Fall Open House

I am excited to introduce my glass work to new friends and neighbors in Chicago this coming Sunday. I have planned two open house/trunk shows to show off my work and get some exposure before the holidays. It is fun to be able to set up our huge living and dining room area with vignettes of my glass. I will have lamps, fused dishes, jewelry and my latest GREEN UP series of recycled functional glass on display and for sale.

This type of show/sale is very reminescent of my time assisting jewelry designer Lee Brooks with his open house parties in Berkeley almost ten years ago. There was so much great energy and fun at their open studios, plus true appreciation for handcrafted artwork. I am hoping for the start of some similar success in the next two weeks.

Setting up shop

As I unpack my wall of moving boxes from my recent move across country to Chicagoland, I can't help thinking about this same process in all my other studio spaces.

I have had a studio since I was 14 and I'm now 34. No, my first studio wasn't just an extra room in the house but an out building (8'x12') especially built by my dad and I for my art space. It had a garden window and a skylight, a lock on the door. I completely landscaped around it. When I left home to go to art college I had an amazing one bedroom apartment that gave up its eat in kitchen for my glass studio space, it was only 8'x8'. I am not an artist that can continue to create in such a small space so eventually I rented a loft space with a friend. It was in the back of a community center in Oakland California. With a bank of huge windows and a key for 24 hour access, it was the perfect place to make bigger work and add to my studio tools. After being there for a few years I moved both house and home a little north to Pt. Richmond where I found a treasure of an apartment with an unused carriage house out in the back, not to mention a garden space begging for attention. My partner and I refurbished the new studio, laying a new wood floor, electrical, a new wall and jacking up the sagging roof to make it all work. It was as big as my last space but with a lot less light. I did have great storage and space to set up a little gallery to sell my work. For two years I held weekly open studios on the weekends and attracted neighbors and travelers from afar.

After another 4 years in this great little garden studio I was in for another move. My partner's job relocated him to Chicago and we had a real chance to afford a home of our own with a big yard and a basement for me to set up shop in. So I think this is the best studio I've had even though I only have a small window at each end of my 12'x23' space and even though I have one inch of clearance above my head to walk around and I have to duck to avoid the radiator pipes, its mine. I'm unpacking all my sheet glass, tools, supplies and all manner of unnameable material for the last time in a long time.