I'm in the thick of it. Production mode. Hand duplicating hundreds of bulbs. And may I say that it has been an enlightening, frustrating, boring and exhilarating experience thus far? I love Christmas, so painting all these Yuletide designs is a joyful process--until something goes wrong. I've painted these glass orbs for the past 5 years, and never had a glitch...but as the numbers increase, so it seems, does the opportunity for Murphy's Law. For example, having numerous bulbs done and hanging on the tree, after a week or so, the paint began to slough off the inside of the bulb! I was about to do a complete redesign, when my BH (Brilliant Husband!) figured out the problem (saved me once again!) and rigged up a little machine in the garage that solved the problem. Whew!
On to the next design! Exciting! The prototypes came out beautiful. Then the task of cutting out one of the elements by hand. Discovered that if I cut 1/16 in either direction the element was ruined and I had to start over. Grrrrrrrrrrr. Things got very slow and labor-intensive. Opps, messed up another one, sigh, okay - I admit it ---tears. This is NOT working. I'll redesign...and of course, y'all know what happened next! Yep, hubby figured out a process to mass produce these elements! They were done --hundreds of them - in a couple of hours. I think he hides a bunch of production elves in his workshop!
Currently back in fun mode. Painting in my studio. Beautiful weather. Windows open--listening to birdsong. And crunching. Crunching? On the wall, under our pink bougainvilla is a squirrel eating a walnut. Hey that reminds me - I set down a bag of walnuts yesterday when I brought in the groceries...
that has got to be one happy squirrel! I laugh. Pick up my paintbrush. Productions problems and all--life is very, very good. Crunch.
I want to encourage all - especially those gals between 40 and 60, 70, 80 to follow their creative dreams. It is never too late to reinvent ourselves. Remember Beatrice Woods started sculpting to international acclaim at the age of 70!
