Tomorrow, Saturday, December 3, is Eat, Drink & Buy Art aka "The Art Party of the Holiday Season" here in Metuchen. We have 20 artists this year, our biggest event ever! The fun starts at 6 pm in the Pearl Street Business Center, located at 16 Pearl St. We have painters, photographers, mixed media artists, a fiber artist, ceramicists, a soap maker, an illustrator (the talented Chris Reed who created this flyer), a glass artist... It's going to be an amazing night! There is free parking in the deck across Pearl St. and two local businesses, Black Belt Institute & Clicks N Bricks, are hosting "parents' night out" at their businesses during the hours of the event so you can relax and enjoy. In addition to great art, there will be complimentary snacks provided by Novita, and wine by the glass. You can get your holiday shopping done, catch up with friends and neighbors, support local artists & see a cool historic building all at the same time! Please stop by and say hello!
Are you ready to #shopsmall? I did a little small business shopping this morning at Gardenia's to get the beautiful flowers in this vase which is going to be given away to someone who visits Paradise Glass today! My studio, located at 19 Wilmer Pl., Metuchen, is open as part of Small Business Saturday today from noon- 3 pm. Hope to see you!
As I started gearing up for this holiday season, I was thinking about what new and interesting glass artwork I wanted to create. I have recently been exploring the process of photo fusion which involves printing words and photographs onto glass. I was also playing around with some new design techniques using frit (which is glass powder) to create interesting, multi-colored fused glass pieces. I decided to put the two processes together and came up with these "Glass Quotables." The photo above is one of my favorite quotes and I created the glass to have a strong, positive feel to add to the energy. I can customize them in a variety of sizes and colors and use whatever quote you find particularly inspiring. They can hang on a wall, in a window, or attach with magnets to your fridge. They make great gifts for others or can be created with a motto for you live by. If you place an order by November 26, they will be ready in time for the holidays. My studio will be open that day for a Small Business Saturday sale from noon- 3 pm. If you want to see the pre-made ones or order your own custom creation, please stop by!
We are just over two weeks away from Small Business Saturday! It is held the Saturday after Thanksgiving when people traditionally begin their holiday shopping. This year it will be November 26 and Paradise Glass is excited to announce we will be participating with a studio sale from noon until 3 pm. The movement to #ShopSmall began in 2010, coincidentally the same year I opened my studio. The push to support local businesses is important to me as I live in a town with an actual "Main Street" filled with locally owned shops and restaurants. In many cases, the owners of these businesses are our friends and neighbors-- our kids go to school together and they are a vibrant part of our community. As is the case nationwide, there are also plenty of chain stores nearby and it takes some effort to resist the urge to turn to them for holiday gifts. But I'm taking the pledge to #shopsmall this holiday season and to support the people who make our community special. If your plans don't allow you to shop locally on November 26, check in with your local businesses on another day as you get ready for the holidays. Enjoy your turkey-- then come out and support the community!
One of my favorite art events of the year is fast approaching. Eat, Drink, and Buy Art, affectionately known as EDBA, is Saturday, December 3 from 6-10 pm. I am involved with the planning of it as well as having the pleasure of participating in it. It changes each year as we put a new twist on where it's held, what artists are featured and how the event comes together. This year, we are really excited to be able to use the Pearl Street Business Center, located at 16 Pearl St. This building is a piece of local history as it formerly housed Costa's Ice Cream factory and the owner, Peter Klein, is really engaged in helping Metuchen develop into a vibrant community for business and art. In addition to hosting the December 3 event, Peter is also creating a permanent art gallery that will have its first show featuring the artists who are participating in EDBA. That will run through the end of the year and then shows will change monthly. We also made the change this year from EDBA being an invitational event to being a juried art show. AND THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS TODAY! (Click here to go to Transformations Gallery's Facebook page for more information.) Some beautiful artwork has been submitted and we are looking forward to creating a show that will highlight that art inside this interesting building. If you are an artist, we hope you apply! If you aren't an artist, please come on December 3 to meet and support local artists. If you can't make it on December 3, be sure to stop by in December, meet Peter, and check out the new gallery!
A few years ago, I was talking to an artist friend of mine, commiserating about how we wished we had more support for our art businesses. As we were talking, we realized that working alone and trying to manage all sides of our businesses was a struggle we both shared. We had a sort of "ah ha" moment and realized we knew a few other artists running their own businesses and we could serve as a support system for each other. The group that we formed then has grown and changed in the intervening years but it is still a group of creative, community-focused artists who are passionate about their businesses and supportive of each other. We all do different kinds of art and have a variety of skills, personally and professionally. One of the women, Andrea Orlando, is a certified personal trainer who teaches Zumba and other dance classes. She is doing a fundraiser the day after Thanksgiving (perfect timing!) and it's sure to be a blast. Plus she is raffling off gifts-- something from Paradise Glass for sure!-- and has an awesome local drummer playing live. Wake yourself from a food coma and come check it out!
I had a crazy week spending too much time in doctors' offices and not enough time in my studio. The good news-- all is ok or will be soon! The better news, my sister, who didn't know anything about all this, sent me the loveliest little low-maintenance plant. It's called an air plant and (get this!) it grows in air-- no soil and only a small amount of water occasionally! Now that's my kind of plant. At this point I don't need anything else to take care of but I certainly appreciate the lovely splash of green and the weirdly twisty shape of this happy little guy who asks for nothing! I plopped him into a little drop ring vase that I had made a long time ago and had been sitting empty waiting for his arrival. Sometimes sisters just know stuff! Thanks, G! Happy Friday, everyone.
Often at the beginning of the commission process, my clients will ask me, "How long will it take you to make this?" My answer is that often the longest part of the process is the design phase. At that point, all the choices are being made-- we start with a black and white sketch to get the lines right. Then the questions begin: how do the proportions look to you? Is symmetry important? Does it feel too busy? How does the design of the piece look in relation to the style of your home? After that, the next step is glass selection: what colors do you like? How much light will come through the window? Do the colors look right in this setting? Should the glass be opaque or transparent? Do you like texture? Although working through this takes time, it is a critical part of the process for me to be able to create a custom window exactly how you want it. When the design is approved and the glass has been selected, I begin building the window with the knowledge that what I am making is completely unique for my client. Every window is the result of a series of personal decisions about what looks best to them and that's what makes this so much fun. This is the window for the couple in Stone Harbor that I blogged about on September 9 and will be delivering in a few weeks. I love the design they worked with me to create-- including the painted numbers-- and the glass they chose. We had sheets of glass spread out all over their kitchen and they were very thoughtful about their selections-- I think it came out beautifully. I hope they do too!
Earlier this week, a couple friends and I went to Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ to see Leonard Lopate interview Judy Blume as part of their ongoing series, "Conversations on Creativity." I have to admit I was a little (nerdily) star struck to be that close to an NPR host that I have listened to for years and an author whose books feel like the essence of my adolescence. That's why I was too skittish to stand up when I took the photo above! But I am happy that is shows Leonard beaming at her as Judy can barely stay in her chair as she tells him a story. Maybe she was sharing the story about how when she was little, her mom would bring her a chicken foot which she would march around the house and turn it into a character in her stories! As much as I like her as an author, she was even better in person with a warm, engaging personality and willingness to share not just those funny stories but her process of writing. Although it's obviously much different to explore that type of creativity, I found some similarities in what she described and what I do as a visual artist. She talked about her scribble notebook where she writes all kinds of ideas as the flow out of her brain and that is something I do as well. And yesterday, as I was staring at a pile of steel trying to decide how to weld it into a stand for glass, I heard her words, "Just begin." So I did. Thanks, Judy!
Custom work means making my clients happy-- in this case, Bleeker wanted to eat his cat food in style. So, yeah, that's kind of how it went. My client, for whom I had previously made a stained glass window, wanted to bring some glass art into her kitchen in a very practical way. I had made a set of fused glass dishes for her using stripes of bright colors and she enjoyed using them. As a cat lover with 3 rescued cats, she asked me to create a steel and glass tray that would provide a place for her kitties to eat that would also be pretty, colorful, and coordinate with her other dishes. Since it is placed in a corner, we decided to make one side of it rounded so it didn't interfere with their kitchen table and chairs. My client told me what she likes most is it is a decorative piece in the room not just a utilized object. Like all of us, cats have to eat, why not make the area pretty? Bon appetit, kitty cats!
Despite their small size, creating jewelry boxes is a labor of love! The overall size is much smaller than any stained glass window yet the design considerations to make them are many. Often during the construction, I take a moment to think about what makes them so special. I appreciate that the giver has taken time to consider what details would make the person who is going to receive it feel cherished. I think about the person who receives it using it and thinking of the giver each time. When I was asked to create this jewelry box, it was for a woman whose friend's daughter is celebrating her bat mitzvah. Although they live far apart, they are close in spirit and have a warm relationship that defies the distance and their span in age. The woman who commissioned the box shared with me a photo of Dahlia, her bat mitzvah invitation and some stories about her so I could get a sense of her personality. I created a design using the colors and feel of her invitation and the lettering to personalize it with her name. She wanted to tie it to this moment while keeping it elegant so she can enjoy it for years to come. The box is on its way to Colorado and I can't wait to hear her reaction when she receives it-- good feelings for the giver and receiver! Mazel tov, Dahlia!
This week I had a little lull that is typical of commission work. I have an installation scheduled for this afternoon and was waiting for final approval on the details of a new commission. So I started working on an idea that has been bouncing around in my head. I've been wanting to create some different fused art glass pieces and also weld some steel stands to hold them. I found a process that creates a really lovely glass flow by working with fused elements that are built in a separate firing. Because I don't have a tile saw (yet! Christmas is coming!), I had to do some clever cutting and arranging to create little layered blocks. Those got fired again at 1500 degrees where they smoothed down into a funky little rectangle. Yesterday I got to work creating the stand. In the photo above, everything is still clamped in place as I finished welding the stand onto a base. (I put my welding shield in the photo just because it matched!) This piece is still a work in progress; in addition to not having a tile saw, I don't have a belt sander and I need to do some "cold working" of the glass to finish it. But all in all, I'm happy with the way it's coming out. In the mean time, if any of you have a belt sander, give me a holler!
In the beginning of August, I got a call from a couple asking if I could create a transom for their home in Stone Harbor. At the time, I was in the middle of a few other commissions and I was getting ready to go out of town. We were able to begin the first part of the commission process by sending photos and sketches back and forth over email. Now we are at the point where the full-sized drawing (known as the cartoon) for the stained glass window is finished and glass needs to be selected. We set up a time for me to visit their beautiful home today-- perfect timing! Last weekend a hurricane was forecast but today is HOT! We had a very productive meeting and they selected 7 sheets of glass that I am going to use to make a gorgeous transom for them. And then I punched out and went and stuck my toes in the sand. Nice work if you can get it!
Having come to my career of glass art later in life, I really love taking classes with experts in the art world. I find as an adult and working artist, I have a deeper appreciation of learning now than I ever did. So I squeezed in one last art workshop this summer-- a four day class at The Bullseye Resource Center in Mamaroneck, NY. Bullseye started in Portland, OR as a glass manufacturer and they have expanded to be one of the most significant innovators in glass art. They present workshops with some of the most creative, talented artists working in glass today and I had the pleasure of learning from one of them, Nathan Sandberg. The class uses a vitrigraph kiln-- basically a kiln with a hole in the bottom that allows you to work with the glass while it's hot (over 1500 degrees!) without having to have a "hot shop" set up. The glass world is divided into what temperature the glass is when you work with it. As a fuser, I am technically a "warm glass" artist and people who blow glass are "hot glass" artists. Since I don't have the resources for that type of setup, I am limited in what I can do except that the vitrigraph kiln sort of allows you to "cheat" and manipulate the glass when it's hot. We jumped right in on the first day and made "cane" which is a rod of glass that measures about three quarters of an inch; the photo above shows me pulling the hot glass out of the bottom of the kiln. If you want to see more pictures of the process, check out my "What's New" page for some images and descriptions. Hot fun in the summertime!
I started working on this piece when I was up in Vermont at The Carving Studio in June. I bent the standing portion into an undulating curve before welding it to a segment of a railroad tie and brought it home unfinished. The empty spaces had been staring at me since then, begging for glass. I put it in a corner of my studio and looked at it for a while, thinking about all the different directions it could go with the addition of color. Initially I thought I might go with an ocean palatte since the steel had a wave-like bend but the orientation didn't seem right. Day after day as I looked at it, I got a feeling of celebration; the metal seemed to be dancing. When I decided to fill in the openings with a rainbow of glass, I had it outside and the sun was shining through it and casting the most beautiful, vibrant splotches of color on my deck. I finished it and immediately the name came to me: "Happy Dance." I am donating it next week to a fundraiser for the Raritan Bay Medical Center, a hospital I have been artistically involved with for many years. Whether you're in a hospital setting or in your daily life, sometimes you actively have to push towards happy. Whether it's love, new adventures, babies, opportunities, old friends-- whatever it is-- let's celebrate and do a happy dance today!
Transformations Gallery, a Metuchen Art Gallery of which I am a co-curator, is putting out an open call to artists. We are excited to start shaping our upcoming calendar so if you're an artist and have an idea for a show (either solo or with others), we'd love to hear from you!
A few weeks ago, I blogged about a client of mine who was opening an arts center. She and I met when she commissioned three windows to go into interior doors in her home in Westfield (one of which is pictured above). When we met, she told me she was an artist and that she was very clear on what she wanted. Having been doing commission work for 16 years, I enjoy the range of vision and involvement my clients have. On either ends of the spectrum, some are very comfortable describing what they like and others have a hard time getting starting with the process. Some know exactly what styles they love and others need direction regarding what works with the age of their home and other design elements they already have. Even once the design is created, the glass itself offers texture, color and opacity and all those choices can be overwhelming as well. My job is to listen to my clients, hear what they say about how they want a piece to feel (classic, contemporary, funky) and what they want it to do (block a view of their neighbor's house, add a focal point to a room, blend in with their furnishings) and translate that into a piece of glass art. Regardless of how the process starts or what path it takes, my ultimate goal is for the finished window to feel right to them and be exactly what they wanted, whether they knew how to describe it or not. That is a successful commission!
About a month ago, I was asked to make a gift for an 11 year old girl who was moving from Metuchen to Seattle with her family. Her friends wanted her to know they would always remember her and they wanted to give her something that she could look at and think of them. After a little discussion, we settled on a windchime with 5 hanging pieces. Since many of them played soccer together, there is a soccer ball. There is also the Metuchen bulldog pawprint with the town's zipcode painted on it (fluttering backwards in the picture above). Because she likes polka dots, I fused on brightly colored dots of different sizes all over the top piece. One of the most fun parts for me was when they sent me some of her fashion drawings. They wanted to see if I could incorporate any of those-- I thought that was a really sweet acknowledgement of what they know she loves. I selected one I really liked and they chose the other. Finally, I created the space needle which is hanging in the center of the piece with all the others hanging around it. They gave her the gift earlier this week and they told me that both she and her mom loved it and cried. It was an honor to make this thoughtful gift that she will be able to hang in her new house as a remembrance of her good friends on the East Coast.
Today is the opening reception for "Outside In" at Transformations Gallery (491 Middlesex Ave.) featuring the work of 18 artists: Amy Dees, Anita Gladstone, Beryl Koblin, Carson Memory, Cathy Tardosky, Margaret Cohen, Michael Fried, Thelma Fried, Jeri Greenberg (painter of the image above), Imma Barrera, Janice Fried, Ruth Jansyn, Michael Gabriele, Nancy Wilton, Robert Hopkins, Thomas Martin, Thomas Maugham, & Yimeng Ling. We received almost 90 submissions for 18 available spaces, our biggest show yet in terms of numbers of pieces submitted and number of artists & artwork accepted. The show pays tribute to the Hudson River School of Painters but is so much more than that! There is watercolor, acrylic, & oil painting as well as pastels, photography and even fiber art. We are excited to welcome all the artists into the gallery and will be celebrating their work from 7-10 pm tonight. We hope you can stop by but if you miss this event, the show will be hanging through October 7, 2016.
In February 2014, I got a call from a family who was in the process of renovating their Westfield home and wanted to incorporate some stained glass into three interior doors. Because of changes in their construction plans, the design phase ended up lasting nearly two years! There were a few times when I thought they had changed their mind completely and decided not to incorporate stained glass only to get an email that they wanted to move forward. During the process of creating the windows, Sharon and I began chatting and I learned that, in addition to their home renovation, she had bought a building in Garwood that she was renovating to become an arts center. This morning I visited South Avenue Arts shown in the photo above. While it isn't open just yet, it is getting close-- they are scheduled for final inspections next week. The space is bright and open and I think with her energy and vision, it is going to be an incredible arts center. There is a large classroom, a studio space and a light-filled art gallery area as well as thoughtful touches like lockers for members to store their supplies. A few of us in my town of Metuchen have been talking about creating a place like this too and I think it would be great to have a partnership with other arts centers in New Jersey. I wish her all the best and am excited to hear how things go when she opens the doors to the arts community!