Here's a photo I took two days ago of the table the children use for Kids' Clay Class. It's hard to see in this shot, but all the bottles on the table have paintbrushes sticking out of them. The students have been painting glaze on their pieces in preparation for firing them in the kiln. This table and several others nearby are where they work on their projects, and the towel and bucket are located on the other side of this little sub-patio.
On Thursday, Philip Fila, the photographer who is located in the studio opposite spent time attempting to set up the wireless network without a whole lot of success. However, he managed to solve the problems today. The thing is that you can use a wireless network to go through a few walls, but when you have to go through outside walls which have metal in them, you have a problem. The metal interfers with the transmission. But anyway, Philip put enough routers and boosters and antennae around that he apparently solved the problem. He says there are a few people at the very ends of the Village whose signals he may have to boost further, but it works most places. I'm thrilled. It means I can work on the internet for my business and also as the Recording Secretary of Spanish Village. In that capacity, I can send out email.
Having the computer in the studio also enables me to be able to create various promotional material for my business. And I'm planning to write a business plan. I was in business with two other people about 10 years ago, and we wrote a business plan. Potentially it can be a great deal of work, but it can also be very enlightening and motivating. That's my hope for myself. I need to know where I'm going, how long it will take me to get there, and what I need to do along the way. I don't want to just drift along with no plan the way I have been so far.
It's so incredible to be sitting here in this historic building, built in 1935, looking up at a high-tech flatscreen monitor. My studio is furnished with period pieces for the most part, and the monitor reminds me of the way the old and the new coexist together. The computer definitely adds a sophistication to my studio, an acknowledgement that I know what I'm doing, that I know my way around the high-tech world, at least to some extent. Using the computer to keep track of inventory, goals in a business plan, new items on a supplier's website, local art exhibits in town, and my photographs, to name a few, gives the computer an important place in a person's life. Some would argue that the computer becomes an extension of yourself, a place to do some of the things your mind and body can't do on it's own. You can become very dependent on it.
I spent the main part of the day sitting at my outside worktable. I kept thinking about the computer sitting on my desk, running, and I was tempted to come inside a use it, but I resisted. Instead, I finished up three bracelets that I started yesterday, on my day off, and also created a new necklace. The necklace is not quite finished and there's another that I started yesterday that I need to finish tomorrow.
I went to the bead supplier after I closed the studio this afternoon to get some crystals to finish the necklace I started and to begin another one. I have a photograph of some necklaces sold at a very high-end department store that have inspired me to create something similar. And I needed to get some beads to create it. I've finally decided that no matter how many beads I have, I'll always need something else. However, when I buy beads now, I try to make up at least half of what I buy into jewelry before I buy something new.
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