One Year Anniversary : The Meanng of Life

It is not quite a year since I quit my day job and just slightly more than a year since this blog was started. Many of my friends, so they say, are envious of my leaving work, but we all are too well aware of the hazards of not being steadily employed. All in all it has been a smart move, the bank account is still dwindling, but there is steady income albeit a fraction of my IT salary. This Fall maybe a bit overwhelming with teaching engagements almost every day of the week including weekends.

My Designs For Good adventures have changed direction over time. Initially when I was still employed and the bank account was fat, I gave products and services away because that was what I wanted to do, I could afford to do so, and it was good marketing. Over time as I began to expect and need some kind of compensation in return the direction of Designs For Good began to change.

Have Kiln Will Travel was my solution for a sustainable way of using my talents to provide my income while helping nonprofit and charitable organizations raise funds. The fused glass event/class which is the basis of  HKWT has been very successful, more so than I ever thought. My greatest surprise however has been how much I enjoy teaching, and how it feels a natural thing for me to do.

My life long measure of what activities are appropriate for me has been very simple... Does the activity drain me or give me energy. Funny... I remember very early in life how I learned this guiding principle. At the end of summer kids get tired and bored in the autumn heat. Having played their hearts out over the summer the various games just don't seem exciting anymore. I recall sitting in the yard with some friends, and I began to pull out my matchbox car collection which we would regularly play with for long hours in our imaginary city of made up businesses and adventures. My friends looked at me with disapproval and said they just didn't want to play with the cars. My reply, having seen this in myself more than once was - if we just start playing then it will BECOME fun. After playing for ten minutes or so one of them looked up at me and said... hey, you were right!

Watching the ebb and flow of energy in my life has made me what I am. I react to it as it directs my actions. I believe that this sensitivity to one's rise, fall, and realignment of energy is the answer to the age old question of (and hopefully not sounding pretentious) the meaning of life. There are many spiraling deeper meanings and levels to what I just said, but on the most basic level.... if you just start playing.... it will become fun.

Of course having fun isn't the measure of all things. Life is more complex than that. However, the sensitivity to and your ability to be guided by your energy flow is an ever deepening connection between who you are and your potentiality. That is, your ability to become something richer than you are now by bending your will to the energy that you are, and can more completely embody. Hmmmm... Embody is a very appropriate word here.

HKWT has not been wildly successful in fund raising thus far. I have only started that journey however, a journey that will require me to seek out and to work with governing boards of the organizations which I want to help. What HKWT has done - to me - has changed my direction entirely.

When I quit my job I was toying with a half dozen ideas. Photography was one of them. I love picture making and could sit endlessly playing with my digital darkroom. I did nonprofit work by shooting events and providing free prints, my time, and helping with marketing. However, because I was looking for a sustainable relationship many of my ideas didn't pan out once I actually started working on them. You can give things away endlessly, or, what I should say is.... professionally you can't give things away endlessly, and in the end those you work with must value your work, and yes, compensate you for it.

But that's the rub for everyone isn't it. How do you do what you enjoy and get paid for it?

There is no magic formula of course, and the path will look different for everyone. That is why so few find, and more importantly, stay on the path. No one, save yourself, can direct you. The refinement and balance of your energy with the realities of your life is the magic, and a trick you must relearn and perform every day of your life.

I've never been a morning person, and maybe will never be, but lately I've been playing with and somewhat succeeding at getting up early. Why bother? The answer is that the quality of my alertness and sense o f well being is enhanced if I get to bed earlier and don't stay up late drinking beer and watching reruns.  It is a calculated trade off. I enjoy staying up latter and totally unwinding from the day, but that has to be compared to the quality of being in the morning when I get to be earlier. Right now, I'm siding with getting to bed early. Every event, task, and interaction presents an opportunity for realignment.

I still don't know where I'm going, and that's a good thing. For now, I have refinements to make for HKWT, and because of that path I am now becoming a very good teacher.... so they are telling me. I have hopes of being able to pay the bills here forward, and look forward to wider horizons as I mature on this new path. I will remain vigilant towards the necessity of meeting the bills and then growing back my savings.... but dare I say that is only a goal, and not a directing principle which has control of my life.

Strictly from the fun point of view, aka where my highest energy level and excitement is.... I have started a series of glass powder paintings which will be the most grand works I've done so far... at least in my mind's eye, because thus far they have not 'gone to glass' yet. The digital art studies for these can be seen at my main web site. I'm still in process of abstracting the photos. They will become richer in color and more dramatic as I play with the sense of light and color contrasts. I will then take them to full scale pastels, then finally to glass.

Maybe these will open new doors, new departures points, or, maybe they too well be a completion and resolution. It is hard to say until they too have become embodied as their energy embodies me.

Happy Trails To You!

Its the New Year and New Adventures

I get up every day and while I wake up with my first cup of java I ponder which of my myriad of adventures needs attention today. Last week I did a little product photography for the Igneous Rock Gallery from Mechanicsburgh, PA. The owner Robert Wertz and I formed a virtual relationship over the web after he saw my sculptures in Sculptural Pursuit magazine. That was last summer and we've be chatting ever since.

Take a look at the site and read the igneous story. These are very unique items that took nature eons to make. The image above is a collection of the rock candle holders I shot.

I've been spending most of my time refining the Have Kiln Will Travel (HKWT) story. I'm very excited about potentially holding the fundraising events are several art centers in the Twin Cites area. I will be meeting with several organizations next week.

Still yet another adventure will be applying for a large $140,000 commission. Sure... anyone can apply, but I think we have a decent chance of actually winning! I've been working on a design with another local artist, both of us have IT geek-land organizational skills and we both are aspiring sculptors. We'll need to form relationships with a couple other folks to pull this off. There is an informational meeting at the Minneapolis Institute of Art later this month. I would imagine every serious sculptor in the Twin Cities will be there... so, maybe on second thought it might not be very easy to win the commission. But if you don't play... you can't win.

Actually, there are a whole set of grants and commissions available over the next few months. It would be great just to get a smaller one.

So much to do and so little time. Over the next few days I'll be heads down planning out classes and equipment purchases for glass classes at two different art centers while at the same time thinking through the paper work for those commissions.... hmmm where is the time for art in all that?

But that's the beauty of it. There are so many varied things to do and I get the chance to wake up every day and choose something and can actually get things done without having to wade through corporate quagmires.

That's nice... real nice.

December Newsletter

Wow! Only one post this month so far, and I'm not likely to get another one in. I've been way busy creating a new website that turned into a blog called Have Kiln Will Travel. I'm still in process of fine tuning the business model which I'm very excited about.

You can read the details at the blog or by reading the FAQ.

The newsletter wasn't hard to write but thinking through where you've been and summarizing where you're heading can be a bit time consuming. Sort of a mini business brief. I kept it brief - and you can download the newsletter here.

The coming year is looking very good with many teaching opportunities, and I'll continue my Designs For Good efforts by mostly concentrating on Have Kiln Will Travel.

There are a few grant/commission opportunities that I'll be pursing, as well as maturing my glass powder painting work and starting the process of marketing them.

My photography skills will be more sharply focused on serving other photographers in the photo retouching area (aka Photoshop magic), and in establishing my layout and design presence for event and wedding albums.

That's it in a nutshell.

Hope you have an enjoyable Holiday Season!

Oh.... and please support my efforts by forwarding the information for Have Kiln Will Travel to your favorite small nonprofit organization so that I can help them out.

thx

details, details, details

Now I know why the stereotype of artist not having good business practices probably has some truth to it. I've been spending the last few weeks weeding through the minutia of the why's and how to's of setting up an LLC. That's even less exciting than watching paint dry. Then there are the tax reporting issues. I've always filed jointly (with my wife), but now with an LLC and being self employed who knows what the tax attorney will tell us. That's another meeting.

Last week was mostly dealing with liability and property insurance for my many adventures. Seems that insurance companies still don't know what to do with you unless you fit neatly into one of their 'classes' for coverage. Thankfully, with a few phone calls to several groups that specialize in helping 'ceative' groups and individuals, I was able to find agencies that can be creative in setting up coverage for us round pegs trying to fit into square holes.

Fractured Atlas is one of those organizations as well as Springboard For The Arts. Thanks to these organizations I didn't have to spend twice the amount for coverage, and was able to trust that I might actually have a policy that isn't full of loopholes.

Without these organizations to help I can easily see why creatives sometimes avoid doing basic business practices. It isn't that creatives are lazy or ignorant of such... it's just that the business world in many cases just doesn't know how to work with creatives, and translates that into what appears to the creatives as (and in some cases actually is) over charging.

More details...

Last week I had my first test of the "Have Kiln Will Travel" concept. The test class at local high school was a success. This was gratifying since a few months of prep as well as thousands of dollars went into getting ready for the test. The amount of gear and glass going to a site turned into a bit of logistical problem. I ended up with a truckload of 80 gallon tupperware roughneck containers to hold all the stuff (including 6 kilns).

OK... now what. Do I have to load, then unload the truck full of gear after every event? No way! I just want to keep it locked up in my truck when I'm at the studio. Which means that I have to buy a set of equipment that is dedicated just for Have Kiln Will Travel and not for studio use. OK, no problem. But the gear must be covered and secured. So that means a $1500 topper for my truck!

Yikes! How many thousands am I going to pour into this?

Well, thankfully I think I'm done with all the major expenses. Now I'm off to create the web site for Have Kiln Will Travel, and I'll do most of that myself. I might call in a Flash expert to do a little work, and hopefully it won't cost too much.

It is ofen said that it takes money to make money... I guess that is even true when you are doing fund raising.

A Have Kiln Will Travel Update

Nothing is ever simple with me. I'll bend twist and turn an ideal inside out until either it is dead or something unexpected comes to mind. The Have Kiln Will Travel concept hasn't even been implemented yet, and I can already see it working in multiple forms.

The original idea was to teach at Community Ed centers. Shortly there after came the idea of doing it at art centers throughout my region, and now the third form of the idea has me really reeling with possibilities.

Why not give fused glass parties just like Tupperware parties? The Designs For Good flavor of this is that the 'host' gets most of the 'take'. It goes like this... A nonprofit or charitable group needs to raise a bit of change. Not a lot mind you, maybe just around a thousand dollars or so. The nonprofit group (aka host) calls 12 or so 'donors', and invites them to a glass fusing party where they can make all kinds of gifts (belt buckles, earrings, pendants, money clips, etc). The host knows just about how much to ask a donor to attend the party. Depending on who the host calls they stand to make a considerable amount of money just for an afternoon of fun.

• The host gets to have fun holding the event and (of course) sorely needed funds.
• I walk away with some portion of the proceeds to support my costs.
• The guests have a grand time making stuff and also go home with a pocket full of jewelry and other 'wearable' glass items which could be valued far beyond the amount that they donated.

I might get arrested for this idea it is soooo goood!

Of course there are a LOT of details to make this happen, but leave it to my IT background to be designing and testing out every technical and logistic nuance of the idea before bringing it to the public.

Well... actually I'm so sure that it is going to work that I have contacted dozens of centers of various sorts and I'm already scheduled....

This is going to be such a great Designs For Good initiative!

Have Kiln Will Travel

A tower of power! Well actually more like 6 midgets stack on their shoulders. These are the kilns I will be using for my teaching adventures. The orange boxes are the temperature controls on the front of each kiln and the kiln tops (lid) and bottoms are stacked to the right. They are only 6 inch square on the inside. Perfect for small projects and testing.

These are neat to play with because you can fire small project with full ramp up and back down in around two hours. The lids have a view port so you can watch the progress of your project without opening the kiln and letting all the heat out.

I've been fusing for well over ten years and I've never really watched the glass bake that closely. You usually sneak a peak, but with all the heat getting out you can't just stand there and watch.

This is a great learning device because knowing what glass does at different temperatures is critical for some designs.


The bracelet above was my first project in one of the new kilns. This was made with dichroic crackle glass. Being able to watch the firing very closely enabled me to stop the firing precisely when the full effect (crackle) was achieved. I learned how to make this item and bought the finding at J Ring Glass Studio which is my wholesale supplier. Always good talking with Joe & Susan. They have been in the glass business so long that there isn't much about the stained glass and kilnformed art forms that don't know about.

I'll have my hands full at the moment putting together project outlines for my Have Kiln Will Travel adventures and more serious classes for the Chicago Ave Fire Arts Center. Class design will be all that I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks.... but maybe I'll sneak out to fry some more dichroic in my little orange midgets.