Hi there Melinda, I am in Kalamazoo MI and love working with gourds. Just discovered this art form recently. We are trying to get a chapter of the American gourd society started and will be having a meeting on 25th August in Holt MI. If you would like more info drop me an email at MagicKiwi1@yahoo.com Rita in Kalamazoo

No helpful advice here, but just had to chime in to say what an amazing group of talented people frequent this board! oceanna: I agree you could do it yourself. Would love to see the finished result of your gallary glass! Clare: The PS photo you modified is amazing! Would love to see any you displayed! Myself, I am just finished getting my botanical prints framed and mounted and whew that was enough creativity for me. I love all the floral renditions. Lovely!

You can pick very similar paintings (like in a diptych you know? same subject same painter-different details), and put them together next to each other. I wouldn't separate them by anything in that case. But I wouldn't do two identical ones. They have to differ at least ever so slightly..for example photographs or artworks that are identical but printed in different colorways... Don't settle for anything that just goes and you're not too crazy about it. This feeling usually doesn't change:) Just increases, in my experience. Return the one you don't like that much, put the one you love in a different spot, and continue to look for something that you would love unconditionally over that sofa:) Cheap sources for art(original and prints)-E Bay, Etsy..you might be pleasantly surprised with choice and prices. Many artists there.. Also-Everything But The House. Bids start from one dollar there..of course if it's fine art it gets really expensive in the end, but some less known, nice, simpler works can be won for real cheap.

Ok, I might as well tell what's going on. At least it's buried down in a thread that most people have no interest in. You might remember that my daughter got out of the Army in April, joined the National Guard and was lucky enough to get a temp full-time job with the NG to help her transition. So then she got a job at the prison. Naturally I wasn't happy about it and it worries me a great deal. She started in May, a week after the female officer in another nearby prison was killed by an inmate. That officer grew up in our neighborhood. It hit really close to home. And now this. The real worry has come from an incident that happened last month. My daughter was working in the minimum custody building where the inmates are kept that are getting ready to be released or on the work release program. I thought that sounded better than working on the high security side, but it's not. She had taken cigarettes away from several different inmates. The inmates have a gripe box where they can leave anonymous complaints. It's sometimes used as a form of harassment against the officers. Every complaint has to be investigated. Apparently they complained that she had stolen their personal property and they weren't happy about it. So, for her safety she was moved to the high security building. For the past month she has been working in the master control room. She's all safe and sound, behind walls and locks, pushing buttons and watching monitors, but she's not happy there. From what she says the other officers spend 12 hours a day arguing politics and complaining about any and every thing that they can. She says it's exhausting. The investigation has been completed and several inmates have been temporarily removed from work release but they remain in the same building. I don't think they're very pleased about losing work privileges. And my daughter is pushing to get back over to the minimum custody building. She claims that the gripe box and getting revenge back on the officers is a game that the inmates play, knowing that it might get them transferred someplace else and that particular officer may not come back. It just worries me a great deal. The female officer that was killed earlier in the year was targeted by an inmate that had a gripe with her. So, I don't know if some kind of advanced self defense would help her or not. She's all of 4'11 and 115 lbs, but definitely no shrinking violet. Yes, she does talk about having to deescalate situations. I'm not sure if some self defense is usually a requirement for new employees or not but since she had just gotten out of the Army a lot of the application process was skipped. She didn't have to do any of the health screening (other than TB test) or physical fitness tests. I asked her yesterday if it doesn't worry her and she shrugged and said things can happen anywhere. It was sort of the same conversations we've had concerning my worries when she was in the Army. I have to say that this is much more worrisome. On a brighter note, she still plans on going back to school but not this year. There's a lot of things she needs to get done to her house and needs to make some money before she can commit to schooling. I really do hope it'll happen sooner rather than later.