If you added up all my blogposts since 2003, you’d have something like 7,200 separate articles. Only about 650 are actually searchable on morganica.com right now. Tried to import the rest, but so far can’t figure out a way to do that without spamming the heck out of the 1,500 or so subscribers who asked to be notified when I publish something new. So…for the time being I’m getting reeeeeeealllly picky and just adding in the old posts that tickle my fancy. I’ll publish a couple a week; with luck, I’ll have most of the good stuff on this blog by, say, 2020.

This one is dated March 11, 2010.

I’m tempted to ask if this is what is meant by “a buttload” but, seeing as how I’m a classy chick, I’ll refrain.

I’m currently looking for ideas for building a 10-foot long wall of glass stuff for an upcoming show. It needs to support rather heavy glass sculptures on shelves and leave some space for wall-hung stuff.

It also needs to be small enough, and lightweight enough, that I can manhandle it into and out of Max, my poor old Nissan Maxima, and across a block-long convention center, single-handed.

I’d also like it to look as if I didn’t pick it out of a dumpster.

I called a tradeshow display place, described my requirements, and they said, “Sure. $14,000.” When my heart rate slowed, I visited trendy furniture stores, found some gorgeous, lightweight shelves that would work…for only $1,800. Ulp.

I designed some displays that would look fabulous and take about two weeks to construct. The design is so cool I’d love to do whether I’ve got a glass display or not but…two free weeks? Yeah, right.

My friend Becky clucked and shook her head, “Just visit Portland Store Fixtures. They’ve got everything.” Becky owns the Fireborne glass gallery in Portland; visit if you have a chance–it’s a great cross-section of glassmaking at all levels.

She was right–this place is amazing. It gave me all kinds of ideas for displays and the prices were incredible. They had a low steel table with a 2-inch-thick glass top (TWO inches), about 20×40, for $32. I can’t buy the GLASS for that, let alone the whole daggone table.

Coming around the corner, I ran into racks and racks of mannequins, whose bodyparts loomed out of the dimly-lit racks like sides of beef on hooks. It was eerie and mesmerizing and a little bit sad. I dratted myself for not bringing my usual complement of cameras, but since I did have Gigi-the-iPhone, I snapped off a few shots.

Perhaps I should say something really corny, like “The place that DOESN’T charge an arm and a leg also sells them,” but the classy chick bit holds me back. Hmm… Maybe I can head back with the big guns, i.e., Darius the Nikon. There’s at least a couple hours’ good shooting in this place…