January 30, 2002: Dichroic glass and wire jewelry, other news.

As I mentioned before (I think), I want to make wearable pins with the same quality as my usual sculptures. The trouble is that I am still not entirely comfortable using blades for these pins, even if I try to desharpen them...

So, I've been looking for an alternative wing material. Something that I'm happy with, artistically. I used to make a lot of fused glass jewelry (back in the Dark Ages), and I still have the kilns... Thus, I now enter an Expermental Phase. (Gee, I feel like a mad scientist when I say that... Wait, technically I am a scientist! Biologists are scientists, right? Cool!)

I'm using dichroic glass, specifically, which is Really Neat Stuff. If you haven't seen it before, it's clear glass with a very thin metallic film on it. The film reflects one color (like say, blue) and transmits a completely different color (like say, pink).

For these experiments, I've been making wire-wrapped jewelry. The techniques can be easily translated into insect wings for my sculpture. And, I like jewelry anyway.

Always happy to make a buck or two before irretrievably losing my experimental results in my apartment, I set up a bunch of eBay listings. So, here's links to the HTML I used in the listings; click each auction title to see pictures.

• Dichroic Pendant, Blue & Clear, 14 KT gf wire
• Dichroic "Flow" Pendant, Blue Glass, Sterling
• 5 Dichroic Glass "Links" for Bracelet
• Dichroic Glass, multicolor, focal "bead"
• Focal "Bead", Multicolor Dichroic Glass

By the way, if you want to see the actual listings (BID! BID NOW!!!), check out my current eBay listings.

Other news.

In other news, my husband tried to buy a car from a friend of ours for $500. We figured we could use a spare car, and I was hoping my husband could get used to driving on a more regular basis than he has so far (he got his license five years ago, hasn't driven since).

Things with the car didn't go well at all. I guess if we needed the car really badly, this would be a real problem. Luckily we don't, since we carpool to work and so on... so, I guess it's just a relatively minor hassle instead. It's not the former owner's fault at all, we just took a gamble on the car's condition and lost.

It SEEMED to be in really good shape, and did fine at the last inspection a few years ago. Plus our friend had always done an overly good job of recording which repairs it needed, when, how much it cost, etc... so we THOUGHT it would be fine...

There was a lot of carpooling involved to/from the MVA and the garage since my husband doesn't really drive, and my stick-shift skills are rustier than the Titanic. Our friend was a BIG help with that too.

Finally, the last step... the car was getting inspected at a reliable garage.

But, then it turned out it needs over $1000 of work to even pass inspection. (Ouch!!) There was some kind of safety problem with the axle. Add that $1000 on to what we paid, plus the sales tax for the car, etc., and voila, it's starting to look like a $2000 total money pit. Not something we really want to deal with right now.

As a result, we decided that the Salvation Army can have it, rather than us even bothering to fix it. We don't blame our friend who sold it to us at all, of course... plus he gave us back $300 of the $500, so he basically breaks even (they only offered him $200 for the car as a trade-in). We'll get the $200 back as a tax break later due to the charity receipt.

Note to self: get cars inspected BEFORE buying next time.

Personally, I find this oddly amusing since this same friend bought a sculpture from me, so... in a way, it was like he gave us a car in return for artwork. Not that I've given him the artwork yet. I need to, I've been putting it off since before my trip to L.A...