A lot of Bullseye’s gallery team spent the last week on the edge of our seats.

2006 e-merge finalist Robin Provart-Kelly was battling a coven of kiln witches in order to get a piece to us in time for SOFA Chicago. After what seemed like a lifetime of hell in the hot zone, we got an email from Robin with a 20 point EUREKA and a picture of this amazing pâte de verre work.

Robin Provart-Kelly, “Bounty”, 2008. Pâte de verre and kilnformed glass. 3.5″ x 8.25″ x 8″

It’s missed our outbound SOFA truck, so it’s traveling solo to meet up with us when we get to Chicago. We’re all elated – and minus fingernails – to be able to show Robin’s work for the first time at the fair.

(more…)

I’ve been back in Caithness, Scotland at North Lands Creative Glass for a few weeks this summer…awed as ever by the quality of the light here at the 58th parallel and equally awed by the glass people I meet in this remote corner of Britain.

On a dash through the North Lands kiln-glass studios I spied an interesting set of tests at the worktable of an artist in the Bullseye Forum.

By purposefully casting wedges of varied colors together she’d created remarkable fades at the interfaces along the edge.

(more…)

I know I promised to write about the GAS conference. You’d think that I’d have something to say about a project that consumed over a year of my life.  Maybe a simple BESTS & MOSTS list like Cynthia’s.

Oddly though, my BESTS were a little too much like my WORSTS. Stuff like:

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED GLASS FANATICS…

…craning for a view (the bleached head in the upper right-hand corner of the frame is me), I can’t deny the rock-concert allure of mobs watching really good blowers (and Paul Cunningham doing a Moje roll-up fills that bill brilliantly).

But somehow, conversing through a bullhorn lacks a certain intimacy.

…even if Dan seemed to enjoy the hell out of herding hundreds of compliant souls around the factory.

I appreciate the organizational steroids it takes to manage a project of this size, but I came away from  GAS  with a heightened appreciation for conferences on the scale of Ausglass‘ or North Lands’, where human contact doesn’t mean having your hand ground into the steel bleachers by some kid’s Doc Martens as he scrambles for a seat.

OK. Clearly I’m still in GAS rehab. I WILL try to find some less curmudgeonly BESTS in a day or two.

For now, I’m off to confer with the most appealing crowd in THIS neighborhood.

From the shame of my own speechless stupor.

I can just keep staring out over the hills, watching the haar slink in from the sea. Smothering the strath in its Stephen Kingishness. And my mind with it.

The view from my window, mid-morning.

Smug in the knowledge that somewhere, out there, another blogger is doing my job.

Bless you, Josh, IOU!

PS. Don’t miss the many entries on glass art and artists on this blog. It’s truly brilliant.

Over at Warm Glass, Toni just pointed out that I’m neglecting my blog – again. What can I say? She’s right. I’m back in the Scottish Highlands. It’s the 58th parallel. It’s two days away from the Winter Solstice. The beginning of the day looks like this:

The end of the day looks like this:

In between there’s about three hours of daylight.

I should spend it blogging?