We stayed at the Ann Starrett Mansion, on the 3rd floor attic...All the walls were slanted and I conked my head every single day I stayed there...But it was painted and furnished in charming period furniture, the beds were cozy and warm...The TV is in the little armoire, and there was no remote, so I sat in the rocker and used my toe to change channels..- hey, whatever it takes, right?

Here's where I slept...there's a tiny portal hole at the head of the bed..I felt like I was living in a doll house when I had to bend over to slide by the bed and turn the lamp on and off...The ceiling is painted with rose and vines, and you can kinda see them...the bed was comfortable and I slept like a log...

This is the view out the window of our attic - looking up onto the Port Townsend "Uptown" area...I can imagine when the mansion was the only building on hill, and you looked out on the wildlife there...The mansion had pictures of the house when it was first built in the late 1880's, and the rooms on the second floor were roped off so you could view them. A very cool place to stay...

But not such a cool place to take a shower - again living in the attic has its drawbacks and taking a shower standing up is not possible...so we'd just sit in the tub and take 'bath-shower'...I felt like those monkeys you see in the steaming springs, or maybe it was more like bathing in a big bowl of soup...whatever it was, I can tell you its dangerous stepping out of the tub and onto the floor when you're wet and crawling around...

Lydia and I rented a car, and they 'upgraded' us to one of these new Dodge Magnum things...it was definitely the coolest car Port Townsend had seen in awhile...We sat at a red light and the 3 folks crossing in front of us just kept staring at the car as they walked by...Folks all over were asking us 'what is that thing'? But its very comfortable and hauls 4 people and loads of frit and glass just fine...I dug it...

This is the outside of Andrea's shop, just off Water street...And woudln't you know it - I forgot to get pics of her studio in the backroom. But just imagine the smallest space you could squeeze 4 people into and you'd get the idea...it was actually quite cozy and fun - I mean, look at the number of beads we managed to make (below)...Its not like you can't get anything done in there, we all cranked out gobs of beads during our 2 days there...The coolest thing about the shop for me, was the fact that Andrea asked me to send some bracelets to her so she can carry them...how amazingly groovy is that? She's got some really great artists on display in there, so I'm honored she'd ask me to contribute...I'm still grinning about it...

Just outside Andrea's studio is this neat little fountain and a set of a gazillion steps that go up the hill into 'uptown'...that's where our mansion (its fun to say 'our mansion') was, but did we walk all those steps? no...we are wusses and when its 40 degrees in the early morning, you wanna get in the Silver Pimp mobile and drive down the hill...so I never walked the steps...but I saw other folks doing it in the sunshine...

Once we hit Michael's house, we found a great garden in his front yard - and there was this tiny little stick figure of an apple tree, bearing these great big apples all over it...It looked like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree- can you see how they've put supports on it so it doens't fall over? I wanted to go grab an apple, but didn't have the guts to ask - I mean, this is *their* garden, and I didn't want to invade their space...Michael's wife Joanie was harvesting something in another part of the space, and his bad beads are sprinkled all over, but you can't see them much anymore, as the dirt and grass have grown over them...I was looking forward to seeing them, but alas, they are now hidden for future excavators to discover in 100 years...

While we drove from Pt. Townsend to Frantz, Olympic and all over, we kept seeing Mt. Rainier....in this shot it looks like the cloud is a halo over it...We never did see Mt. St. Helen's tho...the mountain ranges were fun to see in the distance...I can see why folks like living there, the scenery is amazing...

On our way to Redmond to attend the group gathering at Peg's house, I was just looking out the window and boom - there's a gigantic pumpkin patch just sitting on the side of the road...Pumpkins as far as you could see...as we drove, we found a little entrance where you could drive in, pay for a pumpkin and go pick your own...Here in Austin, you just buy pumpkins from the grocery store (or drive an hour to a farm like we did)...You just don't see patches of pumpkins on the side of the road in Texas...we were amused...

Here we are at Peg's and this is Emmett Hollander who teaches at Pratt in Seattle...The ring and marble in the pics below are his and here he's demoing how to make the pendant he has around his neck...he works in Boro...he brought his baby Aiden who was so cute..I have more pics that I'll put up later - don't want to make this page too hard to load, and besides, it'll give you a reason to come back later, right? Emmett was very cool...

Here is Kimberly Affleck demoing something, although I don't remember what it was she was making...It was great to meet Kim - she brought the beads she'd made in Andrea and Michael's class, as well as some that she'd electroformplated from a class with Kate Fowle...she's got some exciting news that I'm not sure is public knowledge yet, so I'll wait to say anything until I know she's told everyone...but its pretty groovy...and so is she...

Here we are in Olympic Color Rods in downtown Seattle...The place is tucked away on a side road, and its fairly small - maybe 900 or 1000 square feet...They let the 4 of us cruise all over the warehouse and take pics and grab all the frit and rods we could carry - and that crap is HEAVY...I found that out when I packed it in my suitcase and had to take it down three flights of stairs in the mansion...ugh...Anyway, what you're looking at here are the transparent rods - golds, blues, purples, black, etc...

This picture shows the rods a little more clearly..Each rod is about 2.2 lbs (1kilo) and the guys would chop them in half for us if we wanted (my teal half rod is pictured below)...they would make great clubs if an intruder broke into your home...I thought this row made for a nice pic, tho...

And here is one of many rows of bags of frit - including the famed "Raku" frit...The guys said they had a HUGE run on that in the past few weeks, and they are just now starting to get the lampwork audience as customers - mostly they work with glassblowers and folks who use large amounts of frit...When we were leaving they said "see ya'll in a few years, after you use all that frit"...haha, how right they are...

This pic is of a box of marble stock latticino that was just sitting unceremoniously on the side of a windowsill...I thought it made for a fun pic...

Remember those large rods just above? Well, they make small vases out of each rod, and for the transparents, they put them against a lit wall so they can see the color...each one is marked with the number of the color (R-108, Z-99, etc) and the opaques are shown below against a wall that isn't backlit...I enjoyed just looking at all these (there were more, but I figured you'd get the idea instead of me taking pics of each set of them)...

These pics are where the Olympic receptionist sits - I asked her if she makes anything with glass and of course - 'no'...She is taking a pottery class, tho..haha...Isn't that always the way? Folks who own jewelry stores and have access to fabulous diamonds aren't really interested in wearing them...folks who own ice cream shops don't like ice cream - and folks who work in glass frit shops don't even make glass beads...the background is created using the frit from the shop...and I dunno who made these jellyfish below, but they are amazing...- I found out from my friend Laurie that these jelly fish are the work of Rick Savata...fabulous!!

This is a picture of some sample colors and the table actually lights up...when the fluorescent light is turned on, some of the colors change from green to pink (the tourmaline in te far right column for example)...I just liked the look of all these big globs of glass - who wouldn't?

Here we are in Frantz...This is Kris Valdes (Hot Glass Gal on WC) picking some glass from the Frantz showroom...You could go mental in this place, but I tried really hard to just keep things undercontrol...not that I didn't spend some money - the boro bracelet shown below is a Kevin O'Grady that I found in a display case, so I did my own damage, but amazingly enough I didn't buy any glass...I found some 3/64" mandrels (smaller than the 1/16" that I've been using) and a new brass 'stick' tool that moves glass, but that was about it...Everyone else bought glass and had it shipped home..I do have some sheets of dichro that Lydia will be receiving at her place next week, I forgot...

And here are Lydia (above) and Nurse Katie (Katie Green, below) finding other goodies for their stash...You can see the racks of enamels, graphite marvers, videos, books, and all sorts of tools and hooha here...Jed is helping Kris with some glass too...

Mike Frantz has these two huge display armoires filled with beads from everywhere. We could spot nationally known artist beads, and lots who we didn't know...the fish on the left are Vitorio Constanini's - who I'll be learning from in January...I enjoyed just staring into these cases forever...

...and this case (harder to see with the flash, sorry) has two enormous goblet like things that Lucio Bubacco (also teaching in january) had made...plus some scorpions, spiders and a devil head on the white cloud thing on the right...

Some folks prefer their rods to be full 39" or cut in half instead of thirds, so if you prefer to stop in a buy your glass directly, you can just lift and buy...It would be so cool to live near Frantz- but I bet I'd still have the stuff shipped to me..Andrea said she has her stuff shipped and she only lives about an hour away...you know how it is - I live in Austin but have never been to SXSW or Austin City Limits - yet folks come in from all over the world to attend it...isn't that always the way...?

I liked the case of various torches Nortel on the left, Bethlehem in the middle and Carlisle on the right...GTT are in the back and various eyewear are above..there's even a Japanese torch in there, in the back right...its a cool, slow burner - Michael has one and showed it to us, although he didn't hook it up so we didn't use it...

Here's Michael's classroom (Lydia and Kris are working, Katie and I are hiding out of camera shot)...He's got nice lighting and exhaust fans right in front of us and the temp was so nice out (50's) that we'd just open the door for 'instant airconditioning'...

Here's my stash of frit and rod that I bought at Olympic...various sizes of Raku, silver blue and a weird purple that I was told is cool...will haveta check it out...

Here's the Kevin O'Grady boro bracelet - its been fumed with gold so it glistens and sparkles...it has a kind of fish-like, snake-like scale look to it, in golds, greens and blues...it fits perfectly and the price was right, so its mine now...And the marble and ring that Emmett made are a lot of fun to gaze into...I have a little boro to play with, i hope to make some rings eventually one day...

And here we go - All but one of these beads are MINE, and one is Andrea's - can you tell which is hers? Well, its not that hard - her's is the GOOD bead in the bottom row, the middle bead (large, round, brown, the good looking one). Its called a Sea Garden and you can see more of her work on her website (link above in the title)... I like the Galaxy beads the best - they are on the right, the bicone, barrels and round flat ones...It was the first time I'd ever fumed a bead before - the blue in those beads are from the black, silver and clear - there is no blue glass in those beads at all..amazing...can't wait to make more of those...The bead in the top right has been faceted all around to give a really cool sparkle to it...and I've got a new lapidary machine on order - should arrive next week...I'll get more pics of that bead so you can see the effect...It started out being a different style, but alas, I made the bead too small, so I had to facet 4 sides instead of two...I'll try to get a pic of Lydia's bead so you can see what it's supposed to look like...but this one came out kinda cool on its own...

And here are my Michael Barely beads - well some of them...I think there are 3 or 4 more that are being mailed, since it was the last day and we weren't able to take them with us...The two large flat beads on top are Michael beads that I bought, and the bead cleaner on the right is one that he gave us...but the other 4 are ones I made in class...the bottom one is silver and ivory, the purple one above it is Satake (which is like making a bead using honey) and the brown with the black stripe is a new technique called 'shards'...you get a large gather on a blowpipe, roll it in frit or stripe it with glass, blow it out and break it into small pieces - make a bead and lay the shards on the bead...it gives a neat watercolor, shaded effect...the orangy bead was using various layered colors to create new colors...We had a great time, Michael is very zen, so each bead was slow and precise...I need to learn to slow down and make fewer mistakes in what I do...but I don't have time to do that - I have beads to make...