2015 Gathering: Glass, Beads, &Jewelry Bazaar Artists

Below is a list of participants in the upcoming Glass, Beads, & Jewelry Bazaar. List is subject to change.

Margaret Zinser

RAD - A Pop-Up Experience for the ISGB

by Jeri Warhaftig, President-Elect  

While most of us were unaware, the ISGB has had killer success in a recent pop-up exhibition. It happened in Boston on Friday, May 22, in a beautiful old hotel in the heart of downtown. I was lucky enough to attend and help out a little, and thanks to Dvora Silberman, who snapped some photos, I can share a glimpse of the elusive pop-up exhibition with our members.

Memorial Day weekend was the annual conference of the Society of North American Goldsmiths.  When its conference was planned it was announced that there would be a one-day juried pop-up exhibition conducted as part of the conference.  Lucky for the ISGB, Kendra Bruno, our Executive Director and longtime ISGB member, is also a longtime member of SNAG.  She seized this opportunity to offer the ISGB's 2014 RAD exhibition as an entry and we were among the twenty exhibitors selected!

The exhibition was entitled "Adorned Spaces" and contemplated that it would offer a fresh look at the filed of contemporary metalsmithing. The call for entries described an event highlighting the work of both established and emerging artist celebrating the innovation of metalsmithing that "looks back and forges forward."

The RAD exhibition was focused on work that was Radically Artistic in Design. Those of you who saw the exhibit at the Houston Gathering will recall that RAD included a broad spectrum of finished jewelry, sculptural glass and beads, in many varied settings. RAD was an excellent match with Adorned Spaces.

Early on the day of the exhibit......REALLY early......we were allowed into our 100 square feet of space. With only four hours to prepare, I was totally perplexed about Kendra's vision of creating a gallery space from a bunch of flat packed white boxes. But it was too early to complain or question, so I set to work assembling the boxes with packing tape, and stacking them in heaps. The real work began when, with the aid of my Boston based son, we started to form those heaps into a display. Sure enough, the end result was a beautiful arrangement that was both hardy and ephemeral.

Luckily Dvora got there early enough to get photos without a crowd.  In the evening attendees snacked on cheese and fruit wandered through the connected hotel conference rooms that contained the exhibits. The evening was open to the public and the place was packed with excited and intrigued visitors.  It was thrilling to see people stop at the various RAD items and ask thoughtful questions about construction, meaning, materials and the websites where they could see more! We shared some of this fun with other ISGB members Martha Giberson and Carol Bugarin  (and others, please don't mind that I can't recall it all a month later!).

Ultimately, with a little more help from our friends, by midnight all that was left in our booth was left over packing tape and flattened cartons once again. RAD was returned to its giant wooden shipping crate. Like all true pop-up events, it vanished and it was hard to believe it had ever existed!

Hello Beadmakers! I am Ann Scherm Baldwin, also known by the nickname "Schermo". I'd like to introduce myself - I'm very excited to be serving as the new ISGB Director of Education. To start, I have been making beads for 16 years (and really nice beads for about the last 6 - It's true what they say about practice, practice, practice!). I started teaching beadmaking to beginners 14 years ago, around the time I joined the ISGB. I wasn't sure if I was ready, but I was assured by MY first teacher and mentor, Kate Fowle Meleney, that as long as I could answer any questions a new bead maker might ask, then I was ready to start teaching.  

Once I joined the ISGB, I was eager to get involved, but wasn't sure where I might fit in. Somewhere around 2002 I was asked to "help out" with the education committee and the Instructor's Seminar at The Gathering. That felt like a good fit! I volunteered readily, figuring I was being asked to hand out materials during the Instructor's Seminar. Next thing I knew, I'd been put in charge of it. (Just so you know, that's how things often work in a non-profit organization, although now the membership actually elects people to these "highly sought after" positions.) I really enjoyed working on education, because that's my area of expertise, although my previous experience was mostly with elementary aged students. I've found beginning beadmaking students are not unlike the kids I once taught: filled with enthusiasm and curiosity, often interrupting with questions, eager to play with dangerous materials, and easily distracted by pretty, shiny objects! (Can you tell I love to teach?!)

I usually teach one-on-one, in my "home studio" (aka: The Garage) in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I've been fortunate to have students come to me from all over the world for a two day intensive beginning beadmaking class. I've met many wonderful and interesting people along the way, including "The Thai Guys" ( 3 young men from Thailand who came together for a class) and Tina "The Swedish Tiger" - my very first student. Teaching has given me so many funny stories and such wonderful memories! Many of my students have signed "The Wall" of my garage studio, so I am surrounded by the memories of fun classes every time I sit down at the torch. 

And, when I'm not out in the beadmaking studio, I have an amazing "craft room" where I've let my Acquisition Disorder run rampant, and I spend many long hours in there puttering, sewing, collaging, claying, gluing, hammering, stringing, and singing along with my CD player. I think the mix of media and technique enables me to show a bit of myself in whatever I create, as I chase the elusive "finding my own voice" in my work. I look forward to working on some exciting projects as Director of Education, hopefully helping others to unlock their creativity, and share their passion for handmade glass beads with the world!