Glass blowing classes, winter 2011

The 2011 winter glass blowing classes will begin January 8th!
Classes for beginners and advanced students.
Enrollment is limited so sign up now before we fill up!
A portion of the brochure is listed below, and in full at our website.

Beginning Glass Blowing
This course is designed for beginners. Emphasis is placed on learning the basic skills necessary to complete simple blown vessels. Class time is divided between demonstrations and supervised work time, with individual attention for each student. No glass working experience is required. Tuition: $375.00
This is a five-week course meeting once each week for four hours. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis, as class sizes are limited. Full payment must be made by first class


Continued Glass Blowing
This class will build upon the skills acquired in previous glass blowing classes. It is also a prerequisite to studio rental. The class will explore the use of color and bit applications. The course structure will include demonstrations to suit the individual interests of participants. Schedule is determined by the instructor and the students. Class size is limited to four students. Tuition: $375.00 Dates: Send us an email for current dates -20 hour course. Registration is first- come, first-served, as class sizes are limited. Full payment must be made by first class.

Happy Endings Ornaments-Glass Blowing Demonstration

To see how Ken and Linda Perrin blow cheerful ornaments click on the video clip below!!! Thank you for showing and selling our work!

Shop for Atlantic Art Glass Nov. 29 & 30

We're Old Fashioned around here, even if we are cool glass blowers. In keeping with this, we will begin our Christmas shows/exhibits after Thanksgiving...
After the big feast, come on out and find our sparkley, charming glass gift creations. We'll be at TWO craft fairs on Saturday. Ken Perrin will be going solo Saturday in Cambridge, MA at the Harvard Square Holiday Craft Fair. Saturday,November 29, 10am -7pm and Sunday, November 30, 12-6pm. And I, Linda Perrin, will be in Portsmouth, NH at the Designing Women Show Saturday the 29th, 9am-4pm. We are looking forward to both shows, just like the song make new friends and keep the old, I hope that one is silver and the other gold....PLUS We have been making some truly heart felt work for you to find and give to whom ever needs a pick me up this winter. We have traditional Christmas ornaments made only the way we do, ...oil lamps to warm and lighten your heart/home, tumblers you can fill to the brim with holiday cheer...
and some special vases I made this week while musing about Florence Italy, Ah, Firenze a place where I first indulged my artistic tendencies, the aesthetics of which ring so purely in my heart that all aspirations, I think, when made Florentine can even enhance things like.... eggs. so imagine what I can do with GLASS. here's a sneak peek at what I'm talkin' about....."bella", no?

Exciting Ellsworth Arts Scene / Glass Etc.

Spirits Lifting! What a wonderful Holiday Season we can have this year. Values are shifting and priorities are coming into focus. As this cultural shift begins to take shape in this extraordinary new era, I am finding that the artisan is regaining importance in our lives. The local glass blower, fiber artist, bread baker, farmer, woodworker etc... are beginning to be the "go to" person for our special needs. as in people who have special occasions and loved ones in their life.
When you have a big birthday for a best friend, or the wedding of folks for whom you are hoping the best, or an anniversary of your own beloved but sometimes hard fought union. What special heirloom quality gift do you want to present? I am finding that people are beginning to feel embarrassed about buying something made in china or elsewhere for these occasions or for their own home and needs. And this all spells out a time of appreciation for the local artisan, and American made products. So as spirits begin to lift out of the overconsumption of crap made cheaply, remember to look for the perseverant artist and artisan who has been a beacon of belief in the higher order of things and has been asking for change long before it became fashionable...
OPPORTUNITIES TO FIND SUCH WORK ABOUND
•Atlantic Art Glass, 25 Pine St., Ellsworth: Glassblowing Demonstrations, Open Studio + refreshments, Saturdays , 10am to 2pm•
SevenArts Gallery,
"Responses to Maine" November, 2008
Beth Lambert / Landscape Paintings
& Jan Whalen / Handknits
Harlow Gallery, Maine Grind Building 192 Main Street, Ellsworth
Grand Opening, November

HUZZAH!!

Boo

My nose is cold, yep pretty consistently now, my nose is cold...that is at least it's cold when I am not blowing glass. This small change creates a fierce primal shift in my outlook on life. OCTOBER, the fear season, spooky long shadows appear, and the possessed street light down the street gets to me again. When the evenings are filled with light as they are on so many summer evenings I don't even think about the weird alley, one street over, the one that has a street light that tries to do Morse code.
But on a chilly evening such as this one, as the pumpkins come out to stand gaurd. I remember how on one night while walking Serafina, the light went out as I stepped directly under it. Hmmmm a short in some wiring perhaps, or a timer? I wondered to myself as chills ran up my spine. Later that week we took another jaunt down the alley, a seemingly good place to poop my pooch out, gravel lined, un-trafficked, weed rimmed...But this time Serafina seemed reluctant, something she never is when pulling me along. However we ventured down again, and I began a dialog in my head aimed at the light, vaguely wondering about coincidence or spooks, this time it came ON as I passed under it. My shadow appeared short and disfigured in old mud ruts.....Okay, send good vibes....I turned around and faced it, thinking if there was something ghosty to this thing it could answer me ...I begged the question if it could signal to me, that it was trying to reach out, it went out as fast as my silly question ill formed in my mind....That was last October, I don't go down there any more, the house on the corner of this alley is perpetually for sale, the name of the street is Shady Lane, and it just plain gives me the Willy's. My nose is cold, and the scarcity of planetary petroleum products is not the only thing to be afraid of these days....wooooo

Little Roady Trip

Hey guys, we are back from Providence. What a trip, met some real talent from all across New England and was happy to be among a large group of Maine-iacs, making up almost 10% of the show! Lot's of Maine Crafts Guild members as well as some indie artisans from our great state. The best part about the week-end was reconnecting with the Hawkes, dear friends. We reminisced that the last time we were in Providence was at their wedding and now there darling daughter* is almost 15. Thanks for the great hospitality! What fun to be in a compact deeply diverse city, we had vegan food at the Garden Grille, Haute Cuisine at Chez Pascal, got inspired to be funky at Oop Gallery (glad they are selling our work!) and great coffee at Tazza. True inspiration came from a trip to the Chace Center at RISD, where a new exhibit of Chihuly work has opened the newly built space. I was happy to see some brand new pieces, most of the botanical shows I have seen recently featured work more than 15 or years old. The show featured work of some of the early students of Dale's and I loved the idea of their mutual exploration in glass. One of the first things Dale made his students do according to Michael Glancy was buy a good quality camera....good reminder how important documentation is! Clearly Dale has always been an excellent promoter of glass art. Another show at the RISD art museum was an installation by Beth Lipman.

Beth Lipman
Still Life with Pearls, Antler, and Oysters, 2006
Strange to say but I felt the show was put together especially for me. After You are Gone is the name of the installation, as a glass bubble blower who has made 1000s of decorative blown glass objects I found this commentary on the decorative arts very provocative.....
As a parting note, remember that one's self is one of the most fundamental of all canvases.... Kudos to *Angela for her daring to push the pink loving limits with her new Mohawk!!!

Fine Furnishing Show in Providence Rhode Island

inspires

We are getting ready for the Providence Fine Furnishing and Fine Crafts show.

"Find it. Love it. Buy it at the Fine Furnishings & Fine Craft Shows
- Providence on October 24 – 26 at the Rhode Island Convention Center"

I can't help it but we have been having so much fun getting ready. We plan to show our distinctive blown glass jewelry, but many beautiful individually crafted blown glass pieces showing our range of sculptural and functional work as well.

Autumn's influence has inspired blown glass pumpkins,

churning surf vases, and blazing blown glass tree vases. Living on the coast of Maine we find that we just look outside and the strong influence of mother nature fills us up. I find myself sitting at my glass blowing bench spinning pipe and, boom I see firey trees bubbling forth. Yesterday we spotted our friends Obediah and Kate, of Sullivan, Maine gathering seaweed for their garden. And I am reminded of Ken's life filled tide pool glass sculptures, another little piece of the coast we plan to show this week-end. I hope you'll come to the show to see what we mean.

Blown Glass Beads, Bead Museum

My Papa's Rose Garden, a collection of beads by Linda Perrin recently reviewed by the Bead Museum in Washington, DC

This summer I answered a call from the American Craft Council web site regarding the Bead Museum requesting a review of the work of contemporary bead artists. We sent in images of our beads. And have been honored to be considered one of the top ten artists making handmade beads from hundreds of applicants in 33 states and 14 countries. Our work was featured at a show this last month. You can read about this in an article in our local paper, the Ellsworth American.
Chosen as one of the top ten by the Bead Museum in Washington,DC.

Reminder,
Come See us this week-end at the Camden, Fall Harbor arts and Crafts Fair Oct 4th and 5th!!

Eastport Retreat!

So many craft fairs have we been doing! So recently on one of our few week-ends off we decided to take a road trip! We just needed a little head space. So for the first time in my dozen or so years of living up here in Maine, Ken and I traveled up up up north or what folks around here call "Downeast". We let the car take us where it went. So with not much between here and there, it's no wonder that we ended up in Eastport.
Eastport is pretty much the edge of the United States and when you look out at the great blue yonder here, you see --Oh Canada!
We had a blast. We stayed with Ruth McInnes
in her "one of the oldest houses in the port"
a delightful B&B now.
And walked back and forth to the little artist run strip of a down town. Even found some treasures to bring back home.
In any case I just thought I would let you all know what we have been up to these days. And to urge you to stay tuned cuz there is some interesting news coming out of the hot shop....regarding international competitions, trips to Penland School of Crafts, special work being created for the Fine Furnishing Show in Providence, RI and even a story about lovers being reunited....Autumn is one of our favorite times, very colorful already.
PS
Do you see the resemblance?

Fair Weather

Well, after complaining about the rain in the last post my prayers have been answered, and the sun has finally arrived up here in Downeast Maine. There is a certain feeling in the soft summer-like air up here that all the world comes to discover. We who live here have been appreciating the recent sunshine so much! Since absence makes the heart grow fonder, we have been praising the sun everyday it dries up this year's often misty skies.
Ken and I show at some of the best craft-fairs that pepper New England.
The following is our autumn schedule, so please come see us at one of the following shows. We would just love to show you our latest sparkles....
Designing Women Craft Show in Bar Harbor, ME August 23, 9am-4pm at the Atlantic Oaks Convention Center, Bar Harbor, ME
Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival Sept, 6 and 7, 10am -4pm, Wells, ME
Common Ground Fair, Sept 19, 20 and 21. MOFGA Fair Grounds, Unity, ME
Harbor Arts Juried Arts and Crafts Show, Oct 4 and 5th, Camden ME
Providence Fine Furnishing and Fine Crafts Show, October 24-26, Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, RI
Check our Web Site for a preview of glass!!

Dog Days

Hey I was just wondering why we call the "dog days" the "dog days". I'd like to think we've had some, but it just hasn't been hot enough to growl about. I feel a bit guilty being so happy with the cool gray days, but the hot shop has been cozy during the many rain storms of late. In any case today is the official end of the "dog days", so let's at least say hooray for the dogs we know, Grover the goofy golden who accompanies Nate to glass blowing sessions and our little friend Serafina the official hot shop dog and "door bell" who heralds visitors arrivals when we might be too busy to notice....

DOG DAYS: In the summer, Sirius, the dog star rises and sets with the sun. During late July Sirius is in conjunction with the sun, and the ancients believed that its heat added to the heat of the sun, creating a stretch of hot and sultry weather. They named this period of time, from 20 days before the conjunction to 20 days after, "dog days" after the dog star.

The conjunction of Sirius with the sun varies somewhat with latitude. And the precession of the equinoxes (a gradual drifting of the constellations over time) means that the constellations today are not in exactly the same place in the sky as they were in ancient Rome. Today, dog days occur during the period between July 3 and August 11. Although it is certainly the warmest period of the summer, the heat is not due to the added radiation from a far-away star, regardless of its brightness. No, the heat of summer is a direct result of the earth's tilt.

Time lapse video of Linda Perrin and Nate Parker

Today Nate helped me work on some "dancing" vases. These pieces are rose colored in honor of the color of summer sunsets, regosa roses and watermelon flesh. We are having a harmonious summer... Living every day to the fullest.
Watch for cameo appearances by Grover (Nate's Golden retriever), Serafina (my little dog), and Ken as he checks to makes sure we are working hard enough!

Glass Gallery Visitors

The following photos document a few of the good times in the last month. We have had so much fun sharing this 1st month of blogging. We hope you have enjoyed visiting.

This is Chelsea, I have known her since she was knee high to a grasshopper. She did her MDI senior project with me a couple of years ago. Now she is heading into her sophomore year at the university of Maine-Orono. She informs me she made the deans list last year. I am so proud of her. She is quite a special young lady independent and determined, just my kind of gal! Say hi to your dear grandparents, Ann and Everett!!

This is Joe, he is my next-door neighbor. Recently Joe needed something special for his parents anniversary, we hunted about, and found a very nice oil lamp. In exchange Joe bartered his services and watered the farthest reaches of my garden during the driest days this summer. Then before he took off to see some family in Illinois for a 3 week summer vacation. He and I made a paperweight! I guess he'll have some stories for his older cousin now...

Cherie Magnello is one of my heroes I always wanted to grow up to be like her, ever beautiful and very talented. She has made a number of visits to the studio so far this summer to wipe out my inventory and take our unique blown glass beaded jewelry to Island Artisan's where it has been selling like mad.

And finally our favorite people in the whole world, David and Suzie. These guys have been collecting our glass since before we even had our own glass blowing studio. They are a wonderfully loving couple. They make a mean mac and cheese and always tell great stories....rarely repeating themselves. We love you!

Black Out!

Thursday got off to a rocky start when at 7:50 AM power went out all over eastern Maine. As some of you may know we have had some tremendous lightning storms in the last week and that is what caused the outage.
A power outage presents some serious challenges to a glass blower. We were lucky that the annealors were not cycling and so we had no finished pieces at risk of cracking due to the sudden drop in temperature.
The top priority for us was the furnace. If the furnace is low or empty then there is really no reason to worry. But if the furnace is full as ours was, then emptying out the glass must be done within 30-45 minutes. If the glass cools inside the crucible it can damage the crucible and the refractory materials that the furnace is made of.
So, after waiting for about 40 minutes, we gathered all the glass out of the furnace in order to protect our precious machine! The good news is that we can simply shovel the glass back in at another time. So all we really lost was a day of production.

Camden Summer Craft Show

umbrella/parasol
parapluie/parasol
ombrello/parasole
schirm/sonnenschirm


Here are some pictures from our weekend. Can you say Umbrella!?
Well above are a few ways one could say umbrella, and I like the “pluie” part of the French version. Sounds like how you feel when it’s raining. I don’t just love the new umbrella because of how it sheltered us from the rain but I love it because of how it sheltered us from the sun as well.
Because this week-end we had it all!
Thunderstorms, scorching sun, wind, rumors of hail, and finally more soaking rain on Sunday

But despite all this we had a wonderful weekend, filled with nice people, and abundant sales. In fact some of those biggish vases I had so much fun using my duck billed shears on, were sold to good homes all over the country(NY, West Virginia, and Florida to name a few places).

Plus we got to see our musician friends

Maggi and Pierce of MPE and Hymn for Her They have quite a few gigs planned for the summer including a couple in Europe this August. We started talking about them playing a block party at our place this fall. Stay tuned for that one!

Kindle

Another Summer's cool student...
We came to know Kindle through the LINC program. In April Linda was asked to mentor Kindle through the fundamentals of glass blowing and what it means to be a full time artist. We found her to be an enthusiastic student. She is a recent graduate of George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill Maine and has decided to attend the University of Vermont in Burlington this fall. I often think of Kindle as a” fire sprite” with her red hair, warm demeanor, and inherent understanding of molten glass... She also has a way of kindling our own joy as we remember what it was like to meet hot glass for the first time many years ago.

Adding color to a gather ... a true sign of progress

Adding bits, another way to decorate the glass...

Camden!!!

Hey everyone, if you would like to see us this week-end July 19 and 20, we will be at the "Harbor Arts Fair" in beautiful Downtown Camden.
Saturday and Sunday from 9am-5pm.
Vivian and Nate will be running things in the shop in Ellsworth.
Looking forward to the sun, the harbor breeze and seeing you.

Hot Shop Time Lapse

Nate made this time lapse sequence with his camera the other night. More to come!

Something Special

Yesterday was Elaine's birthday, (she turned seventy). She always wanted to see a piece of glass be blown especially for her. Ken obliged in his chivalrous manner and despite the heat she and her family happily watched Ken and Katie make a beautiful Seafoam Bowl.
.

Vivi!

This is Vivian. (She is reading the blog, and sitting on the cool loading dock).
She has just finished her first year at Marlboro college. She came to be a part of the studio last Summer. She courageously brought in a resume even before she graduated from High School. I think she said she wanted to find a position in a "real" art studio, at which point I looked over my shoulder,
"Oh you mean here..." I said.
I remember we needed to e-mail back and forth a couple of times to work out the details. She was very cheerful and I think she used a number of exclamation points. Her e-mail address had something to do with "curly fries". During her first summer, where she swam instead of sank, we began calling her Vivi, and are pretty sure that with a name like Vivi Rae she'll have it made in the art world. (plus
you should see her portfolio)...
Currently she is a part of this summer's beginning glass blowing class. All the watching she has been doing while helping many hours a week in other parts of the studio have paid off and Vivi has the tempo and grace well suited to glass blowing. In these pictures we marvel at the teeny tiny first jacking of a first gather. Brava!
In the background you see Kindle the fire sprite...you'll meet her next.

Summer's cool!

This week produced the kind of non stop activity we associate with Summer. I began teaching four young people how to blow glass. Each one has a different level of experience, but all can benefit from a brief review of the basics. Each student will be introduced with a description of their aims as well as their experience to date as this summers'cool unfolds.
Sadly we said good-bye to Andrew Palmer a brilliant man that for some reason (perhaps being bitten by the glass bug) graces us with his company and allows us to share insights about how heat, gravity and will can shape a glass bubble. Ken and Andrew had a particualarly good time together making handles on small pitchers. Andrew returns to Singapore, leaving his residence in Deer Isle, ME. until next summer perhaps.

AND I put the new glass to good use. I had a blissful evening on Thursday blowing biggish garden colored vases.
The evening was a tiny bit cooler, my strength was fair and I got to use some new duck billed shears that made cutting the lip of the urn shapes easy as pie
.
Then Thursday night while I was beginning to scrub the salt off, I got a call that Katherine Dube was downstairs and wanted to show her friends around. Katie (left) was an intern with us nearly ten years ago while she was a student at College of the Atlantic. Since that time she has traveled to Japan, earned her Masters Degree in Eastern Classics, and is now a teacher of Buddhist studies at College of the Atlantic. Here she was just another summer lovin goddess out with her best buddies, "Big Head" (middle) and Amanda Witherell, a journalist at the SF Bay Guardian. Katie wanted to show her friends around because she has been working all year with Ken assisting him in his "Sea foam" line of decorative blown glass. And recently she began setting up her painting studio in the back section of our building, the area we affectionately call, Narnia...