Day 1 Garden & Art Lovers Delight at Annie's Annuals

It was a seemingly typical summer day by the Bay--I woke up to cool overcast skies and a cool breeze. The light wind was a breath of relief because last week's relentless heat wave had been the most unbearable of the three we have had in the past month. The thought of sweating in the hot air made smokey by the hundreds of fires in California, was untenable.

I loaded the boxes of precious glassware in the back of my Subaru. With Rain's help last night, the glass pieces had been inventoried, numbered and assigned a price, and each one was carefully wrapped in bubble wrap or glassmaker's paper and placed in a box. Next came a box of bubble wrap, paper bags and strawberries for my customers. Rain got into the car with her gimpy leg--put into a soft cast 9 days ago when she suffered a very bad sprain when coming off a climbing wall. She was a trouper even though she was still in pain.

When we got to Annie's, all the other artists were set up under their canopies. I was greeted by "Fairy Dogmother," brought to life by an imaginative ceramist. . .



. . . and 'creepy' monster beads created by a local flamerworker and his wife.



Animals were a theme for several of the artists. Here are paper chickens made by a woman who is inspired by real life chickens and roosters. Some of her birds are made from handmade papers. Fun to look at, but not to eat!



Rain, as some of you know, has a great feeling for color and design, having done floral, window and shop displays at The Urban Green which you can read about here.



She has supported the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program also known as GRIP almost her whole life, first as a volunteer reading to little kids and serving meals, then in the last 4 years with her Hand Up Knitting design and knitware services.

So I was happy when Rain offered to set up the display of glassware.

Elayne, who works for Annie's, did a fabulous job of organizing everything for us. She had put a turquoise table by the beautiful Rosa Flutterby bush for us, which makes Rain happy because she loves roses. You can see a close up of the flower at Rosa Butterfly.









Being at Annie's Art in the Garden was like a reunion for me. Friends, former clients and colleagues came to celebrate the joys of gardening and art, and to find inspiration, peace and community.



Donna, an artist in her own right whose printworks are currently on exhibit at Mina Dresden gallery, her brother Keith (not in the photo) and their father Gene Sharee came from San Francisco and Marin Counties to celebrate summer, pick up some plants for Donna's garden and support my showing of GlassLight.

Shanna O'Hare, a former client who worked as a senior planner with the City of Oakland's Transportation Division, and who loves flowers, brought her gardening mother-in-law Emmy, who told me she used to do batik on fabric.

James Kalin of Virtually Green came by to help out and quench people's thirst with some organic lemonade.

Rhonda Edwards and Rosemary Yacono, with whom I worked when I was the Foreign Scholar Adviser at the University of California at Berkeley, came to enjoy the gardens and collect a GlassLight magnet.

Rosemary Lowden, a former consulting associate, now at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, came with her friend, Pat, to pick up a few Glasslight gifts and a car-load of Annie's plants.



Rain's boy friend, Jonathan Perry-Houts, came by.

It was fun answering people's questions about GlassLight, and explaining how multiple firings in kilns powered by solar energy, create the alchemy between artist and glass. Each piece is one-of-a-kind because glass has a magic and mystery that is revealed at different stages in the process of creating GlassLight. I might have a visual idea in mind when I start to cut the sheets of glass. The glass may break in a different shape than I wanted it to, inspiring my imagination onto another path. Take the striker red plate with 7 curved 'stripes' separated by clear glass. I wanted to make a solid striker red plate, however the glass had another 'mind.' As I was separating the circle from its surrounding sheet in the first cut, a curved piece broke off. That was the beginning the end result, which you can see in my June 12, 2008 post.

Thanks to Annie's and delightful GlassLight customers Rhonda Edwards, Patricia Gangwer, Deb Karbo, Rosemary Lowden, Arlene Makita-Acuna,Tracy & Neil and Dawn Munson, who adopted bowls, platters, sushi plates and serving dishes, we'll be making another contribution to GRIP this month.

I can't wait to meet tomorrow's visitors at Annie's Art in the Garden!