Thanks Michael Borders!

Spent yesterday afternoon at Michael Borders' apt on Central Park. Swanky! He was shooting some new pieces of mine and I was playing "art director." I think it went well!

This is my vessel necklace, which I've been selling for a while now, but haven't gotten around to photographing till now. It's up on my Etsy page now, btw.

Michael also had the cool idea to do a shoot with broken light bulbs:

Isn't Borders the best?! Check out his website here.

This is what happens when i try to declutter: Instead I end up getting even more attached to some things, thus ensuring that I'll never, ever get rid of them. As I went through my books, trying to find a stack I could justify tossing, I soon became distracted and started dividing them by color.

I did eventually come up with a bunch to give away, but i didnt photograph them in case i got too attached in the process.

Check out a great giveaway going on at Concrete and Nailpolish: the lucky winner is gonna be able to pick any item under $40 from my Etsy shop. Be sure to enter!

Hey, remember how awesome this movie was/is? I think I'll watch it this week:

Sunday

So I originally began this blog post about Bikram Yoga. I've been doing it for the past few weeks and I'm feeling a little self-righteous about my new status as a new age, healthy, at-peace practitioner of this Eastern discipline.

But then as I began going through recent photos to add an image to this post, I found myself scrolling through shots from Sunday night's Pizza Making Extravaganza. After seeing pic after pic of my friends stuffing themselves with pizza and dancing around with big mugs of beer in their hands, I thought, "Who am I kidding?" So I bagged the Bikram post.

In it's place, I'm happy to share a few shots that include cheese, dancing, and assorted alcoholic beverages. And not a Standing Eagle pose in sight!

  Ang on dough-making duty. 

 TOPPINGS!!

A classic Collin pose:Weeping into his food. 

Makes no sense, but I laugh every time.

Seriously, a mountain of toppings.

This creation belonged to Carrie.

Mikey's dancing cleared the kitchen.

Sometimes, pride is overrated.

Ang with one of her "goblets" of wine. 

I love that in the background are remnants from two previous parties: 

The map from our NYC party and the paper chain from Gal-entines Day. 

Taylor and Megan, attempting a serious pose 

but they can't stop laughing.

Breakfast of Champions

I headed out for an early morning breakfast at Sanford's. Egg white western omlette with feta cheese, homefries, coffee, juice, 7 grain toast. $5.44. Another reason to love Astoria.

Sufficiently stuffed, I headed home. Just reaching the intersection by my apartment, I looked down and saw this:

I am completely mystified by this  -- it's not litter, not in the least. First of all, the coffee was a full, still steaming cup. It wasn't thrown down, it was set there. Secondly, the cigar was carefully laid on top of the coffee lid, to keep it from touching the street. It appeared as if someone had plopped themselves down on the curb for a little caffeine/nicotine breakfast, and then vanished. I did  a little surveillance, but there was no one in site. Regardless of the hows and whys, I loved this strange little still life. Who says there's no art in Astoria?

Baltimore - I Survived!

So last week was consumed by the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore. 700 artists, all of them the top in their craft. And somehow, Queens Metal was allowed to rub elbows with these awesome, talented individuals. We were part of the "Emerging Artists" section, where we got to take in the swirl of the show and get some experience selling and participating in a show of this scale.

Four looooong days of selling. Four nights at the Rodeway Inn, where I frantically soldered jewelry on the bathroom floor every night, trying to keep my inventory stocked up. Four mornings of free wafflese at the Rodeway, (where we seemed to be the only guests) then walking a mile to the Baltimore Convention Center, trying to keep the budget in check. My parents came in on Saturday, which was wonderful. A few other highlights:

We arrived on Wednesday via Amtrak. My last minute decision to cancel the rental car proved to be a good one -- we saved hundreds of dollars. The train station had gorgeous stained glass ceilings:

 

My display was looking pretty good.

Love these little stud earrings:

And my nest rings were selling, as Ang would say, "like crack."

Angela was a saint. By the end of the show we were both totally exhausted:

We managed to leave B'more in even less style than how we arrived: The $17 9pm Bolt bus back to NYC. Actually, it was a great, quick ride. Plus I got this cool pic while waiting to board: