Two people showed up. It was exactly enough.

Studio Journal No. 4 — chasing the Emerald Ice colorway

I have to tell this one out of order, because the part that mattered most didn't happen in the mixing cup.Test No. 4 went out as an Instagram Live from the studio. Camera propped up. Cart of pigment bottles glinting in the frame. An open invitation to come watch the green pour into the mold in real time. I built it up in my head for a solid week. I refreshed the notifications more times than I'll admit out loud. By the time my thumb hovered over go live, I'd already talked myself into the version where nobody joined — where I'd stand in my Pacific Northwest studio narrating pigment ratios to a viewer count of zero.

One person showed up. And my daughter.That was the whole audience, and it was exactly enough.She was right there beside me while the one other viewer watched from wherever they were, and she supported me. My biggest cheerleader — and, apparently, my best co-host.Every early-morning swim practice. Every meet I sat through in a folding chair with a thermos of lukewarm coffee. All of it quietly built a kid who shows up for the people she loves, and pays attention while she's there. I didn't expect the payback to look like this. I'll take it.

Where Test No. 4 landed

The green is closer than it has ever been.Test No. 2 taught me the secret nobody warns you about: most "green" resin colorants are just blue and yellow wearing a trench coat. Depth exposes them. Overshooting the yellow compensates for what the exotherm burns off in a high-mass pour — but only if the calibration happens in the actual production mold.A test cup lies to you. It doesn't hold enough resin to generate real heat, so it can't tell you what the color will actually do under the conditions that matter.

Test No. 4 was poured in the real mold, at the real mass. And the swirl held its green through more of the depth than any batch before it.Not fully locked yet — there's still a small shift happening in the deepest pocket of the casting. Tiny enough that it might resolve on its own with one more nudge. Stubborn enough that I'm not calling it finished.

Recipe lock is mid-August. This one is close enough that I believe it'll get there.What I'm taking from this oneI keep building these little pre-disasters in my head. The empty stream. The wasted effort. The thing that doesn't land.And then the audience turns out to be exactly the right size, holding exactly the right people. Two is not a small number when one of them is her.

Emerald is getting there. So am I.

Every piece in The Ice Collection is designed, poured, and finished by hand in my Pacific Northwest studio — one enchanted little world at a time.

— Vika
Moss & Lantern Art Studio · Inspire awe, one pour at a time.