Its been a crazy one!

From my residency at TMOG in May :

Once June hit I was off and running. With the GAS conference here in Seattle this year we saw an influx of hundreds of glass makers from all over the world converge on the emerald city for a weekend, networking, lecturing, flexing and partying like rock stars. What a blast!

The week after that, I flew to the Pittsburgh Glass Center to teach a week long workshop. The class at PGC was titled “Out of the round” and it was amazing.  With students from stateside and abroad it was the most challenging class I’ve taught to date due to the high skill level of the students. Instead of teaching them how to gather the glass, I was teaching them new ways to approach the entire blowing process.  Sculpting the bubble was priority number one and they all got down and dirty with paddles, corks and blow punties.

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After Pittsburgh I came back to Seattle and met up with my intern Kameron Robinson.  Kameron is a senior at Anderson University in Indiana.

He contacted me after I had visited his school and done some demos in the glass shop. He was interested in getting some experience in a professional artist studio. WOW! makes me feel legit.  This was my second time having a summer intern and I hope to continue next summer with someone new.

Kameron turned out to be a cold working machine and a hell of a guy. his first time west of the Missouri and he was loving summer in Seattle. The month of July flew by with Kameron and I working in the shop day in day out.

Thanks Kameron, you rock !

Once August hit I was off to Maine to the Haystack Mountain School of Craft to be a teaching assistant for my good friend and great artist Kait Rhoads. It was truly an amazing experience. I slept very little and blew glass alot. It was a cane and murrini class so we were pulling on the glass until the we hours of the night. The students were amazing and my fellow TA Zach Compton from Star, N.C. was the shit!

From Haystack I went straight to Pilchuck to be the Cold shop Cordinator for the fifth session of the summer. It was amazing! Lino Tagliapietra was there and I was lucky enough to be able to do some cold working for him. was I nervouse? Na…..not at all. He’s only the best glassblower alive today. Not to mention a very generous and wonderful man. April Surgent (my studio mate) was there teaching a class with her mentor and master engraver Jiri Harcuba for the Czech Republic. I will be posting a video of Jiri engraving a portrait of April soon on my blog and my youtube channel. I always have a blast at Pilchuck and I am so glad they ask me back every summer.

So now…finally I am back in the studio full time working on my next exhibition. This fall The Traver Gallery will be representing me at SOFA Chicago. It’s kind of a big deal and I’m really excited! They are only bringing four artists and the booth will be beautiful. So if you’re in Chicago November 3rd through the 6th come check it out.

Here is a couple shots of the work I am making for SOFA:

oh yeah and here’s my lunch: