decadence and work

This past week was incredible.
i mentioned earlier that Scott and Andrea were here.
i should do right by them and start with scott's arrival.
he came almost straight from murano where he'd been for ten days researching an article on the state of the glass industry in murano.
he came with bottles of fragolino...a lovely wine with a subtle flavor of strawberries...illegal in many parts of the the e.u. because the grape they are made from are an american varietal that is resistent to a grape parasite and thus has been known to transmit these devastating parasites to other vinyards.

anyway we started our week off by drinking a few bottles of that stuff.

then the work started...friday saturday sunday and today good long days of oval rondels for the commission. and just to prove that i've actually been doing something here's this:




hard work begets decadent nourishment here with my friends in amsterdam.
the first day at the instruction of anna i made a spectacular "plumenspekenfleskarey"
for those of you who don't speak swedish transliteration, that is pork tenderloin stuffed with prunes.
the next evening andrea made lentils with mint sauce to go with racks of lamb that i grilled at the studio:


of course, there is always time for a beer after a full day of working...here's durk about to enjoy his...in a glass i made last year.


after a successful week at the studio we enjoyed a spectacular dinner at our reliable staple...the amsterdam cafe housed in an old machine station a beautiful old building almost completely open inside...almost as spectacular as the company toasting our successful week with a nice bottle of bubbly:



new favorite whisky: Caol Ila
new favorite dessert: lemon sorbet with vodka

some fun vids to check out that i made this week:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWNXCwaQ5Kw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZgCM8FTcc

New or Re-newed focuses for this week are:
the tree house, Imagine or the AFFF...hope to succeed in seeing several films, taking Torde Boontje's work: transglass to new levels....i feel like this stuff was novel and interesting but could be taken much further and still keep the simplicity of design and concept as well as stay away from complexity in production...we'll see...i'll post images of what i come up with.