A Hop Across the Pond

I was in Canada for a wedding, which was the awesome, but because of that, I got to drop by Sheridan, where I first studied glass, and talk to the current third years. I really enjoyed it, I gave a talk about my work, but most interesting was having a conversation with them afterwards, I got to see a bunch of their work, and it was really great to talk with them about it see where they were going and what inspires them. I also got to hold one of Marc Petrovic's birds that he had done as a demo earlier in the year. They're completely incredible.

Obligatory Chicago picture of "the Bean"

I also got to go to SOFA in Chicago! I've enjoyed it in the past, it is often overwhelming, jam-packed and shiny, but full of awesome. Being inside, and since I only had my phone, the pictures I took were terrible! I was very happy to see work by Jeff Zimmer, Alison Kinnaird, Amanda Simmons, Keeryong Choi, and Misun Won at the Craft Scotland booth, which looked fantastic, and to be able to hear Jeff, Che, and Amanda's talk about working in Scotland. Other highlights for me were Lauren Tickle's "Currency Converted" jewellery project, Ljubica Knezevic's "Analytic Concept of Breaking up the Game into Larger or Smaller Operations", and Mel Douglas' "Turning Tide #2, Gradient, Linear" (apparently I have similar taste to the people who were judges in "SOFA Selects" so I've given you the links to their choices, sine the pictures are of the actual work that was at the show).

On the way to Chicago, we stopped in Detroit. Look, it's part of the Heidelberg Project: