For the first week of April, I was in Las Vegas to teach at the Glass Craft and Bead Expo for the second time. A few years ago, I began to shift from exclusively identifying as a mosaic artist to mingling with glass artists, partly due to the collaboration between the Society of American Mosaic Artists and the Stained Glass Artist Association post-pandemic when both organizations were struggling to afford to hold conferences. By joining forces, we were able to help each other recover, but for me, it was a revelation. My mosaic work is unique in that it is a fusion of stained glass and tile/mosaic, and I have been thoroughly enjoying new connections I’ve been making in the glass art world, which have led to amazing experiences and opportunities.
Classes offered at the expo are an incredible mix of every type of glass art you can imagine: fusing, enameling, vitrograph, leaded glass, glass blowing, beadmaking, you name it! They ship in tons of equipment and have to wire the whole place up for kilns and other tools. The exhibition hall is filled with vendors selling and demonstrating a wide range of supplies and techniques. Live demos take place on a stage, and I did a little glass-on-glass demo on Sunday morning.
I taught Meshing Around on Wednesday and Thursday, which covers two approaches to mosaic on mesh.
One bonus that I explain in this class is how to use moisture barrier cloth for mosaic. One of my students took home her Laticrete cloth and used it to mosaic a water ski with her address number:
On Friday and Saturday, I taught one-day versions of Light & Shadow in Mosaic, which is a very heady topic. It goes over value, hue and chroma and their ability to convey the illusion of hills and valleys in more photorealistic mosaic work. The first half of class is a slide presentation, and then students practice mapping out values on paper templates, then explore cutting glass and placing it to create images. This is not something that can actually be accomplished in a day, but takes a lot of practice to master.
One more thing to know about the Expo is that they have a very low entry fee. The cost for workshops is significant, so they want to make it easier for people to participate. Some people just go for the vendor market and free demos. There are evening social events as well, which is a great time to network.
We watched a documentary one evening about Bullseye Glass, from inception through the great controversy in Portland that put a few other glass companies out of business. It is a very inspiring and interesting movie by the team who made Holy Frit, about Tim Carey and a giant stained/fused glass church window. If you are interested in learning more: The Bullseye Glass Origins Story
On Sunday morning, I did the demo on stage and I was so nervous I was shaking, but I think it went well. Then I finished packing everything up so that I could hop on a plane to Mexico where Mike was waiting for me to join him. His spring break began before my conference ended, so he had two days to explore Mexico City without me for the first time. From there, we spent the next week in 4 different Mexican states and had a great time together. I post my travel pics on Instagram at @folkartadventures, if you are curious. We climbed up the tallest monolith in the world (as far as possible) in Queretaro, hiked 7 miles up and down a nearly vertical trail to a pyramid on top of a mountain in Tepotzlan in Morelos, and had a quick trip to Taxco in Guerrero before returning to Mexico City and then home.
A quick reminder: I also post regularly on Patreon. A lot of the material in my workshops is included at the paid levels and I also post frequent project and personal updates for free and $1 members. I am far less active on other social media platforms nowadays. I’m also on Substack, but I’m brand new to it and I have had some hiccups with adding content so far.
