I’m having a heck of a time getting the colors to photograph as they appear to the eye. Today I’ll work on a bit more fill and the cutting of more transparent smalti to place around the edges as surf fizz. I’m considering a couple of new titles. The working title is “My Mother Lived and Died,” which works for me. but maybe “Life: In Short.” “An Offering of Soul.” “Journey of the Soul.” “Fragments of a Life.” Or maybe “Even Mothers Die.” We’ll see. Comments welcome.

I have a strong emotional attachment to this piece, and of course that clouds my judgment. Objectively, it’s easy for me to look at it and think it’s just a collection of pretty things arranged in spirals. Not bad as pretty things go, but I’m always looking for more, and I wonder if it’s possible to create the “more” in an emotional piece. Because I don’t look at the art as an art teacher — I look at it with my heart. With no formal art background, it probably takes me a little longer to figure out what goes wrong with a piece. But I’m not one to disparage working intuitively.