Summer is starting

Memorial Day has been celebrated, schools are gearing down to close for the semester, and many families are getting ready for vacations. Ah....summer.
We're doing something new this year here at Rowe Studios - we're teaching classes instead of taking the summer off. You can check the calendar for times and dates. There are 2 sessions of beginning stained glass starting in July: one on Wednesday mornings, and one on Thursday evenings. We have an intermediate stained glass class scheduled for Wednesday evenings in July too - for beginning lead came construction.
We have set aside Friday mornings in June for introduction to mosaics. It's a relaxing and fun way to get out of the heat, socialize, learn about making mosaics, and recycle glass. In fact, with all the antique glass scrap we've been cleaning and putting out for sale, there's lots of colors and textures. The best part, all the materials are included in the tuition. If you do stained glass, you'll most likely have scraps at home ... and this is the perfect way to recycle instead of throwing away. How many times can you say that you're starting a new project without spending any money?
I'd love to hear requests for classes. You can send me an email, give me a call, or better yet, stop by and talk to me. We have kilns and torches for hot glass classes too. I even have a carton of wine glasses that I thought would be fun to etch designs on - anyone want to do a morning class?
Come in and look through all the hand-rolled glass we have out now. Everything that was upstairs in storage is now out for your browsing pleasure. And all the Genesis, Chicago Art Glass, Fusion Dynamics, and Fischer Opals are on sale with a 30% discount. This is a wonderful opportunity to buy glass that hasn't been made for quite a while - so you'll be sure to find something unique.

Back to "normal"

Can hardly believe it's been over a month since I took the time to sit down and write. As lazy as I am, you'd think I'd use every excuse to stop cleaning and sit down!
Now that we've passed the Fire Department's inspection, we're still waiting to hear what the Building Department will have to say. Since I can't do anything about that, I've decided not to get all stressed out and just wait and see what comes.
Quite a bit of the mess has been cleared away, thrown away, or organized ... so classes have started up again. Any of you who do mosaics should stop in, I'm filling up my boxes of scrap glass. I've even been sorting out colors and putting them into smaller plastic bins to make selection/shopping easier. There were a lot of boxes of scrap from antique windows in storage upstairs. After sorting and cleaning, most of that is going into the scrap boxes for sale too. My next job is to sort all of the pieces of painted glass - one could make some wonderful panels with these antique "scraps"!
Even though it's a dirty/dusty job, it's been fun making discoveries. Not only have I found a lot of small sheets of glass from Tiffany Studios, but all kinds of lamp parts - both metal and crystal, and a couple of lamps/fixtures that (with some repair) that could be real winners. I'm going to sound like my mother when I say "If only there were more hours in the day so that I'd have time to do all this!"