Ariella Chezar

I am completely blown away with Ariella Chezar as a designer of floral/garden arrangements. She inspires me so I thought I would share her with you. Her work can be seen in magazines such Oprah, Martha Stewart Weddings and Victoria. Enjoy, Heidi All pictures on this post are courtesy of Ariella Chezar.

More Platters

We're working on about 3 projects - I'll post some photos of the glass we are incorporating in a couple of the projects.

Some new glass

Here's some new pieces. Had more than that but they already sold before I could get pictures of them.

Lino Tagliapietra!

Linda and I were in the Seattle / Tacoma area for 7 days and got back on Tuesday the 17th. We spent 5 of those 7 days sitting and watching probably the greatest glass blower that has ever existed on the planet. Lino Tagliapietra. Lino was tremendous. There was a total most of the time 12 people on the floor with Lino assisting. John Kiley, David Walters, and Nancy Callan were his main three. Most of the time all 12 stayed busy preparing cane, cups for incalmo, and assisting with the piece Lino was working on and getting the follow-up piece ready for Lino to take over as soon as the one he was working on was finished. We watched every day from 9 am to 3:30 or 4:00 and on Sunday Noon to 5:00 pm. Lino signed our book that we bought. He wrote to, and signed our names and then signed his name and "Tacoma, 2008". They had this huge exhibit entitled, "Lino Tagliapietra In Retrospect A Modern Renaissance In Italian Glass" The number of pieces of his work was astounding. They also had a large exhibit of Dante Marioni. His ability to produce those long, elongated, elegant pieces seem unmatched. I know Lino is the best but Dante is certainly following closely. (We took 620 pictures! Thank God for digital picts. Thank God for Apple 30" monitors, and Apple tower quad processor computers with insanely large hard drives.) I can't wait to get back in the studio and experiment and practice. And practice. And practice....
Man! We had a great time!
And practice…

News 9 Interview

We want to thank Gwen Faulkner Lippert, Melissa Maynarich, and Channel 9 for asking us to come down to their television studio and do an interview with us yesterday. They asked us to bring some glass that we blew and we set it up on a counter in front of where we stood. They did the interview live at about 4:25 pm. it lasted slightly over 3 minutes. The people there at channel 9 were really helpful and nice.

This link should take you to the video.

Once you get to the site find the "search" on the bottom right and type in, "Oklahomans focus on art, pizza" It should pop right up. Right now its under the heading of "Top Videos".
Thanks very much to Scott Newhouse for recording it for me! Scott and Hal - Mac Geniuses and longtime friends of me and Italian Jim's Pizzeria!

Distinctly, Something Special

Something special has happened to us. Distinctly Oklahoma! It's out!!! The June, 2008 issue of "Distinctly Oklahoma" features Bella Forte Glass Studio in a great article starting on page 38 through page 43. It's the issue with David Boren on the cover. They probably won't have it on the website (http://distinctlyoklahoma.com/) until June, but the magazine just hit the streets. Many thanks to all the leadership and fine staff at Distinctly Oklahoma, from Stephanie Lawler, Brent Fuchs (http://www.brentfuchs.com/) at the portrait studio, and David Althouse who interviewed us and wrote the article. Get your copy at Barnes and Noble, and Full Circle Bookstores. Also on Wednesday, May 28th we are going to have a 3 minute short spot on Channel 9 (News 9) with Gwen Faulkner Lippert where they will be interviewing us and talking about blown glass. Really sharp! I've got some new pieces we've done but haven't taken the photos yet and excited about doing something a little new with some cane. Maybe this week or weekend, and if it turns out, some photos will be forthcoming.

"The Highest Recommendation I Have!" goes to David and Alice Manney and Jamila and Mark Whisenant (David and Alice's daughter and son-n-law). A family business owned and run by the family called "Kwik Kar". They change oil and do all sorts of service work and mechancial work on your vehicle. They are located right in front of Lowes of Yukon there on "Garth Brooks Blvd". You can trust David and his family to be fair and treat you right. I tell my own mother that's where she needs to go if she ever needs anything done on her car. David has integrity and runs his business with it as well. Get your service work done there and you will be glad and your car will be a "happy car".

Also, just found out Lloyd Daniels down in Texas checks out my blog from time to time. It was good to see you and Teresa today and thank you for checking us out! A big HELLO! to you guys!

New Work

1st Photo is a big fluted bowl. A Mixture of different reds (some transparent and some opaque) on the inside with Gold Brown mixed with a few chunks of Garnett mixed in with a Curry body wrap and lip wrap. It's pretty large, I'll measure it and put the measurements in later.

2nd Photo is a set that is Sea Green with Chartreuse accents.

3rd Photo is a Cerulean Blue with Orange accents set.