Craft Show Wrap-Up

Hey y'all! It's been a whirwind few weeks, but I wanted to check in and share my experience of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show with the blogosphere.

This is the booth itself, created by the fabulous Don Miller (pictured at left) and his crew of volunteers. It is truly remarkable how much work they were able to plan into the space - 17 alumni had work displayed, and only 4 of them were jewelers!

The lovely jewelry cases. The padded drawers slid out from the opposite side for easy access to the pieces. The artists from left to right are Joe Pillari, Kaitlin Kerr, and Melissa Gugliemlo. (And me!)

A closeup of my work, as it looked on Friday morning. You may notice some new insect pieces in the case. Everything except the bee necklace at the bottom has had a photo session with the marvelous Ken Yanoviak, and the photos are up on my website! I'll probably be posting more in-depth about these pieces later on.

Notice those red dots? Red dots make Emi happy!

I ended up selling Hive Queen, Wasp Comb, the mica earrings pictured, a pair of folded earrings, some pyrite studs, and a sterling silver/bone ring. Not a bad haul for my first craft show, and everyone who bought my pieces was really fun to talk to!


Kaitlin Kerr modeling the fabulous Wasp Comb. You'll hear more about this when I can do a dedicated "making-of" post, but I struggled a lot with how to make this piece wearable. I couldn't decide whether to make it a brooch (the safe bet) or a hair comb. I'd always wanted to make an insect fascinator, and I decided to just go for it. Then, the woman who fell in love with the piece asked me if I would turn it into a brooch for her.
Ah well, it was a fun experiment, and it will look great as a brooch!
(Although I guess I should probably give it a new name...)

The Craft Show was a whirlwind of incredible art, fun conversation, and super-nice people. I almost wish it had gone on for longer, except that the poor artists would have died of exhaustion! Doing this show was an excellent experience for me. Not only was it a firm deadline that vastly improved my artistic output, but I discovered that I really love chit-chatting and schmoozing with lots of people. It's made me seriously consider doing craft shows on my own.

Next up: some production work - like this customizable cicada ring, created today!