oh the insanity

mmmmmm...where to begin??
So last post I said I was getting ready for a show in Bethany Beach, DE.
Canceled, due to hurricane.
No problem, I had actually double-booked shows that weekend so I went to Sugarloaf in Manassas, VA instead. Which I knew would be a giant mistake but I went anyway.
Let's just say that LORiOLA is not the Sugarloaf aesthetic.
By any stretch of the imagination.
And Saturday was canceled because of the hurricane.

I have NEVER lost money at a show before. I guess it needed to happen sooner or later, let's just hope this is the LAST time, ok??

To make up for Saturday being canceled the Sugarloaf people are giving us a free show in the spring, which is actually unheard of, and extremely generous. Problem is I hadn't wanted to do any more of their shows. EVER.

Now stupidly, back in March when I was super excited to be doing Sugarloaf shows I prepaid for 4. After the first 2 this past spring I realized I had made a mistake. Unfortunately once you pay you're SOL, that's why I booked a better show for the same weekend as Manassas. I have one more paid for Sugarloaf, Oct 12, 13 & 14 in Gaithersburg, then maybe one in the spring. We'll see. Even for free I'm afraid I'll lose money.

You know what else is crazy?? I have a show the weekend before Sugarloaf in Alexandria, VA called Art on the Avenue which I absolutely love but it means that on Friday Oct 5 I will be driving 5 hrs to VA, setting up at 7am Sat morning, selling all day (hopefully!!) then packing and driving 5+ hrs home Sat night BECAUSE the following Thursday I have to drive to 5.5 hrs to MD to set up for Sugarloaf. OMG. What was I thinking???!!!

Basically in the next week and half I have to make enough inventory for 4 days of selling.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

And the absolute weirdest thing that happens when I am this stressed and trying to make as many beads as I possibly can, is that new designs happen! And instead of making things that I know will sell (hearts, cupcakes, etc) I'm spending precious time developing something new.
This happens EVERY TIME.

NEW-

medium birdy birds

large birdy bird

Will you let me know what you think? I think they're super cute, but I am also slightly crazed right now.

cupcake chaos

Thought you might like to see what 100 cupcakes look like!
I'm getting ready for a show Sept 6 in Bethany Beach, DE. I haven't done this one before but my friends who have sold TONS so my plan is to bring 200+ cupcakes with me along with my regular show stock (hearts, skulls, acorns, etc).

I can't believe I think I'm going to make 100 more.

shards

I have new hearts! Introducing the "bondage" series, now in my etsy store.
These are all made with really thin pieces of glass called shards that have been all the rage (LOL) in the glass community for quite a while now. I'm a little late.

The 3 hearts above are done with dark silver plum shards. I really love these because they do not look like glass AT ALL, much more like leather, or metal....definitely not glass.

More to come I'm sure.

new challenge

Real quick...
one of the etsy street teams I'm a member of, LEST, is having a little challenge where we're showing off our "summer brights". If you feel like taking a look and possibly voting you can do it HERE.
And of course, even though it's not the best, if you feel like voting for my little green heart I'll love you forever :)

careful what you wish for

This past weekend I did a 3 day craft show that I was very excited to do. It's a show my family used to travel 3 hours to shop every year, and it was really the first time I understood that it was possible to make a living as an artist. We'd park in the field, often slogging through the mud, making our way past the RVs, buses, and vans, and I'd think about how exciting it would be to travel around the country selling my art. Doesn't matter that I had no idea what I'd sell, I just thought it was the thing for me.

Let me say this,
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

Setting up in an open barn, with dirt floors, when it is 48 and raining, ESPECIALLY when weather.com LIES and says it will be in the 60s all weekend so you don't pack anything warm, is miserable to begin with. But when the show planners do such a bad job of setting up the show that you are in the middle of FIVE empty spots you know something is wrong.



The first day I should have done a better job of counting how many women where wearing lighthouse sweatshirts. I'm sure my mom owns one...but that is NOT my audience. I think I confused a lot of people ;)
Saturday was better and I met a bunch of great people and the weather was much more enjoyable. Sunday, back to 48 and raining. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I know the economy is bad. I know it's hard to get people out when it's raining. I know I am a great big complainer, but what a let down. Keep your fingers crossed that the next 3 shows I have go a little better than this one.

Or I may have to come live on your couch!

COME SEE ME
April 25, 26, 27 SUGARLOAF, Timonium, MD

most famous

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
How cool is THIS????
I've had jewelry featured in magazines before, but never like this!! And there's my big fat head! Amazing!!!

The magazine is Tattoos for Women and it's published by the same people who publish Skinart.

And I was interviewed. Terrifying!!! They emailed me questions and then I had to try & not sound like an idiot, AND be interesting. They only published a little bit of what I wrote so in case anyone is having trouble sleeping I thought I'd let you read everything I sent them. Ready?

1. Where do you get the inspiration for your designs?
Half the time I’d say my inspiration comes directly from the glass I’m melting at the time. Each color, type, and brand of glass has different qualities, and while I’m melting it something will just scream BONE! or HEART!, etc. Most of my bones for example are made with a type of glass called Reichenbach and for a very long time it was only used by glass blowers not lampwork artists like myself. When the rods were made available I bought a ton of it, played around, hated it for the designs I was making at the time and stuck it on a shelf. Probably a year later I gave it another try and realized that the earthy qualities in the glass lent itself perfectly to the bone shape. I also get a lot of ideas from listening to my customers. The “undead undead” heart (white heart with bleeding punctures) was a customer request and combining the hearts and bones was a suggestion from an artist at a show I was part of last year. It’s probably pretty obvious that some of my hearts are based on Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and others, like the heart and crossbones are based on tattoos.

2.What is you relationship to the tattoo community?
I do have a flame tattoo around my ankle that oddly enough I got before I started working with fire as my career, and I do draw inspiration from tattoo art, but other than that I don’t really have one.

3.What is your process like? How do you start a piece? How do you know when you’re finished?
What I do is called lampworking and in case some people aren’t familiar with what that is I’ll explain. I use a small torch mounted to my table that runs on a mixture of propane and oxygen. I melt rods of glass in flame at about 1700 degrees. While the glass is melting I wind it around a clay coated steel rod called a mandrel. This is what forms the hole in the bead. All of the shaping is done while the glass is molten. Once I’m done forming the bead I place it in a kiln to anneal. This removes the stress from the glass while it is cooling.

Each piece is done one at a time, and once I start working on a bead I can’t stop until it is done. Some of the pieces can take up to an hour to get exactly how I want it.

I rarely sketch a piece before I make it. Usually I just know in my head what I want and then I see if the glass agrees with me.

4.In addition to art, what are your passions?
I have a two year old daughter who can be incredibly funny and she’s always a challenge. Before she was born my boyfriend and I spent a lot of time going out to see bands. I had worked in record stores for years and between the two of us we have an insane cd collection and since we were living in DC at the time we had the opportunity to see almost every band we loved. When she was born we moved to NC. I took almost a year off from my business and I’ve spent the past year rebuilding it, so we haven’t had time to go out. I guess I’m still in the “new mommy haze” so that makes her my number one passion.

5. What kind of music do you like?
It depends on what I’m doing. When I’m traveling to my craft shows, which I do a lot, I like to listen to Social Distortion, Reverend Horton Heat, NIN, anything rockabilly, etc. It needs to be loud and driving so I can sing and keep myself awake. When I’m melting glass I listen almost exclusively internet radio, most of the time to WOXY Vintage which plays an amazing mix of 80’s (from my high school days!) and early 90’s (when I started working in the record stores!).

6. Did you go to art school? If so, what was it like? If not, how did you master your craft?
I did go to art school, but only briefly. I went to the American University in DC for 3 years, took a few art classes, but never really committed to anything while I was there. I transferred to The Corcoran School of Art which is also in DC for a year but didn’t take any courses related to glass or jewelry. I loved art school but didn’t see how it would translate in to a career.
For a long time I made a living painting glassware and selling it at the Eastern Market in DC. I used to watch tv while I painted and one day on some basic cable “make your home more beautiful” show I saw a quick demonstration on lampworking. As soon as I could I found a weekend class, took it, and have spent the past 6 years melting, researching and experimenting.

7. Which artists are your favorites?
Of the “famous” artists I love Louise Nevelson, Richard Diebenkorn and William T. Wiley. But there are an incredible amount of new, younger artists whose work is extremely affordable and readily available. I seem to find a new one on etsy almost every day. I have stacks of prints that desperately need to be framed.
What I really enjoy is what I guess you’d call folk art, any art made with a jumble of recycled, repurposed items. I have a beautiful pink bird made from reclaimed barn wood in my front yard, and various animals welded together from assorted junk hanging out in the backyard.

8. Are there any art movements you identify with?
Lowbrow, definitely. Most of my hearts would be right at home on the pages of “Juxtapoz”. But mix in a heavy dose of gothic and a splash of steampunk. Oh yeah, and Craft. Craft is really important right now.

9. What’s your favorite book?
Alice in Wonderland has had the most effect on my work and lead me to some really interesting things (have you seen Jan Svankmeyer’s stop animation movie “Alice”?), and almost anything by Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, and Kurt Vonnegut.

10. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? How do these places interact with your artistic creations?
I’m currently living in Raleigh, NC but I grew up outside of Philadelphia. Moved to DC for school then moved to Atlanta, Philly, DC, Brooklyn, back to DC before finding my way down here. The cities I’ve spent time in are so rich in art, and in DC most of the museums are free, so I was exposed to all kinds of wonderful things. Before leaving DC for NC I sold my work at the Eastern Market every weekend which is an outdoor artist market/flea market, but it allowed me to make a living off of my art. Really what it did was allow me to work on my art every day since it was my job, and that’s how I got where I am today.

11. Let our readers know everywhere they can find your stuff…online and in person.
My website is www.isabelsrose.com where I have most of my made to order pieces. About a year and a half ago I started selling on etsy (www.loriola.etsy.com) to get rid of some of my one of kind pieces that had just been lying around, but I’m having such a good time there that now I list my new work there before it ever makes it to my website. I also do a lot of craft shows every year, mostly in the MD, DC, VA, NC area. These are all listed on my website.

Still with me? :)
Thanks!!

out of the kiln

I just pulled these out of the kiln. Since I can't find a hot pink glass that'll work for me I decided to make one myself!
Some of these are already taken but if you want one I'm happy to make more :)