A Lampworkers get-together

Well isn't is about time I let you all know that I am still alive and well and having a good time with my glass? I think it is :)

In particular I'd like to tell you about the lampwork meet-up and market I attended during this weekend.
It was a two-day event on the grounds of Ravstedhus, clear across the country from where I live. I packed up my BFs festival tent and took off to spend the night come rain or come shine. Fortunately we had the best weather ever, you might even say it was a bit on the hot side, especially on sunday, the market day.



I have never visited Ravstedhus before, and I was surprised to see how huge the shoparea was. I don't know what it normally looks like but this weekend there were 3 visiting German sellers of lampwork tools and glass as well as the regular shop. It was a beadmakers heaven :)

Saturday was wall-to-wall demoes. I especially liked to hear about electroforming and marblemaking, which are both techniques I'd like to try one day. I found out that I might not entirely enjoy electroforming the way I'd thought, because of the lumpy edges, but that they can be reduced by turning down the voltage. I'd love to try it sometime :)
I'd absolutely love to make marbles, but not opaque ones as was demoed. I'd like to try the transparant ones with implosions and stuff inside. Yay!



Later in the day a meeting was held in the tent in the yard, and the long awaited Danish Bead Association was formed. I look much forward to having a central place for all our Danish beadmakers to connect and get together and I joined on the spot. It'll be great :)



Then we went out to eat at a nearby restaurant. Lots of chatter all around and good food, and then back to more demoes, this time by Jens Chr. Kondrup. He showed us how he works in tubes, and when the conversation came to torsos I showed him one of my ladies and he made me a man in a matter of minutes. It was fun to see his technique of starting at one end and never going back. I go back and forth and back and forth again. I'll have to try his way as he said it creates less stress in the glass.

Sunday was the day of the market open for the public.




I had been looking much forward to this and had signed up as a seller. I probably should have asked questions before I signed up, but now I know that for next time. I had imagined perhaps 15 sellers and maybe around 150-200 costumers, but aparently that was way off.





I guess everything has a growing periode, and since this was only the second year of this event, well ... I'll be happy to go again next year though, and then I'll know better. I should probably mention that Ravstedhus is in a tiny village out in the countryside, which means people have to really want to be there to attend. You don't stumble upon it accidentally. This is not ideal for a market, actually it is quite counterproductive, but for demoing the place is perfect, with lots of space and workstations and supplies and tools all over, so it's a bit of a dilemma.
I'll be happy to go again next year as the socializing was great. I got to meet a lot of new people and talked about beads all day long for two days. Excellent weekend :)

So yes - in all it was a great initiative. Thank you to the organisers and the participants too.

P~

(PS to the person who nicked one of my Goddess-pendants: Congratulations on your great taste. You picked the nicest one of the ones I had laid out at the time. My paypal is open for payment at any time convenient for you on p@profusionartglass.com (that was 350Dkr. in case you 'forgot' that too). Thank you, and have a nice day.)