Piece by Piece Mosaics--Kay K Robinson

My friend, Kay K, had a gallery reception yesterday for her show, Piece by Piece Mosaics, at the Old Town Gallery on Main St. in Tustin. I met a couple of friends there and spent a lovely afternoon perusing her colorful work, listening to sweet harp music and catching up with Anneliese and Terry.

This gallery space is so cool~exposed brick, high ceilings, generous office/studio space in the back. And pretty soon, it will be vacant :-( The owners are moving their business closer to home...

Julio Montero entertaining the crowd. Harp music is so soothing and classy!

Glass Slippers.
Kay K started her glassmaking journey creating big, ruffly beads, which you can see as the embellishment on these shoes (more later...)

Another example of mosaics and beads (yup, I met Kay K at the Bead Society!). The leaf and stem are embellished with seed beads.

These are so intricate and beautiful. And there's so much work involved! Let's look closer...

What you may not realize and what I certainly didn't think about, is that each glass piece is hand cut, ground and fired--you don't pick up this stuff off the rack in Michaels! The examples here are the round green pieces and the dark leaves.

And closer still... Can you see the big ruffly beads and a bunch of smaller, round beads? They gave this piece amazing dimension and texture.

This humongous piece is a work in progress that's going to be auctioned for the local charity, All the Arts for All the Kids, in Fullerton. Friends of Kay K, including Terry, are working on the glass pieces, following Kay K's design, while she's doing other glass work and affixing the pieces to the base. The glass pieces for the round designs and longer leaves are glued on netting and affixed as one piece to the base. The other glass is all done separately, piece by piece, and as the design is filled in, the pieces will have to be custom cut to fit in the remaining spaces. You can see especially at the top where glass still needs to be added. Many hands and hearts are participating in this challenge and I'm hoping to see it when it's finished.

Kay K, the woman herself! One of the really cool things she does, which has taken her around the world, is costume building and repair on cruise ships. Doesn't that sound like a blast?! If only I could sew...

And I've saved the best work for last. Ta da!

This is called Breathless. My pictures do not do it justice. Another artist friend of hers did the base, which is exquisite, and naturally, she did the skull.

Again, she's using beads and jewelry to their full advantage! There's only one tooth that's real and I didn't get a photo of that. It's on the far side and it's gold!

The funny thing is, I didn't get one picture of her fish, which was the logo of her show. There were two walls of fish and when I got home, I realized I didn't have any record of those. Duh!!

If you're in the area and want to see Piece by Piece Mosaics (including the fish), here's the website for directions: http://www.otgallery.com/index.html , although Kay K's exhibit isn't on the site yet... And here's the link for the charity event: http://www.alltheartsforallthekids.org/events/index.html

And here's Kay K's own website (yes, you can see the fish here...): http://kaykrobinson.com/Mosaics_by_Kay_K_Robinson/Home.html

Do What You Love!

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Finding Beauty on the Walk Home

Currently, The Husband and I have car issues. Namely, his car has been in the shop for two months! *sigh*

We live within walking distance of my workplace so he’s been dropping me at work and taking the car we’re sharing at this point the 10 miles to his job. Once in a while, when he has to work into the evening, I get to walk home (might as well make it sound enjoyable…). And in actual fact, the walk is good for me and if I go through the park, it IS pretty enjoyable.

Here’s a gander (sorry, there are geese in the park…) at my walk home:

The promise of things to come

Heron? Crane? Delicate and beautiful

Gorgeousness!

Contrast

The shady part

Duck Duck Goose

Reflections

This little guy lives down the street from the park, near a very nice housing complex.

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Mystery Series I’ve Discovered Recently Part Two

The Vintage Magic Mysteries~Annette Blair

Maddie Cutler loves vintage fashion but has been designing contemporary clothing for a New York fashion house. Home for the wedding of her youngest sister in CT, she becomes involved with a murder, old neighbors, an ex-flame FBI agent, the snooty mother of the groom and a ghost. Maddie comes to the realization that her late mom had some paranormal skills that have been passed down to her and, with the help of her beloved Aunt Fiona, is ready to explore them. I’m enjoying the journey Maddie is making, back to her hometown (I don’t want to give away too much about that), with her best friend, Eve, her sweet, literary professor dad, and assorted characters, with plenty of romance thrown in for good measure.

There’s so much I like about this series; heart, humor, friendship, family and love of vintage couture among them. Of course, I like any series I’m willing to read but there’s something about this one that makes it special. Maybe it’s the supernatural overtones or the fact that Maddie is so creative and I love her personality and the characters who surround her and… Well, I hope you’ll see for yourself!

A Veiled Deception

Larceny and Lace

Death by Diamonds (just picked this up at the library today~YAY!)

Trash and Treasures Mysteries~Barbara Allan

Brandy Borne returns to her hometown after a divorce, to live with her mentally unstable mom and take some of the burden off her much older sister, Peggy Sue (yes, mom named them after songs…). She and her blind, diabetic dog, Sushi, are at loose ends and she hopes to bring her life under some control. In a murder mystery? Fat chance! Very soon, the antiques dealer who swindled her addled and theatrical mother, Vivian, and who Brandy called out very publicly, winds up dead in the middle of a country road. So begins the sleuthing of this most endearing team.

Of course there are love interests (a local cop) and characters galore (the ROMEO’s~retired old men eating out, we always find them at local restaurants, and Joe, a veteran of the first Iraq war, who hangs out in the local parkland, gathering intel). What I really like about this series is Brandy’s voice, which is really funny and self-deprecating, and Vivian. I imagine that to live with an actual Vivian would be difficult and heartbreaking, but as a character, she’s the bomb. Almost always over the top, she constantly surprises with her insights and small kindnesses. She’s a Blanche DuBois without the overblown sadness.

At the end of every chapter is an antiques and collectibles tip and in every book (I’ve read two so far) Vivian gets her own chapter, which is interesting because you get to see a different view of Brandy. And Vivian, too, when you think about it. In these books, the mystery is almost secondary to the development of the characters, which to me is fine. Just be aware that there’s more story than mystery here.

Barbara Allan is actually Max Allan Collins and his wife, Barbara Collins.

Antiques Roadkill

Antiques Maul

Antiques Flee Market

Antiques Bizarre

Do What You Love!

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Mystery Series I’ve Discovered Recently Part One

I’ve been in a reading frenzy this year. I log everything I read on Shelfari.com and so far this year, I’ve read more books than I did all of last year.

I’ve discovered a lot of new (to me, anyway) mystery series this year. The Yorba Linda Library, where I go at least once a week, has a carousel by the stairs to the children’s room (I go up there sometimes, too. You never know what great finds there are in the young adult section!) that features paperback mysteries. There are so many interesting series I like to call “American Cozies”, which feature amateur (mostly) female sleuths who stumble onto murders. Here are some of my recent finds in a nutshell (to be continued tomorrow):

The Double Feature Series~Jeffrey Cohen

Elliot Freed, after a short, unhappy career in Hollywood (his only novel was ruined by moviemakers), comes back to New Jersey and with several interesting windfalls, buys an ancient movie theatre that he names Comedy Tonight. Showing one vintage and one current comedy movie a night, Elliot is slowly building an audience. But maybe it should be a murder mystery house, instead, because Elliot keeps stumbling over dead bodies, as any competent amateur detective will. Naturally, these books are filled with a great supporting cast: Elliot’s mother and father, his ex-wife, Sharon, the doctor who left him for another doctor, Sophie and Anthony, his theatre employees, Chief Dutton, the local cop with the patience of a saint and Leo, his only “regular” at the theatre every night, among many others. If you love old comedies, you’ll love all the references to the Marx Brothers, Martin and Lewis, etc. etc. But you don’t have to be a comedy aficionado to appreciate the humor in these books as Elliot bumbles through his life and the mysteries he unravels.

Some Like It Hot Buttered

It Happened One Knife

A Night at the Operation

The Tattoo Shop Mysteries~Karen E. Olson

Brett Kavanaugh runs The Painted Lady, a fictional tattoo shop in the real Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. A New Jersey transplant, she shares a house with her brother, Tim, a police detective. She’s an artist who enjoys creating artwork for her clients~she never uses “flash” (ready made tattoo stencils). Since I’ve been to Vegas so many times, it was fun reading about a place I can see in my mind’s eye. Brett is a stand up girl, who wants to find the truth and help the good guys. Her staff: Bitsy, a little person, who keeps the shop running no matter how crazy things get, Joel, a Weight Watcher wannabe and Ace, an oxygen bar addict. Jeff Coleman is her nemesis (maybe), who, along with his tattoo’d mama, manages to help her our of jams. It’s a fun, non-stop series and I’m anxious for the third installment later this year.

The Missing Ink

Pretty in Ink

Driven to Ink (Sept ‘10)

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