Craft Boston Holiday 2009

I just came back from a giddy evening circulating and chatting with artisans at Craft Boston. The warm space was certainly a welcome chance from working in a 50° store all day! I found the venue to be set up in a similar fashion to the NY Gift Show I attended at the Javits Center over the summer, but the space was much smaller and the people were far more approachable. I suppose it's to be expected from a different scale of event. It may also be that as I continue my craft enterprise, I have gotten more forward about approaching other crafters.

Some of the stalls I saw were really fantastic. A few I spoke to and have to mention:

Christy Knox - She uses imprints of natural objects, mainly flowers, to texture her ceramic pieces. I especially liked the ones that used fiddleheads or lily-of-the-valley.
Two Rivers Ceramic Studio - I love the designs, and chatted at length about booth setups (they had an awesome set of collapsible shelves) and other aspects of doing craft fairs. I also bought a really cute ceramic magnet from them that I'm excited to have on my fridge!
Laura Baring-Gould - She makes beautiful cast objects in bronze. I love her series of pears in various states of decay. There is a certain expectation when you go to pick up a sagging pear, and it is certainly not great weight, so they are very surprising objects. My favorite items were those that were enigmatically named, like the series of cast "Empty Bowls" or "Mysterious Packages".
Thomas Meyers - I was really drawn to the maplike architectural quality of these drawings. They're abstract but reminiscent of calligraphy, and he puts a lot of effort into the surface and collaging the pieces together.

Other beautiful work I saw:
Jayne Redman Jewelry - I just love her floral forms. I also met her earlier when she came in to get booth flowers for the fair, so it was nice to see those again as well.
Donna Veverka Jewelry - She had some rings with architectural pieces on them that I found fascinating. It would be amazing to wear them, like having a whole miniature cathedral on your finger.
Ananda Khalsa Jewelry - Her work incorporated miniscule paintings set into pendants, earrings and rings. I was amazed at the detail and the small scale of her paintings. I've always wanted to do something similar but never imagined how it could work.