Sunday 25 September 2016

It's been quiet on these pages.. here are some news

A post for any family still sometimes checking in and wondering why there is only tumbleweed for news: Life has taken over and we are busy working our way through establishing Jason's glassblowing career, with the to be expected learning curves.

Apologies for the shortness of the update but here is at least a life-signal from us:

Jason is working a lot, creating some of his own glass and working for a new company (he started working with them in 2015) and giving a lot of glassblowing classes.






When not busy in the class studio he finally was able to return to his serious Tai Chi practice, which keeps us in the Bay Area as the teacher is sort of like Yoda but for Tai Chi. We do everything we can for Jason to be able to stay with his teacher as much as possible now. (We missed 3 full months of classes due to life interventions this summer, so much lost time, but we are focusing forward).



This autumn we have 2 pet- & house-sitting engagements lined up and are going to try and fill in the month of December, too, so that we can hopefully get Jason's work represented in Christmas and Seasonal retail...




We welcome suggestions of low cost craft sales with customers willing to spend between $30 - $300 on an heirloom gift item . And we also welcome suggestions for galleries and representation for Jason's high end work that we would love to focus on more.

Please DO check out

• Jason's glass website: www.jasonstropko.wordpress.com
• Jason's glassblowing classes: https://www.verlocal.com/vl/26442
• The high end glass shop: http://jasonstropko.bigcartel.com



Beautiful sunflower seed and pomegranate seeds made from glass. The pomegranate seeds are translucent and light shines through them beautifully, while the sunflower seed, just like a real seed: is solid, opaque and very life like! Incredible skillsmanship by Jason Stropko!




Clear Glass acorns are one of Jason's most affordable, entry level creations for those who love his work and want to start small with immediately supporting the arts and filling their home with such a symbolic heirloom as an acorn, the seed for an oak tree... These are beautiful gifts for anybody who faces a new stage in their lives, for anybody whom you would like to give a get-well gift to, or for example for couples who embark on a life together with their first home, engagement or wedding! We purposely keep the price on these gorgeous light-catching pieces of art in the low range. We really want everybody to be able to own an entry level piece of Jason's. 


At the moment we are renting an adorable garden cottage in El Cerrito and will be here until our pet-sitting employments start up in mid-October. 


While investing our whole beings into Jason's own business we are happy to be flexible with living arrangements and it is so much fun meeting people's pets, getting to know their little characters and caring for them while testing out life in all different parts of San Francisco ( we have been focusing our pet-sittings on San Francisco because then they double up as opportunities for Birgit to photograph the city and it's quirks more readily, without needing to leave the pets in our care for longer than a handful of hours at most. 

Many pets that we look after receive their own petsitter because they need & deserve the attention and company, they often are used to family life and not being alone and this generally is the main reason we get hired. We have been taking our commitments really serious and treated each animal with the same love as we would our own, even the single puppy who simply was annoyed with us the entire time we were there to look after her and the cat. It turned out that the cat's bad temper that we were warned about melted into kitty-cat, soft pawed love, but the puppy just looked at us with every look like as if to say "WHAT did you both do with my family? Bring them back now you horrid humans." We gave her love, walks, treats but to no avail. This must have been the most loyal family dog that we have ever met. We felt so sad for her, she was clearly very upset, but there just was nothing more we could do but keep on being lovely and help her bridge this period of missing her folks as best we could. 

I am super happy to be able to confirm that this was the only time we experienced such a level of sadness in a pet. All other animals so far just decided to love us right back and welcomed us to be their temporary custodians.


us, 2015 on my birthday.