Tennessee, Ready of Not, Here I Come!

I'm lucky to be headed to Tennessee for a little while to be with some of my friends.  We're going to melt glass, pound metal, discuss jewelry making and probably act just a tiny bit unrepresentative of our ages for a little bit and laugh the whole time while doing it.  But most of all, I'm going to have a chance to catch up in person and find out what's going on in each person's life.

I enjoy our online community, but I love even more, getting to know lampworkers in person.  We're a pretty special group of folks who each has a lot of interesting things going on.  And this year, I'll meet some new people too. We'll get to see each other's art up close and take time to watch and learn what others are doing. And as beadmakers tend to do, we'll all be doing a little trading too.  I'm pretty excited, if you can't tell.

So my blog will continue as usual and at the end of my camp, I'll fill you in on some of the highlights.  But right now, I'm off to the library to find a few books on tape for the long drive ahead.

See you tomorrow!
ps, my friends pictured above- Angie, Pam and (flat- but not in real life) Rebekah will be some of my buddies there.

Vacationing In Style at Bead Camp

I'm at Bead Camp two hours away from my house and loving every minute of it. A couple times a year, one of my friends, Marjorie Langston hosts instructors and torch time. In her own right, she's a wonderful teacher and I will post another day about her teaching gig (along with Terry Hale) in Ireland this summer.

Her garage seats 12 comfortably and then some of us sleep upstairs in her above the garage studio on air mattresses and sleeping bags. Of course we chat until too late and have a great time.

Thursday and Friday I took a fantastic class from Brad Pearson. He's a not only a wonderful teacher, but so very talented. I like taking his class because he works so precisely and uses techniques that are very different from what I normally do. If you are a regular reader, you'll know that I believe strongly in taking classes that are different from your style. They'll stretch your abilities and you'll find ways to incorporate those techniques into your work.

So greetings from Chattanooga, TN, and I'll be back Monday with lots of info and tips from this weekend.