hunting island

oh! we had a lovely time as always down at hunting island. it is a state park, so there are no houses on the beach at all, and the stars shine brighter than the mirrors on the king's palace in bangkok!

claire, kate, brenda, stephanie, julian, and i all enjoyed ourselves. we walked on the beach, watched the dogs play, ate some good food, napped, drank beer, sat by the fire...what a fun time!

i woke up in the middle of the night to a racoon on our table opening our cooler...he also went through the recyclables. it kind of creeped me out, watching this fairly large animal, the size of a small dog, on our table. the ranger, "chief", told us he can open a jar of peanut butter! those damn fingers! this is the best picture i could get before he ran off.

then i came home to a lovely chicken being smoked for our dinner. jamie is an excellent grill man and the chicken was delicious. very sweet of him to make a special dinner for my return! (i missed him, too....absence can indeed make the heart grow finder, even if it is only for a couple of days...)

ciao!

outta here again

today i am leaving to go camping at hunting island state park in sc. jamie can't go because he has to work! sniff, we have been together so much recently it is going to be like losing an arm or something. but i am really looking forward to getting in some quality time with my girlfriends whom i haven't seen much at all recently with all the traveling and transitions i have had going on.

this week has been pretty uneventful. i have been having a good time at work, making new things. one of my newest ideas is to make things that are pretty from both the front and the back. i have done this in the past, but i am focusing a little bit more on it this week, as i think it makes jewelry more special. also it is a challenge and fun for me to do. i'll get some pics next week when i get home.

i also sent some work off to the Philadelphia Museum of Art Store. i'm super excited to have them as a new gallery. www.philamuseumstore.org
I hope my work sell well there! and i hope they add some pics ofmy work to their website, we'll see.

here's a pic of me and jamie after the implosion. there was a lot of dust in the air, so we had to cover our faces. we have quite a nice collection of self portraits like this one.

see ya later! have a great weekend!

philadelphia

we have had a very good trip here to philadelphia. we began by visiting the Eastern State Penitentiary. This is a very old prison here built in the late 1800's. It was a model prison for several reasons: it provided the 1st architectural example of a prison that was built with a center hub, and originally 5 spokes of cell blocks coming out of the center. Furthermore, it was a true "penitentiary", meaning that it was a prison designed to inspire penitence, or true regret, in the prisoners. they attempted to achieve this through isolation,no contact with other prisoners, so that the inmates could think over their crimes and regret them, and then never do such things again. it was very fun to see this old crumbling prison. apparently they had a real kick ass haunted house there for halloween and we were sorry we missed it.







the craft show has been going ok. i have made several good gallery contacts and have had a chance to see some friends. the money is not the best but it is better than nothing. the hours are long and grueling, but having jamie in the booth definitely makes things more fun! we've been playing 20 questions and the name game which has been quite enjoyable.








this morning we were lucky enough to see our first building implosion. it was very exciting. they took the building down in order to make room for the expansion of the convention center.








the show is over tonight, and then we pack up and chill out for the evening. we have been eating some excellent food here, ao perhaps we will go out to eat again. last night we had delicious vietnamese food with a group of artist friends. Sadie Wang, Debra Adelson, Douglas Wunder...very good company and talks!

Fermelenge!

off to philly

well, tomorrow we are out of here. we are excited to go off on another trip, but this one is for work and it is going to be brutal. the main redeeming thing about this trip is that we hope to sell a shit ton of jewelry and make some good money. philly is a nice town too, but since we will be at the craft show from about 10 am til 9 pm we won't have much of a chance to do anything.

we cleaned the house today for our housesitter. jamie made quite a nice collection of my shoes that he found under the coffee table and couch. here you can see them, as well as trudy attempting to sneak out of the picture and sadie idly watching on the side.

Then i met up with susannah wejbro and kristin welch downtown at my studio for a photo shoot. susannah is the photographer, kristin is the model, i guess i am just the jeweler. susannah just won the big artist project grant from the Arts Council of Asheville! it is a big honor and very exciting as it helps fund a big new color printer for her.

anyway, kristin was a great model, a beautiful woman, and susannah got some amazing shots. it was super fun, looking around the alley and the courtyard for interesting places for photos. i got to see my work on someone really for the 1st time and it was really super fun. here are some pics i took of the process. check back on my real website sometime in the next month or so to see the final shots.
www.joannagollberg.com

don't go looking at it now because it is all a mess due to my reconstruction efforts that began last weekend. i think i am figuring out where i want to go with it, but seriously, it takes so long to do it i had to have a break.



i've been enjoying a few good podcasts. those of you who have ipods or listen to podcasts might want to check these out: the dan savage podcast (not for shy ears--a sex call in advice show--VERY funny!), Let's Talk Bigfoot (need i say more, very convincing though), Namaste Dosti (for those of you who want to learn Hindi, like I do), the Bill Maher show (not for the political right), and of course my favorite This American Life. If you go to download a TAL, you MUST get the "fiasco" episode. And the "babysitting" episode. fabulous. i can't tell you too much about them or i would ruin it for you. if you have never listened to a podcast, you can get them for free at itunes. or you can google the show you want and find it elsewhere on the web as well. this is great fun if you like listening to radio shows and stories. like when you are doing chores or something around the house...

here's a couple of websites i found recently that i liked:
www.ragandbone.com
a neat site with handmade letter pressed cards and papers and stuff
www.byus.dk
cool funky jewelry artist profiles with great pics of their work
niessingshop.com
one of my old favorites. please note the"spinning rings" (they call them something else) and remember my past potential lawsuit over these? ummm, that wasn't from this company. why doesn't the jack ass sue these people? i think perhaps he is afraid they might take away his patent. but who really knows.
www.stylehive.com
you have to look hard here, but it is full of GREAT stuff! interesting idea as well.

anyway, that's it for now. ttfn and have a great week. wish us luck up in philly!

fermelenge!
(my newest hindi word....it means "see you later!")

quickie

tonight is a quickie...here in the computer, that is. ;)

we had FUN carving the pumpkins, and were both feeling proud to see them out on the porch all lit up last night. it's the little things, people, that makes us feel good. can you guess who carved which pumpkin?

we also took the ladies (trudy and sadie) for a walk, which was nice, and ran into our friend john on kimerbly ave. it is kinda nice when that happens, as it really does make you feel more part of a community when you pass someone you know on the road.

then we came back and i painted! jamie did not. but i had fun painting while jamie cooked some kick ass roasted pork stuffed with mushrooms and onions, garlic and ginger. YUM. i love any glaze with honey or brown sugar on pork.

that's about that. today i had a great day at work, i came up with a ton of ideas for earrings to go with my new work. i have not posted pics of my new work that i am so psyched about...perhaps soon. i really am into it, i hope i get a good response in philly when we go for the next show. it is coming up soon, and i am feeling some pressure to make sure i have the best work i can have ready for the show! check out the link here for the philadelphia museum of art craft show. www.pmacraftshow.org

sleep tight!

what to do

people have been asking me how it feels to be married. well, it feels great! i used to worry about spending my life alone, at times i worried about this so much that i would become mentally crippled. i believe that much of the depression that used to plague me came from this fear of being alone.

but i am discovering that having a partner does not make everything all ok. i often have been troubled by being bored in the evenings after work. what do people do? watch tv, eat, do chores, read? those things are fine, but not every night. i do not want my days to be filled with work and chores and eating and tv. i've been thinking that jamie and i should take a class, do something together. i kind of thought that having a partner would make this "empty night" feeling go away. but it has not. jamie is wonderful, and i love being with him so much! we are best friends and we have a great time together, even if we are doing nothing. but he cannot fix that restless feeling of not knowing what to do at night for me, so i have to get on it and figure something out for myself, so i can scratch my itchy fingers.

for now, i've decided i need to get back to being crafty. i do not have my craft things set up in the new house, but i have a big coffee table down here in the living room that i can work on. i bought some things in thailand that i just liked, even though i wasn't sure what to do with them. i've figured it out, though, and decided that we are going to paint them and hang them up somewhere appropriate in the house. i am really excited to paint these things!
both the metal discs and the wooden flowers are about one inch in diameter. jamie said he might want to paint some too!

here they are before the painting, and i'll post some pics of them after the painting as well.

last night we went over the stephanie'shouse for a post birthday get together. this is gracie, steph's dog, all gussied up in her halloween costume. ha!

today we are going to carve our pumpkins. i am shocked to hear it, but jamie has never carved a pumpkin before! so it will be fun to have a go at it, and roast the seeds, too.

later!

talked into it

october 18, 2007

so, after several suggestions that i keep blogging, i've been officially talked into it.

i am planning on changing the blog name, though, but i am going to try to do it so you can type in either the new name or the old one. since this will not really be a travel blog anymore, i am going to think of something new. i almost have it, but i need to sleep on it.

for the past few weeks i have been obsessed by my jewelry making, i think about it almost all the time. it has prevented me from chatting on the phone and has been making me have restless fingers when i am at home at night.

so for now, in my 1st blog as a non-traveler, i am just gonna post a few pics for you that i took myself. i am really psyched about them, as i discovered a new setting on my camera that really works great for close up shots of jewelry. these items will be in an invitational jewelry show at the Cervini Haas Gallery in scottsdale, arizona. i am really excited to be in this show because the fellow jewelers are people whose work i respect. it is nice to be a part of that. check it out at www.cervinihaas.com


ciao.