Demo at the Wit Gallery, Lenox, MA

Yesterday, the Wit Gallery celebrated their 13th anniversary. The event was held in their beautiful gallery in the quant village of historic Lenox, MA. I was on hand, doing lampworking demos. It was awesome to see the magnitude of interested guests observing, asking questions and and learning about how I make my paperweights. It was a great event & I am happy I was a part of it!

http://thewitgallery.com/


Here are a few photos from the day!

NEPCA Spring Meeting

       The NEPCA Spring Meeting was held in Worcester, Ma at the Hilton Garden Inn. This year, just like last year, we shared the hotel with cheerleaders and metal heads. There was a cheerleading competition and a heavy metal festival both being held blocks away. The mix of people in the hotel was amusing!
     
       It was great to see all of the collectors as we missed the fall meeting due to a close friend's wedding being held on the same day last year. Plus, we got to show off our newest paperweight, Baby Charlie. Phil Edelman made jokes about Charlie being the newest paperweight artist & to expect Charlie's paperweights to make a debut at the Fall 2013 meeting. He also congratulated me for my recent Niche Award.

       Dealers and Artists contributed paperweights to the raffle to benefit friend and paperweight artist Alison Ruzsa. The money raised will be used to help Alison get her studio back up and running after Hurricane Sandy destroyed it last fall.

        It was a great weekend!

Rich

Charlie reaches for the weights

Melissa Ayotte & Chris Sherwin

Diane Warning

Ben Drabeck

Debbie Tarsitano

Phil & Allan pick raffle winners

Chi Chi wins the Clinton Smith paperweight!

Baby Shoes are almost the same size as paperweights!

Chi Chi with her prize

Lunch Time!

Charlie & Cheryl 

Charlie gets a present!

Charlie & Susie Kaplan Jacobson

Allan Port

2013 Niche Awards, Philly & NYC

This past October, I found out that I was a finalist for a 2013 Niche award. The winners were chosen from the finalists and awarded this past weekend at the Buyer's Market of American Craft at the Convention Center in Philly. When our baby came this past December, we didn't know if we would be able to make the trip to Philly, but it turned out that Charlie's grandparents were eager to babysit for the weekend, so we could see if I won. Plus, we were looking forward to spending some time just the two of us for Valentine's Day weekend. We turned the weekend to a mini vacation, although short, it was jammed pack of art at the Buyer's Market of American Craft, friends, food at the Reading Terminal Market, fondue, Italian food, 2 metro north trains, 2 amtrak trains, New York pizza, a micro-brewery, a hockey themed bar, some awesome Indian food at Bombay Palace in New York, billiards, a Broadway show, 2 hotels, lots of strange and fun staff at Ripley's and Times Square and the shortest cab ride ever.

My Submission, Yellow and Orange Late Berkshire Summer

The Niche Awards!

The finalists in the lampworked category

I am the winner!

Accepting the award from Merle Honey Porter of The Rosen Group

Speech! Speech! And why not? How honored I am!

Danielle Blade and Myself with our awards. Danielle and Stephen won in the blown glass category

Myself & Hope Daniels, Editor in Chief of Niche Magazine, photograph courtesy of the Rosen Group. 

On display

At Reading Terminal Market

At Reading Terminal Market

At Reading Terminal Market

Billards in Philly

Train ride from Philly to NYC

At the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC

We saw Chicago! This was the first time we have ever seen a broadway show together.

Enjoying Times Square after the show

At the Ripley's Believe it or Not Odditorium 

Fun in NYC, our silhouettes