President's Message January

I'm not quite sure what it looks like out your window today, but here in the Chicago area it looks like the proverbial white Christmas. This doesn't happen regularly for some reason, although you probably think Chicago in winter has to mean snow. Well actually, the last couple of holiday seasons have been sort of warm and snowless.

This year, it got cold around Thanksgiving and then it warmed up a bit and what snow there was turned gray and funky, as city snow is destined to do. But a couple days of below zero temps and a roaring wind has made the ground really cold, so the falling snow should stay pretty white for quite a while. I thank global warming for this lovely weather.

This year we found a really huge Christmas tree on the front porch (thanks to my wife's brother who works at a tree lot), and with minimal wrestling, my son and I dragged the nine foot tree into the living room and set it in the stand. I then proceeded to light the monster. First, I put 500 white lights in the tree to make it bright so you could see the crazy ornaments I’ve made over the years. Then I added the two strings of old fashioned colored lights to add, what else, color. Then I put on the five sets of bubble lights - my grandmother always had those so it's a tradition.

I figured next was the trimming and then I was finished, but I was wrong. All the extra lights this year caused the fuse to blow on the extension cord so a holiday trip to the hardware store was added to my already long list of holiday things to do.

I hope your Holiday season is filled with joy or at least some sense of peace. If you're lucky enough to have little ones around then your chances of having a joyous holiday are even better. So have a good one, spend some time with family and friends, and take a little time to reflect on how lucky it is that we spend most of our time sitting at our tables making art.

P.S. We did an end of the year update on the Orphan Works blog if you want to check it out, www.orphanworksnews.com.

Click here to visit John's June 05 President's Message.

Click here to visit John's March 05 President's Message.

Click here to visit John's December 04 President's Message.

Click here to visit John's November 04 President's Message.

President's Message July, 2008

President's Message
July, 2008