I haven't been around here much lately so I thought I'd say hello. I got a part time job to take up the slack since my bead sales have been down. Oddly enough now that I am working, my bead sales are starting to pick up again.
I live in the Southern Sierra Nevadas near Bakersfield, CA, and we are in that deep freeze that's going on right now. The citrus crops are taking a huge hit because of the cold, and it's going to impact the industry at large, most likely. My little studio is a metal shed, so torching right now is out of the question. I can't work when it's only
28 degrees! The shed isn't insulated so I'm sure it's just as cold inside as outside, and I doubt there's a space heater in the world powerful enough to warm up that icebox! So I've had to put lampworking on the back burner till the weather warms up. One thing that I've heard that is good is that the cold winter is going to mean a long, hot summer. I hate the heat in general, but I'll be glad of it this year because it will mean many hours of torch time. I had just gotten into it and started to figure out what I was doing, was just getting to be able to make uniformly shaped beads and getting a feel for what my style might be, when I had to put it all away for the winter.I went to ebay a few days ago and I was loving some of the gorgeous beads I saw. I'm not sure if I should look at people's work or not, because I don't want to be influenced to the point where I end up copying someone's work. I really want to find my own unique style.
Anyway, forgive the ramble. I just wanted to come out of lurkdom and say hi.