Weber/Miers Collab-o-rama

I took a trip a couple of months ago to Travis Weber's studio in Palo Alto, CA to work with him on some marble collaborations. Here's a short video of the trip.

Kaj Beck/N8 Collaboration

I visited Kaj Beck's studio deep in the (currently smokey) Santa Cruz mountains last week and this is what we made. Kaj did the murrine chips and I did the bottomless honeycomb. Kaj assembled it and I backed it.

Tube Cane Demo by N8

I finally got around to setting up a YouTube Account. A new video each week for the next couple of weeks. Here is one I made last year to promote the Tube Cane Marbles I was making at the time.

He's got big balls...

Click the picture to see my latest marbles.

Kaj Beck/Mike Nelson/N8 Collaboration - 4" Marbles

More pics coming soon - I'm exhausted!!!

Summer Arts and Music this Weekend

Summer Arts and Music Festival
Presented by the Mateel

What: 33rd Annual Summer Arts & Music Festival
Where: Benbow Lake State Rec Area (in Southern Humboldt)
When: June 6th and 7th 2009 - Gates Open at 9:30am both days
Why: The most affordable and comprehensive celebrations of the arts on the North Coast!

Stuck in L.A.

I'm city slicking this week - down in L.A. dog-sitting for family. I'd like to believe that I could still thrive in the city if I had to, but I'm not positive I could. I am eternally thankful for the country life I've been given/livin'. Trapped in the house with the dogs most of the time, I've got no privacy, yelling neighbors, sirens, traffic, ugh...I'm slightly over-stimulated if you can't tell. On the upside, I can stock up on items that are three to four times the price back home. I do my best to support the local businesses in Garberville and Redway, but sometimes the 'humboldt tax' gets a little out-of-hand. Plus, the second-hand stores back home are more like fifth and sixth-hand. I'm used furniture shopping at the moment, and the variety available from the disposable lifestlye here is simply amazing! Hopefully I can stop a few well-built and stylish shelves and tables from hitting the land-fill.

Thankfully (for my sanity), I have some glassblowing friends in the area. I stopped into BC's (temporary) studio and got some shop time in. I showed up to BC's with a box of reversals (done by Josh Stone and I before I left for LA), ready to stack together into this sick bubbler:


The piece was shipped off the following day to the Degenerate Flame-Off in Eugene Oregon this weekend for display at Glass Alchemy's booth, where they are using the piece to show off their new Tailor Made Tubing (which is what this piece is made from). The tubing worked VERY nice, and I'm now sold on the extra layer of clear glass on the inside (unlike the stick-stack technique I've been using religiously over the last 5 years).

I still have a few more days here and a few more friends to visit, so I'll try to get some slick city pics before heading home. Ahh, home...Humboldt I miss you!

My Commute

I caught this pic on my way into town last week. The fog comes over the ridge like a wave!

N8 is one with the Delta Mag...

Finally united after nearly four years of waiting, I finally get my Delta Mag (torch). No, it didn't take Willy and Wally four years to make it! I was on the waiting list for over a year initially when they first came out and when mine was ready, I was broke and had to pass it up. Around August of last year I was planning on buying a Kobuki, but instead went with my gut and stepped up to the Delta Mag. It was only nine months on the waiting list this time, but it's finally herem and after a few days I already feel one with my Delta Mag.

Heads up!

It's a super-ultra-mega-busy time for me right now, so please excuse me if I take a few extra days to get to your emails/calls/texts...I'm not ignoring you, I'm just away from my computer & phone reception for a few days at a time right now. Thanks for understanding! •N8•

Fundraising for LA/LV trip

I'm trying to raise a few last minute funds for my LA/LV roadtrip next week. Please contact me if you see anything you like here:
http://nodfxgallery.com/

Great Night @ Work

I had a great night glassblowing. I believe some of the best work I may have ever done is annealing right now in the kiln. It's just like waiting for Xmas - I have to wait until tomorrow morning for the glass to come down to room temperature to see the finished pieces. Who knows, they could be dookie...lol...everything happens so fast when you are working with hot glass, so you never know until you can see them when they cool down and you can study every square inch of detail. I can't remember the last time I felt this accomplished in the shop though...it's gonna be hard to fall asleep!

BTW, no Seattle for me. I just wasn't feeling up to the drive, and I didn't have enough work done before the show either. I'm saving all my energy for the SoCal Marble show and champs las vegas next month.

Night of Boro in Seattle - Next Weekend

Intergalactic Smoking Utensils

The cat is out of the bag (to see what I'm talking about, see my 4-page spread in this months Glass Aficionado magazine). I haven't posted any space pieces other than the very first one I was experimenting with in early '07, but slowly over the last 2 years I've been slowly tweaking them into perfection. They just keep getting better and better, and I still have a few tricks up my sleeve...

The process isn't simple, by any means. I use lots of silver and gold combined with several layers of clear, which is done to achieve depth in the stars and layers of space. This doesn't show in the pictures as well, but when you see them in person, these pieces are THICK and the detail is DEEP, and TOO much time goes into each piece for what it's probably worth. That's not the point though, the point is that they are fun as hell to make (and daydream about!), and I want to keep each and every one for myself...lol.

Here are a couple of Intergalactic Smoking Utensils,#2 and #3 in the ISU series. I created these two in early 2008 and are long gone now. I'll be posting a few new ones from my archives each week until I am caught up to the present pieces.

2009 Orange County Marble Show

When: Saturday, March 14th, 2009
Hours: 10:00 to 3:00
Admission: $5.00
Where: Wyndham Anaheim Park Hotel
222 W. Houston Ave.
Fullerton, Ca. 92832
714-992-1700

For more information, contact:
Mike Close - 714-747-5656
email: bqmold@earthlink.net

Room trading Starts on Wednesday, March 11th.

Here is a sneak peak of some prep work I've been doing for the marble show. I've got lots in store - some new window marbles, as well as some of my newer tube cane marbles. Keep checking back for more sneak peaks!


Prep for SoCal marble show in March

Website updates...

I finally made it back home from some serious Winter travel. After accumulating 60+ road hours in January, I came to a few conclusions:

1) The ECA site was getting getting out-of-hand to manage and update...so I erased it. I plan to keep the site as simple as possible this time around. Maintaining two image galleries seemed a bit redundant, and instead of sending out newsletters for two different sites, you can visit this blog anytime and catch up and what I've been doing. I can even post pics/text from my phone while I'm on the road, which is something I'll try to get into the habit of doing.

2) I'm bringing NoDFX.com back to life. I started making pipes in 2002, working 60 hours weeks for nearly 4 years straight, only to end in a firey burnout. I am not a machine! I sold my big torch and large tubing, anything I could make pipes out of, and during the last 3 years I switched my focus to marbles and jewelry. I've made pipes here and there, for friends or when marble sales have slowed down, and I miss it. I won't return to duing mind-numbing production right now if I don't have to, but I've found that a nice balance of marbles and high-end functional pieces is the key to my personal work-related happiness. NoDFX.com will be used solely as an image gallery to show off my pipe art that I'm really proud of. Why won't I offer my pipe art for sale? The federal government still frowns upon the sale of ANY glass pipes, used or new (google 'Operation Pipe Dreams'), although they sure loved the taxes the industry brought in while in it's prime. For years I've tried to keep my two glass identities separate, but I feel we've come to a point where the rest of society, even those who don't partake, can still appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship involved in creating these collectible high-end functional art pieces.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for some previews of what I'm bringing to the SoCal Marble show in March...N8

2009 Winter Roadtrip

Usually winter is a time to slow down and get some work done while staying cozy near the torch. Not me - I decided to keep on trucking! I'll try to keep the boring parts short...heh.

The roadtrip started in November when I drove to L.A. for Thanksgiving dinner with some family. After Thanksgiving I saw a Mike Ness show while waiting for the Smoked Book Release the upcoming weekend at Illadelph, a glass gallery on Melrose. The book release was awesome, with tons of talented artists hanging out. It was good to catch up with a bunch of friends, most I hadn't seen since the Pie-Eyed Pipers Party in Drain Oregon a couple of years ago. After the book release I drove home to NorCal, checked my mail, and the next day I drove to WA State to prepare for Xmas with family. The snow up there this year was insane! I grew up in WA, but I don't remember anything like this last winter. It was fun and it was beautiful, but it sure made travel a pain in the butt. I wanted to visit a lot more friends than I actually got to see, which was the only major bummer. After Xmas, I had to bonzai down to Austin Texas for a Reverend Horton Heat show on New Years Eve night. It's a long drive, so I made pit stops at home and in L.A. I made it, barely, but it was worth it. The show was great, but the next 10 days were a complete blast!!!

I met up with Micah Evans on New Years Eve, an old friend/shopmate/roommate from Florida who recently re-located to Austin. Kevin Ivey, Micah Evans, Salt, Clean Pete, Jay and Caylin (sp?) make up Flameworks Studio, which is an all-in-one glass art gallery, supply retail shop, and a decked out teaching facility. I'd highly recommend supporting Flameworks Studio in any way possible, whether it's classes or supplies, etc. I taught an advanced marble class over the first weekend in January with about 10 or 11 students and it was honestly the best teaching experience I've ever had. I was treated like royalty by Ivey and staff. In the past I have taught a lot of beginner/intermediate classes, but this weekend I was able to break out all my advanced tricks and secrets. It was exciting to see 20 awesome student marbles each morning, most of which I wanted to keep for myself...heh. After the class was over, I stayed another week to check out the Austin night life, and of course, to do some collaborating! I worked with Salt and Micah, and I have some additional 'mail-colabs' planned with Salt and Ivey. Pics can be found here at my GA.org and GP.org galleries.

After leaving Texas, I was L.A. bound again, this time for another 10 days or so. I had the glass bug again, and I was jonzin' for some fire, so I visited Wicked Sands. WS is a fun shop with the capabilities of doing anything you could imagine, from blasting to faceting to lathe working, etc. etc. SpikeMike, who works at the WS studio, mentioned DoshWorld and BC were in town, so I tracked them down at Original Glass. OG was a funny little shop, but had extremely good vibes. It's 6 or 7 guys crammed into a fairly small spot, in a strip-mall style building, behind a locked corner gate, where you'd never imagine a glass shop to be...if that makes sense. I had so much fun there though - what a great crew of talented guys. DoshWorld and BC were there working, so we busted out a collaboration piece - I didn't get the best pictures of the piece, but at least it was photographed, unlike the collab I did with Ben. Ben is a super-talented creative glass artist, and we ended up collaborating on a sweet bamboo-style sherlock pipe. I didn't get pics yet, but next time I go down there I'll pick it up and snap pics. It was a fun piece! Mente (sp?) who also works there, does these crazy bong tops with a hip graffiti/tattoo style illustrations that blew me away. I picked up a few of his jars. My L.A> exit was going to be delayed a dew days, so I stopped in to Lurch's place just North of L.A. to kill some time. Lurch had a cool garage set-up in his modern desert pad. He had some prep done already, so we collaborated on a sweet little sherlock pipe. He twisted up a reversal on some all-aqua tubing with a sparkle coating, so the wigwag was very subtle - it looked like an pure-aqua section from afar, but up close you could see the little wiggies...heh. Pics can be seen here.

I finally made it home and started to get some work done for myself. I still have a few more collabs planned this winter before all is said and done though. I'll post here as soon as I do.

I have to give a big thanks and shout out to everyone at Flameworks Studio, Wicked Sands, Original Glass and Lurch for all the hospitality and good times. Let's do it again sometime!

My first blog...

I have been avoiding blogging, mostly due to laziness and commitment issues. However, I am in the process of simplifying both of my websites, and will be removing a few sections, "The News" being one of them. I will be posting to this blog instead. I think it'll be a little easier as I can post updates from any computer without having to use FTP and Dreamweaver. Check back soon; I've had some fun adventures this winter.