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Donna
Felkner has been
doing
arts & crafts since high school so her knowledge comes from a
lifetime of experience and experiments. The early years were
spent in a verity of fiber arts and tooling leather. In
1984, she took a stained
glass
class and was soon making windows, doors and sidelights, lampshades and
other 3D forms, but it was her Kaleidoscopes that gave her the greatest
lessons in
color, form, symmetry, order and chaos. She learned how to
balance
them
all and how these elements interacted with each other. It
was when she decided to make her 'scopes' completely from scratch,
instead
of using broken glass and hobby store beads in the object chambers,
that launched her into lampwork. A lampwork class at
Kittrell/Riffkind Art Glass in Dallas, taught her to make her
bobbles. She realized it was more fun to just
make the beads and her
career was born.
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Donna's jewelry
can be purchased at Vetro Art Glass in Grapevine, Tx and The Artful
Hand
in Ft. Worth, and her loose beads at Kittrell/Riffkind in Dallas,
Fusion Beads in Seattle and Naturally Jennifer's Beads & Gallery in
San Luis Obispo, Calif.
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Donna's
beads were featured in two jewelry creations by Red Ocean Jewelry for
the Beadwork Magazine issue Stringing, Spring 2005. |
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She
is also one of
the artist featured in Corina’s Spotlight on Magic Color Reactions.
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Bead
Review 2005 is a collection of "The year's exceptional art glass beads"
and features two of Donna's beads. |
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The following is
an excerpt of her blog when they were building her new studio.
Saturday
4/1/06
Well now I'm really excited. I've
been wanted for a long time to have a separate studio, one that didn't
include our home office. My own little recluse place to go to
concentrate on my glass work, might even make a few kaleidoscopes
again. We decided to close in the back patio area. Yesterday we tore
down the patio roof, hauled off the old cement and
laid down a sub floor today. Since we'll be using two exterior
walls we'll only have to put up two walls and
roof it in. This is a week-end warier project that we will be
doing ourselves but I hope it won't take too long. Hot days come
very quickly here in Texas. Too much of a mess, maybe I'll take
pictures of construction later, but definitely when it's done.
Saturday
4/4/06
For anyone who really gives a hoot, here
it is, the first glimpse of my own little corner of the world. The
old falling down porch roof is history and my studio is becoming
reality. The room will be 12' x 17'. But best of all the cats
will have their own pet door. Maybe someday soon I will be able
to sleep through the night without having to let Mouse in or out 4-5
times.
Friday
4/7/06
Woowoo, the walls and roof are framed
in. I have an outside door, three walls and one heck of a temporary
skylight.
Sunday
4/9/06
I have a husband that will clean the
oven, work all day
on my new studio and still make supper for me. He's definitely a
keeper. The windows have already been cat tested & approved. We
have 4 cats so guess we'll have to put in cat ledges.
Did you know that if you shoot a nail into a sheet of sheathing with an
air gun and miss the stud the nail will shoot all the way to the
opposite wall and
stick?
And did you know that if you drop a 2x8 on your arm it leaves a black
& blue mark for at least 3 days?
Sunday
4/16/06
One more week gone on the build. Felt
paper & half the shingles are up on the roof. Felt paper &
most of the siding are up. We would have gotten farther but the
first 94 degree day of the year with no breeze is hard to handle.
Tomorrow is another day, won't be long until it's all closed in and we
can work inside.
Sunday
4/23/06
We had a little slower week on the studio. I was
gone for a couple of days, Steve traveled out of town too and it
rained. Besides, when you put up a wall it looks like you've done
a lot, details aren't as visually impressive. All the shingles
are up but not tarred yet, the skylight is caulked though. The
door is set, all the siding is up and the windows are sealed, just
those pesky trimming details left, like soffit, trim and paint.
Construction lumber is loaded on the pickup and ready to go to the
compost at the dump. A little added electric was done too, like
the outside lights. All those little details that take up
time. Oh I almost forgot, the most important detail got
installed, the cat door in the wall, you can see it in the picture next
to the human door. Those things aren't as easy to install as they
look, they're plastic so they distort easily and the door hits the
side wall. Steve's so persistent, he kept readjusting till it was
square. Mouse (our black & white cat) is cross-eyed so
getting him to use it will probably be a challenge. Next...the
inside.
Sunday
4/30/06
Oh no, not another building
update! I'm not sure how many of you that read my blog even
care. But I know of two that do. Hi Kay, tell John that so
far everything is up to code and Kara, why aren't you studying instead
of reading my stupid blog? Steve was out of town for a few days this
week
so we didn't get much done during the week. We did get the
insulation done, the air conditioner/heater is in the wall and Home
Depot is moving so I got some cabinets pretty inexpensively. It
sprinkled the other day and of course, the sky light leaked a little
but when we had weather so bad Friday that the tornado sirens went off
4 times not a drop leaked through. After it's tarred we won't
have to worry. I know the pictures don't look like much but to me it's
heaven in the making. Customized to what I need in a work shop
with enough space, light and outlets to set up an area for lampwork, a
spot for photographing it (still in a learning curve there), stained
glass (I miss my kaleidoscopes), even a small space to dabble again in
jewelry making and a few of my other misc hobbies - and a 10 foot wall
for storage. I've amassed hobbies for over 35 years and I'm beginning
to feel like I have a real business growing from the experience and
equipment I've accumulated and thanks to my Steve for giving me a place
to put it all together.
 
Sunday
5/7/06
Quite a dramatic difference when you get
sheet rock up. Still have a few pieces to put on the
ceiling. I'm standing in the doorway into the house, I'll have to
show that view next week. Many years ago it was a patio door
leading outside. It was down sized to a regular door and with a
100+ year house, a lot of artistic license had to be taken to make it
fit right so taking it out included many layers of bad carpentry, or
should I say artistic carpentry.
 
Sunday
5/21/06
Too lazy to take a picture of the room
today so you'll have to do with just an update. Got the last of
the sheet rock on the
ceiling and I think Steve only wanted to kill me once. Tape &
bedding is done, or at least the first and second passes are. Couple of
spots need to be sanded
& gone over one last time. This has been the most time
consuming dusty step, especially since we are doing the room in our
spare time. The air conditioner is back from being fixed and
in the wall, it came with a broken compressor, the guy who fixed it
said it looked like it was broken before it even went in the housing.
The cats are consistently using their cat door, hope they still get the
idea when we close the flap and they have to push on it to go through.
But then, I have the smartest cats in the world.
Sunday
5/28/06
We've gotten to a point in construction
where I can show a few before & after shots. First, I pained
the outside, what a difference it makes to have it match the rest of
the house. No more propping open the cat door, yesterday I killed
(yes, killed, no capture and release this time) a gazillion flies so
the cats have had to learn to open the cat door on their own. It
only took Weazel one shove through it for him to catch on. This
is one smart cat, Steve almost has him trained to sit on command and he
loves to climb the ladder and float on an air raft around the swimming
pool. He's such a cool cat.
 
And this is that elusive corner that I always stand in to take pictures
of the inside. It use to be the outside of the house and we just
left the siding on the long wall with the door and pained it
straw. It is such a cool wall now. The back faux wall needs
some help though. It's also straw with cedar crest sponged
on. I did a terrible job of the sponging so we will have to go to
plan B to straighten it out and have it look expectable. We just
have to figure out what plan B is. Steve has a sweeping brush
thingie in mind. Our house was built in 1902 and has sunk
considerably, so much so that we had to put two steps up from the main
part of the house. Which I love, gives the room a feeling of a
world unto itself.
 
Tuesday
6/6/06
Got my fuffie wall straightened out, not
sure if I like it, it's kind of like that bead that didn't turn out
like you had envisioned it. It's fine, just not what was in your
head. I'm off to my dad's for a week. Since mom passed away
in November he has felt a need to move back home (North Dakota). Most
of his living siblings are still there as well as my sister and
brother and their kids+. Besides, it's home, Texas was a late
retirement decision for them.
Here's a close up with detail.
Wednesday
6/21/06
Introducing my new studio. Yeehaa. I've amassed so many hobbies so
this is a dream I've had since
high school. No more sharing space with our home office, no more
dragging something out to use it because there is no space to leave it
setting out. I have stations for taking pictures and cleaning
beads. The cabinet in the first photo houses my last remnants of
stained glass and the photo tent is sitting on my old light box. I have
also tooled leather, crocheted, quilted and made stained glass
kaleidoscopes. The cabinet in the second
photo houses my latest passion, making jewelry with my own beads. And
with 4 cats, I especially love the cat door in the wall next to the
oxygen tank.
 
And here's the good stuff, my
greatest passion (and income generator). My torch table, glass next to
me, the kiln within reaching distance and a smaller second kiln waiting
for me to learn to fuse.
I love this wall, it use to be the
outside of the house and we just left the siding on and painted
it. Someday soon it will be host to 10 feet of storage units
instead of cat toys. Speaking of cat toys, we plan on putting a
jungle gym of ramps on the this wall around the storage units. Can you
spell s-p-o-i-l-e-d ?
Weazel and Tina already had
their first fight over sleeping space at the window.
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