household Adventures

We went to the local "home improvement" store together and got a house plant yesterday. It was so domestic of us. And such a Sunday thing to do, I think.

It's a White Bird of Paradise:


I told Mike we needed to name the plant. He said, "Okay, you go ahead and name the plant, and talk to it, and whatever else you want to do."

Which basically translates into, "Don't expect me to participate in this weird behavior with you." (We'll see.)

So, I decided to call her Bird, and I also decided that the name "Bird" sounds feminine, so that's why she's a she.

So, with a plant named Bird and an adult dog named Baby, it's obvious we are a little confused around here.

In other, basically related news, we have a kitchen table, a real one, for the first time since I moved out here. Yay, us. Best part about it: it was $75 for the whole works. Thanks, craigslist.



Pretty soon, Kaya and I are going to embark on a painting project with the chairs, out on the back deck, of course. The table is made of oak and is pretty nice, so I'm vetoing painting the table.

And since I'm in a sharing mood, here's a photo of Mike's rug. It's been in storage until we moved here. It's a lion and lioness, and I like it.



And here's the new shower curtain Kaya and I picked out at Target.



(Okay I know that's weird, but it's pretty and I like it, and I would have you all come over to see all this stuff if you lived closer, but you don't, so I improvise. Plus, it's the little things in life that should give us joy, right? Well, I'm joyful about my new shower curtain.)

Two Milestones All at Once: Our First Etsy Sale, and Kaya's First Online Sale

Kaya's slug sold on Saturday! It's been a very exciting moment here for us.



UPDATED TO ADD: Don't worry, though, if you wanted Kaya's banana slug glass art sculpture, we put another one up today!

HELP US HELP KMUD, AND GET GORGEOUS GLASS ART JEWELRY!

So you all know by now (if you are a regular reader) that KMUD is my favorite radio station. They are getting to the end of their bi-annual fund drive, and now that we got the moving out of the way we have some time to support them. We thought it would be fun to support them in a way that also drove traffic to what we are doing.

Learn the details at our new and improved website:

warrenartglass.com

And of course, Friends and Family, I don't really expect you to participate in this unless you want to; I mostly just wanted to share with you what I am up to.

Here's the post on our home page at warrenartglass.com:

DONATE TO KMUD AND WIN THESE BEAUTIFUL GLASS PENDANTS:




Here's how it works:

1. Go to kmud.org

2. Donate either $35, $40, or $75.

3. Make sure you specify that it is for the Mike Warren Glass Pendants.

4. And then we will ship you one or both of these pendants.


$35 gets you the jellyfish pendant.

$40 gets you the fish aquarium pendant.

$75 gets you both!

This is a great cause. KMUD is an indispensable community resource, and needs all the support we can give it to keep it going!

Thanks for your support!

Woman's Best Friend Too

Here's my new best friend basking in the sun on her new deck:

We Have a Winner!

The lovely Tall Penguin from Facebook and elsewhere is our Grand Prize Winner.

Tall Penguin contributed mikewarren.com, artbymikewarren.com, and mikewarrenart.com.

I used random.org to determine the winner (thank you, Your Ill-Fitting Overcoat, for letting me know about it - it did the trick). There were 21 total entries. I assigned each entry a number. Tall Penguin's entries were represented by numbers 3-5. The sequence picker selected 3 as the first number in the sequence! And there you have it.*

Tall Penguin will receive the paperweight for which she is excited. (I believe her exact words were "Wahoo! Yay! So excited!")

Tall Penguin, I hope you will let your friends up in Canada know how cool Mike's art is!

Thanks to all who participated!


*As a point of possible interest, Russell had the most entries at 6. His entries were represented by numbers 16-21. Hayley's were numbers 9-10, as she provided two entries. Etc. The random sequence picker picked Russell as the second runner-up, and Hayley as the third runner-up.

Since we did not use anyone's suggestion, but ended up coming up with our own that we felt suited our needs better, there wasn't a winner for that part of it.

The Prize

I have not forgotten about my contest, and picking out and awarding a winner.

Here is The Prize (click on the picture if you want to make it bigger):



I included some helpful captions, so you would realize what to focus on and how to make sense of what you see. You're welcome.

No, but seriously, this photograph is really awful; the problem is not shoddy workmanship, however. It is a free form paperweight, with curved edges, and no uniform shape. It's fabulous in person (or is that "in paperweight"); it is nearly impossible to correctly photograph its beauty.

So, you are just going to have to take my word for it. And whoever wins will hopefully back me up when they get this beautiful paperweight. It is personally an item I really love.

So, this Mike Warren piece of art was created in 2006. It is a handcrafted, lampworked, sodalime (that's soft glass) glass piece. Included within is a man-made gemstone that is just phenomenal (that's a trick that not all glass artists know - how to make a gemstone compatible with glass so that the glass does not crack). There are also a few of Mike's signature millis and a fair amount of sparkle. Beautifully contrasting and complementary colors, the paperweight measures 2 1/16 inches tall by 1 1/2 wide by 1 1/2 deep. It is valued at $100.

I will announce the lucky winner shortly, so stay tuned...

Naomi's Glass Art Start

I promised pictures of my art a long time ago, and you have all been so patient. In fact, probably by this time you have forgotten and/or lost interest. Totally understandable.

So, without further ado, here is my fish tile that I made (well a close-up of the eyes and mouth, anyway):


I feel a bit like a little kid bringing my construction paper art project home to show my mommy by posting this, but I am very proud of this tile. It's a six inch by six inch piece of "soft" glass - the kind used in glass fusing - which is the glass techniques I have been learning as a way to introduce myself into this endless world of working with glass.

For those who may not know, glass fusing is often referred to as working with "warm glass," in that you are working the glass in solid form, cutting and fitting together, arranging and gluing, and then placing the project into a hot kiln and melting it all together. It's different from lampworking in that you are working with the glass in a solid state, whereas with lampworking you are forming and shaping molten glass.

So, I started with a clear tile, cut a yellow piece of glass into my best version of a fish-face shape, and then glued that onto the clear tile. Next, I took various colors of glass that were in the form of tiny shards, also known as "frit," and mixed those tiny shards of glass with special glass glue and a little bit of water, to form a paste-like glass "paint." One glass color in each paper cup. The main color was a red orange topped with a lighter orange. The spots on the fish are a light blue color, etcetera.

And then I proceeded to use paint brushes to paint the pattern I wanted onto the glass.

When I was all done with this - the painting took about five hours in one session, I believe - the whole thing was carefully placed into a firing kiln, where it was melted together.

I wish I would have taken a "before" photo so you could see how unlike a fish it looked, and how much of my imagination I had to use when I put this together.

My art instructor was so impressed by my fish that she called me up to tell me how good it was when she first took it out of the kiln. "I think we found your medium!" she said.

I think so too.



Circumstances revolving around my number one focus, our business (which is what pays the bills), has not allowed me to further explore this medium. Yet. But pretty soon I will be taking another class from my instructor and will be learning how to paint landscapes using glass. This is all very exciting to me, as I never before considered myself an artist, never took art classes in school (besides the required ones and a terrible time attempting ceramics my senior year in high school), and was never really encouraged by anyone to explore this side of myself. Until Mike.

Wish me luck, or better yet lots of time, energy and inspiration, which is most likely more useful than luck!

I do have other glass pieces I am excited to share with you, but photographing glass in a way that actually shows what it looks like is an acquired skill in itself. Photographing this fish tile took me at least half an hour last night, and it still isn't as good as the real thing. The point is I will get the pictures done as I am able.

My House

We are basically settled, though there is more to do and more to get and more to organize, and of course more to get rid of - but that's hardly different than it usually is.

The bottom line, though, is I love our house. Very much.

I keep hearing "Send me pictures" from a few of my relatives, so I will post a pic of the outside of our cute little house, just to help you get by until I get my home set up and can take some pictures.



And just because I want to, here is the pretty little tree I get to look at right outside my office window: