Big sky. Colorful clouds. Stunning reflections…
all better with a panoramic photo!!!

Warm, humid & sweaty… a hazy start to the morning. Lots of clouds breezing through the City… sometimes blocking the sun, other times revealing some amazing colors & wonderful reflections.

Freshly thrown… soon to be made into little flower pots. I finally scheduled my next soda-firing, so these might be the last “new” things I can crank out to get into that kiln?! We’ll see… you know I love a deadline… and a good challenge!!!

Enjoying late afternoon flowers on the back porch. Vibrant & fragrant bee balm flowers & furry smoke bush clippings in a soda-fired ikebana vase… and a mini hosta in a handmade flower pot!

What a beautiful day along the Chicago Lakefront… although it was one of those days where I couldn’t quite tell if it was sunny or cloudy?! I changed my mind every five minutes or so… either way… BEAUTIFUL!!!

So the birds are still “naked”… while the jars have now been glazed & wadded for the soda kiln. I can’t wait to see how my flock turns out after soda-firing. The random flashing effects & soda atmosphere should change the colors a good bit… and hopefully all in a good way!

Okay, so my birds are still working their way closer to the soda kiln… I’ve added some colored details to the twigs & leaves! Not quite sure what I’m doing with the birds yet… I have too many options, but not enough decisions!!!

Sadly, we had tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s new “ALEGRIA” under Le Grand Chapiteau here in Chicago for last night… we’ve had tickets since last Christmas as they were the perfect gift!!!

They were doing a re-boot of “ALEGRIA” – the very first Cirque du Soleil show I saw here in Chicago. I remember going and being completely mesmerized as soon it started and the singer sang the first notes. My jaw dropped, I was completely enamored and have been the biggest fan ever since! So we were all so excited to see that they were doing a re-imagined version of ALEGRIA … and bringing it to Chicago!!!

Unfortunately, Cirque du Soleil had to cancel the entire tour due to the pandemic. So the 25th Anniversary re-boot of my very first Cirque show will just have to wait. Instead, we watched the original “ALEGRIA” production on YouTube and ate lots of pizza!

Not quite the same as a live show under the Big Top… but we do what we gotta do, right?! Melty cheese & creamy garlic sauce sure helped too!!!

It would have been my Mom’s 81st birthday…
and to “celebrate” my Dad moved from his home in Elgin to a new place in Schaumburg. He’s very excited to be moving onto the next chapter of his life… and looking forward to getting back to the art fair circuit whenever they let us! Oh yeah… and you may have noticed he grew a “shelter-in-place” beard. For the record… I’ve NEVER seen him with facial hair before this pandemic. So much has changed over the past year.

Even though Chicago is entering Phase Four today… we still all need to dig deep to stay safe, stay focused and get through this together. Getting closer… but we’re not out of the woods yet!