Who'd think?

Today is February 1st, the day all quilt panels for the 2011 Quilt at ASGLA are due and also the day all pictures of any lamps hoping for inclusion in the 2011 calendar were to be sent in.   Sure seemed like a long weekend, for we shot hundreds of pictures of two of our lamps and sat through seemingly endless critiquing sessions to try and find the 'right' one.

My eyes are actually sore from staring at the computer screen trying to figure out what would make either of the lamps look their best.  "This one's too dark on top-that one has a glare on the base-this one's too washed out-that one has a shadow in the background-that piece of glass is too bright-this picture doesn't show the background well enough" on and on and on.

The "photo shoot" is a BIG deal, with the dining room table pushed up against the wall and the traditional bolt of gray fabric hung up on Carl's clock stand with alligator clips holding the fabric taut to minimize wrinkles.  There are shoplights hung at crazy angles from the top of the basement door (darn, I wish I had taken a picture of the chaos, since it would be worth a 1000 words) and even the dogs were restless and nervous about what in the world we are doing.  Pudding kept sitting right by my side, anxiously scanning my face for signs this was almost over.

So, by midnight January 31, (which was also Carl's birthday) we finally settled on two lamp pictures we think might have some merit.  One is of the 28" Flowering Bouquet (not my favorite work, there are many things I'd like to change) and the other was the 16" Iris.  Joel bought a reproduction base from Ebay and the shade seems made for the base, although it was just a happy coincidence. 

Below is a portion of the Flowering Bouquet.

There's alot of anxiety in sending in pictures for the calendar; I guess it's the hope of being validated if people like what we've done.  In a short time, the 2011 submissions will be on the ASGLA site and then I always feel another rush of anxiety because of all the dozens of submissions, how does one pick the 30-something 'best' ones?  Too bad the calendar couldn't include all of them, we know how much work went into each one! 

Pictured below are the three layouts of the iris lamp on their easels before they were soldered together.  I made each of the three repeats a little bit different on purpose as they represent the varieties of iris I have growing in the gardens.  For continuity's sake, I suppose it would be much better to have them all be pretty much the same, but this way, I can turn the lamp and see a different side any time I want. 

Below is the picture I guess we went with for the calendar:

So, now it's up to the voting process.  Like Carl said, we've done the best we could.  Who'd think it would be that big of a deal, right?