Sharry Miller

Baking Philosophy

No Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Bread recipe today. Instead, since I'd offered to share my sourdough starter with a young friend, I thought I'd experiment with it. On the plus side, this means that you can access the recipe yourself without having to buy a baking tome. For some reason, I had scones on my brain this morning. I have a recipe I've used before and like, but since I had the sourdough... Read more →

10,000 Parts

My phone only seems to take blurry pictures anymore. There's a saying I like: a helicopter is just 10,000 parts flying in loose formation. That's how I feel when I skate ski. Thane and I went skiing on the trail behind our house. The trail had been groomed a day or so previously, but a couple of snowmobiles had been on it in the meantime, and it had rained hard and refrozen. Short sections of... Read more →

St. Francis Xavier and Love - Glass Experiments

I've been meaning to share with you a project I completed a couple of months ago. It was a commission for a woman who wanted to donate an icon of St. Francis Xavier to SFX Catholic Church in Valdez, Alaska in honor of her mother. She'd heard about my glasswork (but apparently had never seen it - I'm not sure how in this tiny town), and asked me to make a stained glass window. My... Read more →

Crack Bunny

I've started an online art class taught by Carla Sonheim, "Imaginary Creatures." Carla must be the queen of finding sidewalk cracks, random blobs , whatever and turning them into wonderful imaginary animals. For our first class, she provided a photo of cracked sidewalk for us to find animals in. The menagerie that resulted was stupendous. Here's my contribution: I think I will have to go back to these cracks to see who else is hiding... Read more →

Peksulineq 2015

Rowan and I had the opportunity to travel to Tatitlek on Friday for the 21st annual Peksulineq Festival, a week-long celebration of Alaska Native cultural heritage for students from around Prince William Sound. The first time I went, about four years ago, visitors had a good opportunity to see what the kids and volunteer teachers had been working on all week - it was fabulous to see the art and crafts they'd been creating, as... Read more →

Commitment Issues

I promise, this isn't another post about my new puppy, Scout. Well, maybe just a little bit because she really is just so darn cute, and because her nickname seems to be Li'l Bit. Okay, that's all. I promise. For now. No, what I really wanted to write about was baking bread. You know, the fresh-baked, hot-out-of-the-oven, completely-from-scratch kind. Like this: Doesn't it look yummy? This photo is actually from a couple of weeks ago.... Read more →

Ego Bashing

It never ceases to amaze me the ways in which I can contrive to crush my own spirit. I'm sure I've written about this before, so forgive me if I'm being redundant. There's been a lot of press over the years about how we need to ensure our children's self-esteem is kept high, how the little things we say to other people inadvertently tear them down, how, essentially, we're all responsible for creating a kinder,... Read more →

January 2015 Sgraffito Challenge Day 7

Where is this year going already? This is day 7 of the Sgraffito Challenge which means it's January 7th. In my little pea-brain, I'm still supposed to be in Hawaii and the new year isn't supposed to have even started. Slow it down already! Today's assignment finally allowed us to use a tool, anything we chose or made, to manipulate our powder into a drawing. The only restriction was that it couldn't be a paintbrush.... Read more →

January 2015 Sgraffito Challenge Day 6

Yes, yes, I know. There was no Day 5. I admit it, I drank malbec and played on the computer instead. Today I probably should have done the same. Yesterday, as part of her description of Day 5's assignment, Kelly Crosser Alge defined "comparalysis." I'm going to be bad and steal the image right off her website: Isn't that just the truth? I'm suffering a bad case of comparalysis as I look at the photos... Read more →

January 2015 Sgraffito Challenge Days 1-4

Because I don't already have enough to do, and because I'm always looking for ways to improve my glass-working skills, and because it was there, I decided to participate in a 30-day challenge Kelly Crosser Alge is hosting called the 30-Day Sgraffito Challenge. Of course, I started out behind since we just got back from Hawaii, but I managed to get caught up yesterday and today. If you didn't already know, sgraffito is a technique... Read more →