A new woodburning for a poem box: Emily Dickinson for the great, disturbing poem "My Life had Stood- A Loaded Gun." I do think I'm improving at woodburning faces, and doesn't Emily look badass behind that gun? I think she'd probably approve.

Also new- a skeleton mermaid. She's holding a real gray pearl, and I did lots of painstaking wave carving in the wood around her, so it feels really nice as well as looking pretty good.

Fall dates to see us: we'll be at the Shops at La Cantera Art Festival in San Antonio on October 18-20, and the Georgetown Art in the Square festival on Oct 26-27, and the East Austin Studio Tour on November 16-17 and Nov 23-24.

We'll post more dates as those acceptances start to roll in.

A few new boxes in the works- A glass etching for a box top of an X-ray of hands, and  a painted and woodburned illusion skull. I have a thing for woodburning and etching bones- they're just so pretty. I've also been working on woodburning faces (it would be nice to get good enough to do some custom work)- here are a few recent attempts, done from photographs:

Our series of "skull flowers" boxes has a new addition: this is reclaimed ipe and woodburned and painted maple, with etched glass. The lid lift is wenge with a copper leaf. It really turned out well, with the design flowing between the wood and glass.  Since each glass panel is back to back with a wood panel, we painted the backs of the wood panels black so the etched design would show up more clearly.  Worked like a charm. We were a bit dubious about the experiment, but it was worth it.  The finish on the wood is about as nice as we've ever done- this is one of our nicest boxes in a while.

We enjoyed making the parrot box so much we made this fish box in the same vein, although it's much smaller. The head and tail are painted and lacquered (with lots of iridescent sparkle), and the woodburned hinged doors are cocobolo with copper fins that double as pulls to open the doors.  The side fins are etched and carved glass, and the box hidden behind is cedar on a maple base. It's got magnet closures to hold the doors to the front.

This was a royal pain, but it turned out so nice it's hard not to want to make more. We can't seem to get the knack of diminishing returns on all the time-consuming detail- we could easily run into the tens of work hours on boxes like this- but the price one can charge is limited.

And I like hinged door boxes so much (which annoys Tom since he has to set the hinges) that a few are in the works- a series with related designs inside and out. These woodburned holly doors open to show a woodburned and painted heart on holly behind the ribcage- I epoxied the wood with the heart so it's very glossy.  The box is reclaimed pine. We're still not sure about pulls to open the doors- the ones I like remind Tom of "a frat boy's nipple rings." I didn't know frat boys HAD nipple rings.

And another iteration shows a woodburned tree on maple with a glass snake pull opening to show a woodburned Eve with an apple (also on maple). I gave the apple a touch of red, which turned out well. I sewed the glass snake to the wood with copper wire and it looks terrific. We're thinking a dark exotic wood for the sides of this one.

We're delighted that a picture of one of our boxes was chosen to accompany the article on the East Austin Studio Tour in this week's Austin Chronicle! This box is for sale, and if you buy it at the EAST gallery (2000 E 6th St by the Post Office) 25% of the proceeds go to support EAST (for instance, paying for those gorgeous color art catalogs that were free to the public).

Last weekend's tour was just great- thanks to all the people who came to our studio, asked questions, and showed so much interest in our process. It's so validating to get so much feedback and conversation about our art, and to meet so many interesting people with so much passion for art.

The tour continues this weekend, so get on your bike to avoid the F1 traffic and come by! And keep all the comments, questions, and kind words flowing!

The Salado Art Fair is this weekend- and the temperature will be in the 60s! Beautiful weather for an art fair, so come out and see us and all the other artists at Salado: Sat 27 (9 to 6) and Sun 28  (10 to 5). Many of the boxes for sale on this website will be with us at Salado, and it's a great time to meet with us about customizing boxes.

Also- the East Austin Studio Tour is Nov 10/11 and Nov 17/18. See their website for info. The kick-off party is next Saturday (11/3) at 2000 E. 6th Street (next to the Post Office); it will showcase art from over 200 artists participating in the tour. It's $30 to attend, and the proceeds go to EAST. The box in the picture is at the show and is for sale. Buy it there and 25% of the proceeds go to support EAST instead of going to buying kiwis for our spoiled parrot. It's etched glass, bird's eye maple box, maple, wenge, and purpleheart base, and abalone lid lift.

I had this really lovely piece of facet-edged, rectangular glass that was clear and gorgeous. The problem was it had a hole in top, as I think it was meant to be an award piece of glass that would be attached to a base through this hole. So we decided to use the hole to make it a slide on/off top for a box. Here's the glass. I etched it from a photo of a skeleton curled in a grave.

And here's the box being clamped together. It's a gorgeous dark wenge that will show off the skeleton really well. This will have a stainless screw with a nice flat top that will hold the glass to the wood and allow the top to swivel on and off the box (at least, we hope. What could go wrong?)

This box is now for sale on our "wood and glass boxes" page!

If we keep making skeleton boxes, I'll have to make a category for them. Here's another one we just finished, with largely the same skeleton design as above, but on a really thick round piece of glass. We liked the effect of the skeleton holding the box up. We made a bird's eye maple box for it, and fit it over the box so the round top of the glass is the bottom of the box. It's actually watertight since we poured lacquer in the bottom to hold the box to the glass. Then we made a base and used an iridescent piece of abalone shell that looks like a bone for the lid lift. We wanted to use a real bone, but all the bones we had were too small and looked too breakable.

Weird, huh? This is what happens when you don't have a master plan for your art. It's for sale now under "Wood and Glass Boxes" on our website!

And we liked this so much that I etched an octopus on another round piece of glass like this one. More on the octopus as it comes together in a box.