Glass In the Springs ~ Opening Reception

Tomorrow evening will be the opening reception for the Glass In the Springs Show at Cottonwood Center for the Arts. I am hopeful that the weather will be kind and there will be a great turnout. I am a member of the Glass Artists of the Pikes Peak Region and this is their second show of this nature. I am very happy to be participating in the event.

There are a lot of wonderful artists that will be showcasing their work. I am quite happy that one of my seasonal bowls, Winter, was chosen as one of the representative works for the show on the postcard.

This is the first time I have had my work at Cottonwood Center for the Arts and I think it is a really nice venue. Dan & I will be attending the opening reception and I hope to have some wonderful pictures to share on my next post.

If you are in the area, please stop by and check out the exhibit. It runs until 5/21/2010.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.

Spring

Spring

The Seasonals Series

Photograph ~ Daniel Krucoff

At least my glass thinks it is spring even if our weather doesn't. I have photos to share of our blast of winter from this past Friday, April 23.

This bowl is a combination of Bullseye opals and translucent glasses. All shades of green. I wanted to have some of that beautiful light green you see as trees start to bud and young leaves begin to emerge. I opted for making this bowl 3/8" thick rather than the 1/2" I usually do as I wanted to add a little bit lighter weight bowl to the Seasonals. I truly can't resist making thicker bowls, but it is fun to go for ones like this too.

While I continue to look forward to the arrival of spring at our elevation (we're at approximately 7,500'), I know it will be a bit longer. This was clearly demonstrated this past Friday with quite the snow storm.

Drifts anyone?

This was the view out our back door at basset level. Dan cleared a path for them so they could venture out to the back yard. Once he did that, they had a blast playing in this new snow.

We want out!

Bueller (on the left) & Nocturne watched Dan through the doggy door. They do know better, but thought they could both go through the door at the same time. Silly bassets!

Freedom!

Nocturne and Newton are happy now that they can play in the snow.

Thank goodness for snow blowers!

Friday afternoon, Dan is removing the 3+ foot drift from our driveway as I had to get into the Springs to deliver glass work for a show that opens on Friday, April 30th. Our snow fences, in the background of this shot, did their job again! Silly us, we were thinking we would take them down this weekend. Hmmmm, I think we will wait til the middle of May now.

Both Friday and Saturday were quite the interesting weather days. Spring in the Rockies!

As I said in the beginning of this post, at least my glass thinks it's Spring.

Until next time, aspire to be more as and artist and a person.

Colorado Sunset ~ The Sky-Scape Series

Colorado Sunset

The Sky-Scape Series

Photo Credit ~ Daniel Krucoff

Last month I provided a sneak preview of my new Sky-Scape Series with this piece, which at the time I had given the title Sunset. However, as I completed the finish work, it became clear to me that I needed to call this piece Colorado Sunset.

In my March post about this piece, I shared a photo I took from our back yard of the sky, that was the inspiration. As I reflected on it, I realized that the spacious views we enjoy of the ever changing skies in our area meant that I needed to include Colorado in its title.

Coldworking is one of the finishing steps to complete a piece like this. It involves going through a series of incremental polishing phases with discs to bring the edge of the plate to an optical finish. Initially, I found coldworking to be a bit intimidating and tedious. However, Colorado Sunset and another piece I will share in another day or two, have shown me the true joy one can experience with coldworking. Once I achieve that optical finish on a piece of glass, well, it gives me a great sense of accomplishment.

There are more to come in this series as Colorado Sunset is the first in the series. I truly believe the possibilities for this series are infinite because the sky is constantly changing and beckons me to try to capture, in glass, one of those brief instants in time of its beauty.

Colorado Sunset is one of those pieces that just makes me smile. I am happy with the results and its beauty. It will be offered at Mountain Living Studio in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.

Rule # 1

Never do a show in a gymnasium.

This falls under the category of lessons learned. Rule #1 is never do a show in a gymnasium. This is the second time I've done a show where my booth was in a gym. I'm trying to find the humor in all of what happened this weekend and as I looked at the limited number of pictures we took, this one of the basketball hoop jumped out at me. Earlier I published our show check list of things we need to take with us. Now I feel like I should publish our list of what to look for when doing a show. The first item again, just to be clear, is never do a show in a gymnasium.

Here I am on Saturday morning, filled with optimism of the things to come.

Our Booth

Rule #2, when you have a 6' x 8' space, it's probably not the best idea to have two artists and mediums in tight quarters. We tried our best to economize on our displays. As you can tell, it may still have been too much in a small area.

There's that basketball hoop again!

Other artists had nice arrangements as this picture shows another fused glass artist (on the right side of the photo) is adding the finishing touches to her area. She had ProPanels and only set up 2 walls. On a corner, this allowed a nice open area and her set up looked great. Loved her work too.

Where are all the people?

As this picture and the next one shows, traffic was....light.

The weather on Saturday was a factor. It was rainy and windy. The people who did venture in, appeared to be scanning, but not really interested in buying. Could be that whole, it's just after April 15, tax day...no money to spend.

We met a delightful lady who had her PHD in Literature and she was witty, charming, and a ray of sunshine. She was the neighbor of the glass artist I met across the aisle from us. Another pleasant surprise was an online friend, Sandy Cahill Johnson, has a friend in the area who stopped by and introduced herself. I certainly enjoyed that.

Sales however were almost non-existent for everyone and the day felt like a really slow Sunday.

Unfortunately we had a personal situation come up at the end of the day that didn't allow us to participate again on Sunday, so things may have improved as the weather was better.

As with everything we do, we learn from the experience. I think both Dan & I will plan to do more exhibitions rather than shows where we need to man a booth. Rule #3, do more exhibitions. And while doing a show together was nice, the size of our booth was really too small to adequately display our work. So if we do another show together, we will opt for a larger space. Rule #4, 2 artists + 2 mediums = larger booth area.

We came away from this experience thinking that we need to preview a show venue to avoid the gym situation. Rule #5, preview the show venue when possible.

Group shows are fun to do and meet fellow artists in the guild. I had a great time interacting with the artists close to our booth. For the future, I think my preference will be to stick with juried shows where there is exhibition space used all the time. Rule #6, apply for juried shows.

That pretty much sums it up. I know a lot of you were interested in seeing pictures and I hope you appreciate my tongue in cheek humor and the Rules we came up for our next show. Feel free to add, suggest or derive your own set of rules for approaching shows....I would enjoy hearing your take on this or sharing your experiences.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.

Our Show Check List

Dan and I are getting ready for the Parker Artists Guild Spring Art show this coming weekend and I ran across our show check list. I found this somewhere on the web and have customized it for us. I thought it might be beneficial to publish this on my blog to as an aid to those of you who also do shows from time to time. You may have your own list and maybe a few items on this one could be added to yours? I would be curious if any of you have your check list to review prior to a show. I find it a great tool when thoughts start to scatter the closer the show date draws near!

Here's our check list:

Show Checklist
Office Supplies:
______ Doc from show vendor
______ Receipt books
______ Price List
______ Notebook
______ Small clipboard (optional – used for writing checks)
______ Binder with stock pics (optional)
______ Postcards/Business Cards
______ Change fund
______ Cell Phone & charger
______ Deposit slips
______ CHANGE FUND!
______ Tissue Paper
______ Plastic Bags
______ Name Stamp
______ Calculator
______ Pens/pencils
______ Scissors
______ Scotch tape
______ Masking Tape
______ WD40 (for removing sticker glue)
______ Paper towels
______ Lint roller
______ Trashbags
______ Price Tags
______ Sharpie marker
______ Tape measure
______ Band Aids
______ Rubbing Alcohol/Peroxide (clean ear wires, etc)


Table Setup & Display:
______ Hand truck
______ Small table for packaging (optional)
______ Banner or sign (optional)
______ DUCK TAPE
______ Lighting fixtures/extra bulbs
______ Power bar/extension cord
______ 25' outdoor cord and 3-plug adaptor
______ Table cloth/covering
______ Coverings for overnight (sheets/blankets, etc)
______ STOCK!!
______ Mirror
______ Display stands
______ Risers
______ Pins (for securing stock to table)


Stuff for Me:
______ Comfy shoes
______ Sweater
______ Bottled water
______ Munchies
______ Chapstick
______ Hand lotion/sanitizer
______ Medications (if necessary)
______ Touch up makeup/hair brush, etc.
______ Gum or mints

Extras:
______ Small tool kit (pliers, wire cutters, etc as needed)
______ Extra stock components (in case of emergency repairs)
______ Polish cloth
______ Ring Sizer


Oh, and another metalsmith friend, Wendy Edsall-Kerwin, recently published her perspective on How To Do A Craft Show. Wendy had some great tips and insights I thought I would share hers too. Plus I find Wendy's blog very informative and I hope you will check it out.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.

New Representation ~ Mountain Living Studio

Mountain Living Studio

741 Manitou Avenue

Manitou Springs, CO, 80829

This weekend I received word from Bianca Codiga, the owner of Mountain Living Studio, that my fused glass works have been accepted into her gallery. I am very excited about this new opportunity and look forward to what the future holds.

Manitou Springs has a great community of artists and is about a half an hour away from where we live. I have wanted to become part of one of the galleries there for a while now and I am pleased that another one of my goals has been achieved. Never underestimate the value of setting goals!

I will be bringing my work into the gallery a little later this month. If you are in the area, I hope you will stop and see all the wonderful works this gallery represents.

Until next time, aspire to be more as an artist and a person.