New American Sushi Plate for Lovers

Oh no, its been almost a whole year, since I last blogged -that will never happen again!

I want to tell you about our journey to producing this brand new sushi plate (for lovers!) 
So the first thing I needed to do was to purchase some sushi and california rolls,

 so that i could measure then.....its a tough job, but someone has to do it. 

You know when you eat those delicious California Rolls, filled with avocado, cucumber and prawns, sushi rice all wrapped together, then you want some soy sauce on them?  .....

Normally you can dip them in teeny weeny little tiny reservoirs.  You get the smallest portion of your Californaa Roll to make magical content with the soy sauce - not any more!!!

The solution is at hand - the sushi plate that has a reservoir designed especially for the fattest and most luxurious sushi roll so that you can now dunk the entire "roll" into the soy sauce.

Here's how the design started out.  I cut out one hole larger than a large California roll and one that's slightly smaller.  The material used here is Ceramic Fibre Board which is easy to cut with a stanley knife or craft knife.

  I added some fish shapes that were cut from Ceramic Fibre Paper (3mm thick) and here's the result

This wasn't what the customer wanted because they want two people to eat from the plate and need two identical dipping reservoirs.  So back to the cutting board - literally. 

Now our lovers can sit opposite each other at their table and share and dip to their hearts content!

Back to purchase more sushi from my local shopping mall! And here is the result - we love it.

Here's what the reservoir looks like close up:

And it sits evenly and yet firmly on its lovely "cut out" corners.

We are going to call this the New American Sushi Plate for Lovers!  I'm proudly producing these not only for my customer in America but for the local galleries around Melbourne, Victoria as well.

 The New American Sushi Plate for Lovers also has a "resting place" for both sets of chops sticks as well.

The NEW AMERICAN SUSHI PLATE FOR LOVERS is available in bulk too, if you want larger quantities for your restaurant. (Feel free to contact me with your inquiry.)

Flickr

Have just spend the last few hours searching through Flickr and all the magnificent art works that talented people have uploaded to their Flickr accounts.  I can't suggest strongly enough that you search through Flickr for your favourite and most inspirational topics...also look up memorable places from your childhood and see if someone has a picture of it.  My friend of mine used to go to Bournemouth for his summer holidays and always loved visiting the Shell House....one day when he re-visited Bournemouth, the Shell House had completely disappeared and yet tonight, on Flickr I found a picutre from 1965 of the Shell House.  Success and Joy. 

Wine Bottle Stopper with glorious colourful glass cabochons attached

I've sent all these Wine Bottle Stoppers off to a new outlet in Andersonville, Chicago, Illinois.  If you want a set of these, please check out my Etsy shop and order the colour combination you'd like.

Sand Modelling Competition in Frankston

I listened to an interesting podcast yesterday from Late Night Live from their archives on "The Creative Classes"and it was about how people who are actually doing creative work are not considered to be "creative" and how many millions of people in USA are actually living on their creative efforts.

I'll try and work out how to get you a link to the LNL website so you can download it to you "pod" and listen to it yourself.    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive

We now don't have blue or white collar workers, they are talking about the green collar workers in Australia today, as they try and encourage the school leavers to consider jobs that will help the conservation of our land. Added to this, we are now talking about the no collar workers, the artists, the gallery owners, the writers, but surprisingly the factory worker who spends his nights lovingly creating music and lyrics for his friends.

These are members of the new creative classes who push us to think outside the square, to question our boundaries and explore thoughts we wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to.

Go the creative class I say! Thanks Phillip Adams.

I think of these things as I see the finished work of the Sand Sculpting Competition in Frankston. http://www.sandstormevents.com.au

Devitrification on surface of fused glass

Well you think you have an idea about how to do something because you've done it a million times and had a successful result....but no, "pride comes before a fall" as my mother-in-law would advise.

These pieces that are already sold and I have received the monies for (back in 2009) - so I am aiming to make them as efficiently as possible.

Pulling the "blue deco" pieces out of my kiln yesterday I was astonished to find that they were all scummy and opaque on the surface.

I was aiming for shiny and clean. I was aiming for a set of "blue deco" that were ready for slumping and then posting to the USA - but no, I now have to sandblast the surface of all these pieces before I can slump them and send them off.

These pieces were perfectly clean and dry before they went into the kiln. I have gone to the font of all glass knowledge, the Warm Glass Bulletin Board and searched under "devitrification" and realise that the detergent I have been using has left the surface of the glass with just enough residue to create crystalline structure upon fusing that can't be eradicated easily.

I think its simply wonderful, that people in the glass industry share their knowledge and expertise so that we can learn and relearn whatever it is we are needing at that time.

Thanks to everyone on the Bulletin Board, good work and thanks again. If you are interested its simply: www.warmglass.com/ .

365 Blogs

How enjoyable is it to follow some of these blogs that are endeavoring to create a blog, quotes, paintings, puppets or photo journalism project for 365 days!

One person is quoting Shakespeare adding an art work to a quote for 365 days of 2010!

My brother has started a blog and is producing a watercolour every day throughout 2010 and then having a big art sale/exhibition next January/February where he will sell all these works.

Any one else doing a 365 blog? Are you just doing blogs when you have an idea or when you are motivated or when you have time.

Just wondering...... btw will follow with story later about this old smokehouse on property we visited during Christmas in Northern Tasmania. How photogenic is this building? I love it.