THE DREAMS STUFF IS MADE OF – Sharon Peters
Transcription
THE DREAMS STUFF IS MADE OF – Sharon Peters
APRIL 2012 THE DREAMS STUFF IS MADE OF – Sharon Peters On January 17, 2012 we started the year off with a bang with a pictorial presentation of zaniness by Sharon Peters. She went through over 400 slides of her work – explaining how each concept came into being and where one insane idea leads into another. still loves to doodle which is where many of the beads get their start. She loves to go through kid’s books for funny ideas and color inspiration…visualize Dr. Spock on laughing gas. There was a display on the table of how a glob of glass becomes a fish and the fish becomes…..well, you had to be there! She went into the steps of making her beads and the difficulties with each idea that worked and some that didn’t. To quote Sharon, (in 1996) “I took a class; lit a torch, turned on the oxygen, the yellow flame turned blue, and I was hooked forever. This is better than chocolate!”…now how is that for a start? You will note that her bangs are always kinda short as she is constantly setting them on fire in the torch – call that getting into your work? Sharon LOVES the English language and especially puns….they inspire her into creating hysterical renditions of glass beads with wild names, eye balls, belly buttons, butts and stupid grins - now that will certainly send you over the edge. Few of us knew that she became a stand-up comic to help her fear of speaking to crowds….now if you have ever met with Sharon’s personality, you will start to smile and nod your head as that makes total sense with a web site named “smartassglass.com”. Her site has over 50 pages of wonderful beads….if you are ever blue, depressed, or in need of a giggle ~ go there and get ready to lose your eye makeup, and get hiccups from laughing until your sides hurt! Last year while in Venice, she stepped off a boat onto the wharf and broke her leg in 3 places. That forced a total stoppage in getting into her bead room. It was almost like the inspiration went out the window when the cast went on her leg. She could sit at a table and play with polymer clay but the glass had to sit on the shelf until the doctor cleared her to traipse up and down the stairs again. Granted, she did reorganize her work area and guesses that this was a positive after all. She cleaned off the table, cleared out the dust, add new storage shelves that are larger than a refrigerator and got new little boxes (See’s candy boxes do have additional uses…after all the chocolate is gone) but that is not making beads nor gaining inspiration for creativity….bummer! One thing that she did do though was the main issue of her talk = inspiration! Sharon stressed keeping multiple notebooks; in your purse, in the car, by the bed, by the t.v., in the bathroom….you never know when you will see color combinations or shapes that will kick up those little idea gremlins. It is essential to write down your ideas, drawdoodle-sketch a shape, tape pieces of fabric, take pictures of everything you see for color, texture, pattern and design, look around you with a child’s eyes of new inspiration. Sharon spent the first part of the night showing her beads and how she got the ideas for their creation. She is into multi-media so if something doesn’t work in glass, she plays with polymer class or paints until it all gels, often combining one art medium with another. She explained that the strange creations started because she has an inability to make a nice roundly sane and regular bead. She started to draw cartoons when she was 3 years old and continued on page 2 1 They went out for dinner one night to a Chinese restaurant. The dragon place mat created an entire series of beads…however, it was another issue to find out how to create the horns, get them to match in size and shape, and get them to actually stick on the head. She went on a cruise with her mother and was inspired by the various wild abstract patterns in the carpets from one room to another. (I took a photo of the wildly colored design on the room in the hotel). Create a “DREAMS” file of things your brain has come up with when you have your eyes closed in sleep. Inspiration is where you find it…write it down in your notebook and put it away until you are ready to play…don’t try to push your brain to create if nothing is there….take a break, do something totally not related to what you are trying to come up with and let your brain and imagination just flow. If you don’t already have a camera, get one and learn to use it. You can move the pictures you take from your cell phone/camera to your computer by sending them to yourself via email and then saving them into your ‘ideas’ file. Take pictures of a row of bolts of fabric for color and combinations, take a picture of architecture design that you fancy, check out the reflections in lakes, pools or puddles of water. If working with hot glass is daunting at first, try out your ideas in polymer clay or mixed media. She has even taken some of her bead designs and created tiles for the kitchen and bathroom. If you also have problems with making round beads, try your hand at making cabochons. When inspiration isn’t playing fair she will still sit at the torch and make basic little $2 beads. Many of these are added to her bead heads to become dragons, dogs, cats, or informal creations of nature. Take classes from other glass artists. Even if you only gain one new technique, you can use that to expand what you are already doing. Create an “IDEAS” file on your computer. If you like a picture in/on your computer, use “Photoshop®” or another picture program on your computer to change or play with the colors. Go into the picture system and “pixilate” your picture for a totally random look at what you were looking at…there are also other versions that you can play with in that section. The internet is awesome for inspiration. Google “IMAGES” for design ideas. Play on the internet; check out “fashion”, “food”, “microscopic photos of nature” for ideas. Keep notebooks of ideas. Slide the images you collect into page protectors, and put them in a 3-ring binder. Go to library book sales and grab image books, children’s books, color plates of nature, check out what other illustrators have created. Collect old calendars, magazines, greeting cards, all the cool images you can find, and cut out various shapes from these pictures and make collages by gluing them onto an 81/2” x 11” paper,. Punch 3 holes and keep your creative collage pages in a binder. Using a 3” x 7” piece of blank cardstock, cut out a circle, a square, and an oval. Move this card around on the collage page you to see if a color combination or design displayed in these little windows kicks up your inspirational fancy. Sometimes being Sharon Peters just isn’t enough for her adoring public….she entered a glass bead making contest and one judge refused her entry writing, “A very nice try at a Sharon Peters-type bead”…huh? Bead & Button Magazine Dec. 1999 did a four page spread on Sharon and her beady creature-creations – the one necklace showed a “Recycling Cow” with bottles of mile, Oreo cookies, dancing black and white cows and udders…another was devised from daily drives to and from her work which worked themselves into various renditions of tire treaded critters and the “Roadkill Café”…I told ya her pieces are crazy! Showing this issue around brought gales of laughter at a local bead store…then I wrote down her web-site….. When you hit a blank wall, take down one of these books, do a random “open sesame”, close your eyes and p-o-i-n-t ! Look at that design, colors, shapes and patterns and see if you can play with it, making it expand into something that you can create from. Sharon has 7 tubs and 2 huge notebooks full of ideas like these and they help a lot when she daydreams up the colors and designs she creates in these wacky beads! Check out Sharon’s work at: http://www.smartassglass.com or call her at 510-865-2138 – start her conversation with a really great pun and she will take it from there…her email addy is: [email protected] see – told ya! 2 A MATTER OF SCALE – ADVENTURES IN BIG AND SMALL GLASS - Janice Peacock On February 21, 2012 Janice Peacock took us down the white rabbit’s hole into Alice’s magical world where things start small and become strangely large. In September of 2011, Janice embarked on a wonderful adventure of changing her “mask” beads into larger beautiful glass sculptures. That was the plan accepted by the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. It was then up to her to bring this vision to fruition. the color gets stretched thin over a larger blown piece. However, in flameworking the pieces are solid so the colors stay very dark. She carefully documented each color combination; which color of glass with which color of powder and what happened. Janice experimented with many colors and finally settled on a limited palate to 7 colors and focused on a handful of powders. She was one of four artists chosen to participate in an Artist in Residence program in 2011. The selection using an extensive application process that included writing three stories about herself and submitting photos of her work. Janice is a glass flameworking artist who is famous for her work with Effetre glass and a hot torch and not as a glass blower working in a “hot shop” glass pulling globs of molten glass out of a furnace. Thank goodness she had an amazing team of glass wizards to help. At the end of September her glass making equipment was packed into her car and off she went on a great road trip. Her daughter Kiera was along for travel guidance. She made a lot of stops along the way north, especially to stop into glass companies like Trautman Art Glass in Portland and Double Helix south of Tacoma. Then she had to decide on which of her mask shapes to develop into sculptures. Janice picked five of her masks to feature in this venture: antelope, whistler, female, male and buffalo. When she got to the museum, she was amazed at the size of the glass blowing studio. She had an audience all around the work area, their every move was shown on a Jumbo-Tron, and there was a catwalk that circled the center area where she worked with her crew so audience members could move in for different views. On the floor she set up a flameworking station where she could work on small sculptures. When the furnace glass workers were creating a large-scale sculpture, she consulted with them about the shape and colors as they worked. At times they work on a 1” to 1’ ratio and at times worked on other scales to try see how the different sizes and relationships worked. The glass blowers worked from Janice’s original small prototype and referred to it often so that they could accurately render each piece in the larger scale. The entire time, a museum docent walked around the floor verbalizing what was happening step by step. The audience was free to ask questions which the docent answered as the work went on. The Museum of Glass also made a small movie about Janice’s time at the museum. You can view it at http://tinyurl.com/jpmogvideo continued on page 4 The project that she was proposed and that was the focus of her work at the museum was to look at how and why does scale matter. She was interested in “what happens when the tiny and delicate is changed into the large and grand,” as well as all the challenges involved in expanding and contracting the scale of an object. The project would be to take her 1inch to 2-inch beads and recreate them as glass sculptures in finished sizes of 18 inches to 2 feet. She sent her family away for three weeks in September and her life evolved into a monk’s existence of solitude, immersing herself completely working with glass. She had to learn how to work with a different type of glass that demanded a totally different set of rules. Since she wanted to create small prototype pieces that could then be recreated on a large scale, she switched over to using Reichenbach and Kugler glass in cane form. Using this glass, which is used extensively to color furnace-blown pieces, would allow Janice to match the colors of the large and small pieces. She bought a several different colors of Reichenbach glass cane. Many of the colors turned out to look black when worked in the flame because the color was super-saturated. These high-density colors work well for furnace glass because 3 This type of furnace glasswork was amazing to Janice and to anyone who was not familiar with seeing 20 lbs. of hot glass worked – putting it in and out of the glory hole. The workers would heat a “glob” of glass and cut off what the main artist wanted as it was put into place and formed. As they worked on each design, they had to work through each problem and design limitations. Even issues like the effects of the enamel powders that are a noticeable part of the total design in Janice’s smaller pieces were lost on the larger scale. The effects of the additional enamel colors and metallic lusters were there, but it would have taken the addition of coarsely ground glass, called frit, to have the same impact of the nubby finish on her beads. They made a total of 15 pieces in various sizes and Janice gets to keep all but two, which will be used a prototypes for future collaborations with other glass blowers. One sculpture will part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma and the other will be auctioned at the museum’s next fundraising event. The hardest part of this entire endeavor was to pick those two pieces. Janice had two of her statues on display at the meeting and beside each, was the bead that inspired its existence. As part of her presentation she showed two video clips of their work while at the museum. Her 1-1/2” tall “whistler” bead ended up as a 14” tall sculpture that weighs almost 18 lbs. A couple of her regular sized beads did not make it to sculpture status, as they could not be duplicated. Her beads all have a hole from end to end to enable them to be worn on a cord, but that was certainly not possible with such large pieces as a couple of them weighed in at 12 – 20 lbs. Instead, these large blown pieces were hollow with a hole at the bottom so that they can be mounted on a vertical rod that is part of a larger stand. There was the issue of glass that changed color as it was heated. Janice had worked with this problem in her month of exploration, but it became more noticeable now on the larger scale. The finished color of the glass changed…and not always for the best. The violet red color that looked purple when worked in the torch, but turned out bubblegum pink when used in the furnace environment. The gorgeous “dark multi” glass turned opal green. The amount of flame and the time in the glory hole turned the glass different colors every time. It became quickly obvious that working with her small beads was not going to work the same way when she went over to working on creating the larger pieces. But, the results were phenomenal, even if the final pieces didn’t have matching colors. She doesn’t yet know how this experience will affect her bead making by torch in the future, but she did admit to enjoying working with this different type of glass and watching a vision come to life. By Marilyn Peters She also learned that some design elements in the larger glass objects were much more difficult than at a small scale. A design of adding dots that is so quickly and easily done when working with a torch on her smaller beads became a momentous 5-minute process working with globs of hot glass having to be cut apart, precisely placed and formed into a rounded form on the statues. Another frustration was in the cool down time. Because of the amount of glass in each of the sculptures, it could take a minimum of two days to cool down enough in the kilns so that they could see the finished product and there was no way of knowing if what they made had even worked out. As they worked, it became easier to form each piece – resulting in about three per day and he best part is that every statue made it out of the kiln without breaking! 4 CREATIVE MARKETING MONEY SENSE FOR THE ARTIST – Marcia Harmon and Joan Silva On March 20, 2012, we had a two part presentation of how to get yourself, as an artist, into the positive and productive area of your financial status….in other words, how to start making money. Let go of perfection. Many artists have O.C.D. (obsessive compulsive disorder) and seem to never be able to get a project done to their satisfaction. This will stop you from selling your product and marketing yourself. This is the hardest to overcome as it will stop you from accomplishing anything. You need to LET GO ~ accept your finished project the way it is and accept the flaws. Look at what you see as the flaws and see if they are actually a reflection of something personal inside of your mind or body. When you show your project to others, do NOT point out the flaws, as those points may be exactly what they like about it. Start a conversation with the person who is looking at your piece. Interact with that person, listen to their response, talk about what they see in your piece and learn from that person. Joan Silva was first presenter and took an unusual stance on what we all need to do to be successful. She found a way to break rules and still be successful on two fronts: 1) It is important to love what you do and 2) If you can’t sell what you collect or make, then why do it. The primary issue of being successful is FOCUS-FOCUSFOCUS. You need to narrow your ideas to the point of total concentration of your specialty. Be like a small dog with that wonderful bone but be sure to always take care of your health and eat and sleep. Decide if you want to specialize your art and make one-of-a-kind items that will command a high price and be sold in exclusive stores, museums, and boutiques or to make many of the same or similar items to be sold at craft shows and on-line at sites like eBay and Etsy. Joan Silva started working as a CPA and specialized in internal audits. After 15 years, she realized that her soul was dead – she was totally burned out and her artistic side had lost out. Today, Joan is a money coach and specializes in working with artists. In contrast, Marcia is a life-long crafter, jewelry dsigner and collector of stuff. She now limits herself to “things she is willing to be buried with” and refers herself to a Master of Pile Management. Knowing that clutter can be an obstacle for artists, Joan has a lecture and does consultation on this very subject. You need to “normalize” what you are going to do: decide what amount of work can you do daily to enable yourself to stay sanely sober – your ego doesn’t like to be scattered so create first and let your mood of the resulting success follow. If your ego wants what you create to be too ‘different’ for the market, it may become hard to sell. Your creativity may be limited but your spirit is limitless ~ so don’t listen to friends and/or family. Well now, you can listen to what they say, but discount and disregard what doesn’t fit for you. The ego is the most difficult to deal with when you are creating….if you are too much of a perfectionist you will never finish what you are trying to create. Work on your piece from start to finish and then put it out there for sale. Don’t let your personal creative ‘flow’ run out before you finish your piece. She also talked about a Mastermind Group: Work at mastering something and heed warnings of procrastination, distraction, the approach to your project, and the importance of networking. She holds lectures by phone, puts out monthly e-newsletters, offers access to past recordings and hand outs from guest speakers. Then Marcia Harmon took over and explained how what Joan had just discussed had changed how she ran her business. She shared some additional tips learned from her experience as a jewelry artist since 1992 combined with show participation, special event promotion and as a shop owner for the last 10 years. To sell your product successfully, you need to be creative and seek out mutually beneficial relationships. She found that the biggest problem was to not get stuck in a “box” – what might work for your mother or a friend may not work for you and do not let their influence close your mind to what could work to make your artistry and your business a success. Stick with one thing at a time. Chose one idea and work at it until you are successful. Set that as a goal and work to achieve it. Do not jump to another until the first goal is done. It is important to partner with someone who really understands YOU. Talk about your goal, your deadline, and what your ideas are to achieve it. The ‘partner’ will hold you accountable. You will tell that person what you want to achieve and then call them up when you have achieved it. But that person has to really understand you as an artist. It is important that they allow you the artistic freedom and don’t try to impose their ideas on you as an artist. continued on page 6 5 Watch out for “blather” …. Who is going to buy my pieces, talk to people who come by, do I work directly with customers and sell my things in a shop or let someone else sell it for me by placing a special item into a gallery. The price will determine where to place it for sale and who will purchase it. If the one-of-a-kind piece will be placed in a store or gallery for another person to sell for you, you must determine a workable wholesale price. However, if you make multiples or variations of a style, you can personally sell them your own set market price in your store or at craft shows and at a lower price which may appeal to more buyers. Your strengths and talents will determine your earnings. If you take months to create a one-of-a-kind exclusive piece, your price will be high-end, you can put it into a museum or publish it for more exposure or you can make smaller pieces as a ‘collection’ (3-pieces or more) for the same result. them. There is a new company called “PATCH” which is owned by Google. It allows format for an on-line newsletter, bulletin board, announcements, and blogs and most important ~ it is FREE!! If your town has a museum, keep on top of what they are planning ~ and work your knowledge and/or subject into matching with what they are promoting. This can help to get your foot in the door while you help them build their event and the more people who know what you do, the more success you will have. Take good photos of what you create. Explain to potential customers that you can customize your pieces to what they personally want. Don’t be shy ~ recognize your value and talk it up. Look in local newspapers for other stores that could apply to what you create. Sometime down the line, your efforts will come back to you. If there will be special events in town, get out there and promote yourself and your products. Join with other artists to promote a joint show as a community event and start a “Meet the Artist” event. Gear your thinking and planning about the local potential buyers and not just as yourself as a seller. Pay attention to fashion and consider what the buyer would want: colors, styles, and most important – price. When you go out, wear a dramatic piece that you have created. Be ready to talk with people who come up and admire it. Have business cards handy to spread your exposure. Don’t be afraid to drive around to stores and galleries and show off your pieces. Develop a rapport with the owners and managers and suggest putting your pieces in their establishments. Have pictures of other pieces you have created and may not have with you on that day. Try to get your pieces into juried shows when they are held in your area. These are not easy to get into, but they usually feature local artists and it is important to get yourself known as one. Watch for special events in your town and try to partner with another store, like a museum, to develop your presence. What you make or what you know that can meld with another company to enable your exposure to grow. Have a goal: to be recognized, to be published, to buy more materials (i.e. beads!), have a store, and be most of all, to be successful. Brand yourself. Create a logo and stay true to your core values. If you can’t do something like make a fancy large size poster, find someone who can and promote the both of you. Take time out for yourself and your creativity. If it takes time away from your creativity to clean the house, hire someone to clean the house for X-hours. During that freed-up time, work like crazy to be productive enough to be able to pay for that service as well as to make a profit. Marcia and Joan both stressed the need to clarify your goals, to focus on your strengths, to set priorities, to establish your logo and brand, to sell yourself and your product daily and to show off what you do. The presentation helped us to understand the frustration and confusion we all face and how to take action to sell our art, to get more clients, and to make more money. Both Joan and Marcia had wonderful points to face all of these issues and more. Find your niche. In difficult times, Economic Revitalization and Art go hand and hand. Your efforts can help the local economy to grow while expanding your own. It is important to know your audience and your customer. Establish your Goal / Need / Objective and then Network – Network – Network. Networking is always important so grab business cards and emails. In the old days, we sent out postcards, fliers, mailers and had info tables for the printed material. These are expensive to create, to print, and to mail and you don’t always get the customer’s feedback. Today most people have an email address, which makes contacting your customers so much easier and cheaper. If you have a larger customer base, use Constant Contact but don’t over saturate Joan Silva can be reached at [email protected] and her site at http://yourmoneydream.com and at 925-432-7570. Marcia Harmon can be reached at [email protected] and at Cottage Jewel, her fabulously unique jewelry boutique at: 100 Prospect Avenue in Danville, Ca 925-837-2664 as well as at http://www.cottagejewel.com. She will also be at st the B.S.N.C. Bead Bazaar on April 21 . 6 7 Calendar of Events April 6, 2012 Wild Things will be at the Trunk Show at Just Bead It April 6-8, 2012 The Garden of Beadin’ will be at the International Gem & Jewelry Show, Booth 922. They will have Czech & Japanese seed beads, Findings, Beading Supplies & much more. April 7, 2012 Saturday 10am – 5pm April, 13 – 15, 2012 Wild Things will be at the Trunk Show at Benicia Beads Sat, April 14 (10-7:30) Sun, April 15 (11-6) Krimsa Fine Rugs & Decor , San Francisco invites you to a trunk show of Tamara Hill Studio Jewelry Designs. RECEPTION: Saturday, April 14th, 5:30-7:30 p.m. PLEASE JOIN US FOR REFRESHMENTS & MEET THE DESIGNER "Exquisitely handcrafted one-of-a-kind necklaces, bracelets and earrings – to be treasured as personal talismans" Ralph McCaskey will be teaching a one-day workshop for Intermediate-level torch workers. The workshop, "Adventures in Soft Glass: Finding Your Inner Monster" , will extend your glass experience by learning techniques in creating open hollow forms. BSNC program - "The History of Jet and Mourning Jewelry" with David V. Horst . Free to members. April 14, 2012 Saturday 10am - 5pm April 17, 2012 Starts @ 7:30 Wild Things will be at the Lost Coast Gem Show at Redwood Acres Fairgrounds April 20- 22, 2012 Friday 9am to 5pm Sat & Sun 10am - 5pm April 21, 2012 Sat 10am - 6pm Nancy Nagle will be exhibiting at the Santa Clara County Gem & Mineral Society 57th Annual Gem Show Booth:NC Nagle GemStones & Beads April 28 & 29, 2012 Sat & Sun 10am - 5pm April 28 & 29, 2012 Sat & Sun 10am - 5pm Nancy Nagle will be exhibiting at the Santa Cruz Mineral & Gem Society Show Booth:NC Nagle GemStones & Beads Ralph McCaskey will be teaching a two-day "Weekend Intensive" Beginning Glass Beadmaking Class. Learn how to make colorful glass beads from Effettre glass rods (a soft glass), using an oxy-propane torch. Nancy Nagle will be exhibiting at the Reno Gem & Mineral Society Gem Show May 12 & 13, 2012 Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 10am - 4pm May 5, 2012 Saturday 10am - 5pm May 15, 2012 Starts @ 7:30 Friday May 18 thru th Sunday, May 20 June 1-3, 2012 June 10, 2012 Sunday 11am - 5pm BSNC Annual Bead Bazaar! Linda Benmour will be hosting theVintage Bead & Button Trunk Show. Free admission. A portion of the proceeds benefit Frank Bette Center for the Arts, a non profit representing Bay Area artists. Questions: Linda 510-919-8435 or [email protected] BSNC program - "Designer & Maker: Hands On" A lecture on the cycle of design from the conscious to the physical. Alison Antelman (metalsmith/jeweler) explains her design process and discusses finding your own voice. Free to members. Judy Tomsky owner of Natural Touch Beads will be exhibiting at the CNCH 2012 Marketplace conference. Its the Northern California Handweavers 2012 gathering. Their website link is: www.cnch.org The Garden of Beadin’ will be at the International Gem & Jewelry Show, Booth 922. They will have Czech & Japanese seed beads, Findings, Beading Supplies & much more. Deborah Anderson will be at the Naglee Park Open Studios. Free admission, refreshments. For more info, contact: Deborah Anderson 408 286-6030 or visit www.nagleepark.org/npos.html 8 2051 Harrison Street, Suite C Concord, CA San Mateo Event Center 2495 South Delaware San Mateo, CA 94403 126 East E Street Benicia, CA 3750 Harris Street Eureka, CA 2190 UNION ST. at Fillmore S.F., CA. 94123 The Crucible Oakland, CA Courtyard Marriott 5555 Shellmound, Emeryville, CA 94605 SantaClaraCountyFairgrounds 344 Tully Road San Jose, CA Oakland Marriott City Center 10th and Broadway Oakland, CA 94607 Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium (corner of Center & Church) The Crucible Oakland, CA Reno Livestock Events Center, Exhibit Hall 1350 N. Wells Ave. Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru St. Alameda, CA Courtyard Marriott 5555 Shellmound, Emeryville, CA 94605 Oakland Convention Center San Mateo Event Center 2495 South Delaware San Mateo, CA 94403 685 Margaret Street San Jose, CA 95112 SUBMISSION DEADLINES & ADVERTISING RATES BRAGGS & BOUQUETS Two BSNC members have just had pieces juried into the new Lark Press publication "500 Beaded Jewelry" which will become available in August, 2012. Wow! Out of all of the thousands of beaders in the US, two BSNC members were selected! Carol Tanenbaum’s necklace is made of African Trade Beads. Pricilla Martins' very first seedbead piece "Egret's Garden" was also selected. Annual Spring Bead Bazaar Coming Soon! April 21, 2012 10 am - 6 pm ~ Oakland Marriott City Center Hotel This terrific show is the largest bead society sale in the Us, with over 110 artists/exhibitors. All of the work to put is on is done by member volunteers. Volunteering is a great way to meet other BSNC members. Email Volunteer @BeadSocietyofNorCal.org to check what volunteer hours and opportunities are available. 9 COMMUNITY BOARD Ralph McCaskey will be teaching a six-week Beginning Glass Beadmaking class at the Richmond Art Center (www.therac.org) on Thursday evenings from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Beginning Thursday, April 5. Small class, much individual attention will be paid. Intermediate level students are also gleefully welcomed, so that they can play with soft glass, too. 10 11 Annual Membership Dues, which include digital mailings and meetings are $20 per year. Memberships with snail mail and meetings is $25 per year. The year begins on the month you join. Dues are accepted at monthly meetings or can be paid online using PayPal or a credit card, or with a Membership Application printed from our website. 12