The scanning was a success. The latest picture is the design we submitted for this juried work. The onion came on a platform designed to be bolted to a concrete slab. That wasn't in our plan and we are sorta having to work around it for the base. But, it is doable.

The challenge at the moment is the glass. Ever really look at an onion? It is brown and yellow and a combination of both. And we are spraying the back of the glass with a substance that smells really bad, but mirrors the surface of the glass, so when you look at the front of the glass you see yourself.

We have discovered that any texture in the glass distorts that, so it eliminates a whole raft of choices. And it has to be brown and yellow. The guys are likely going to make a trip to Tacoma to a wholesale place to look at glass. We have scraps that are close in color, but not quite right. We chewed up a whole can of the mirror spray and it is $10. a bottle and we are making no money on this project. Oh, a $50. stipend for entering. We sprayed every conceivable color and not found one that is suitable yet. But, we forge on being challenged each day as we go.

And in the midst of this Floyd got sick--an inner ear thing that messed up his equilibrium! And boys are so good when they are sick! He is fussing about not being here, but he would fall down, and Ron and I think that is unseemly.

Eileen Cackowski asked about the weight. We know it will be heavy and one thing our sick guy is doing is designing a roll around wagon for the onion. We have to be able to move it and so do the Onion Festival Folks. Not sure if we will ever be able to weigh it, but we are planning to count the little tiles and have a raffle to guess the number.

The Onion Arrives

Irises like those in the picture surround the building where Gilded Glass has a studio. The full flush of spring has brought purple and white irises in abundance. They stand as sentinels guarding the work that goes on inside, demanding a similar level of perfection. Nature is a hard task master.

In November Gilded Glass (Floyd Bunt, Ron Williams and Nancy Macduff) submitted a proposal to create a 4' onion for the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Festival and the Tourism board. It was a juried competition (no money!), but create an onion to be display permanently in town. Washington DC did it with donkeys and elephants, Chicago did it with cows. The onion is oversized. About 4' tall and at least that much around. The fiber glass model on which we will build the onion arrived last week. It graces the big blue table and is currently an eye sore and in the way of the "chicken project and Ron's sister's kitchen cabinet doors.

I decided to record its move from being an eye sore to a piece of art work. There will be picture and stories and tears, no doubt. And it must be done in July. It will be a mosaic with thousands and thousands of pieces.