Tag: Pennsylvania Craft

July 15, 2010

Windows That Open Doors: The Stained Glass Project by Germantown High School Students

The Stained Glass Project, Philadelphia

I had missed my train, and was walking around Philadelphia’s Suburban Station when the Mayor’s Farmers’ Market caught my eye, and on my way over, I saw a sign about “Windows that Open Doors: The Stained Glass Project” at the Love Park Welcome Center.

Unexpectedly, I had come upon an exhibition of 18 stained glass windows made by Germantown High School students, made in the Stained Glass Project of the After School Program of The First United Methodist Church of Germantown for children of Ngcolosi, South Africa.

What a pleasure to see the photos of these young people cutting glass, designing windows, soldering, and enjoying themselves and the craft! And the windows were an oasis of Love in Love Park. The exhibit is up until July 31, 2010 at 1599 JFK Boulevard, Fairmount Park Welcome Center at Love Park, Philadelphia, PA, 215-683-0246. Go check it out!

Go to the Facebook Page for Germantown High School After School Stained Glass Program to see more photos, and also read more in the Broad Street Review’s Germantown’s Stained Glass Miracle.

March 22, 2010

Craft Show for a Cause on Wednesday March 24th, in Norristown

I am going to be at the Crafts, Etc. Fair at Montgomery Hospital, on Wednesday March 24th, from 9:00-3:30, in the Professional Building 3rd Floor Atrium. There were also be vendors on the Bridge Crosswalk connecting the Pro Building to the Hospital.

Sponsored by The Montgomery Hospital Auxiliary Proceeds benefit the Auxiliary’s pledge for cardiac telemetry equipment. If you are in the area, come participate in a good cause! 10 percent of all sales goes to equipment that will contribute to the well being of patients.

Montgomery Hospital
1301 Powell St. Norristown, PA 19404

You can park in the garage, $.50 per half hour/5.00 maximum, or look for street parking. No admission fee to the show itself.

***Cash, checks, major credit cards and payroll deduction accepted***

Some show highlights:

*** Sandra Spitzer(married to Dr. Laurence Spitzer, Radiology)Sandra Spitzer has been creating pottery for more than 8 years. Her works utilize earthy tones which add a beautiful compliment to your kitchen and home. She has worked at studios on the Main Line and locally. She has displayed her works at craft fairs, and local synagogue craft shows. She is also available on request to design made for order pieces.

Jeff Margraf(married to Peggy Weimar, Clinical Manager, Maternity) Jeff Margraf received his B.F.A. with High Honors from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He has worked as a professional artist for the past 17 years, exhibiting in New York, Philadelphia and other locations. His work is in corporate and private collections throughout the United States. He will be selling original dichroic glass jewelry. Trish Wingert Elsie P. Jewelry Designs is a family owned and operated company located in the Philadelphia suburbs. Beginning as a hobby in 2007, jewelry design quickly became a major part of their lives. Dedicated to her great grandmother, Elsie P. was born! All pieces are handcrafted, so no two are quite the same. Their jewelry is created using semi precious stones, sterling silver, brass, Swarovski crystals, Czech glass and freshwater and glass pearls.

Over 15 vendors of handcrafted arts, candles, handbags, chocolates, baked goods, and Avon. March 24th, 2010, 9:00 am-3:30 pm on the bridge crosswalk and in the Pro Building 3rd floor Atrium, Montgomery Hospital, 1301 Powell St., Norristown, PA, 19404. For more info call 610-270-2076

September 20, 2009

Embrace: The Glass Sculpture of Christopher Ries

Embrace glass sculpture by Christopher Ries. Photo by Wayne Stratz(2009).

Stratoz and I went to Guiding Light, the Ries exhibit at Misericordia University, and were awed by the collection of work. Stratoz took many photos, in hopes of capturing something of the essence of these sculptures. This is a three dimensional experience. Each piece offered up a multiplicity of reflections and angles as I circled around each one, and created a meditative state of discovery and delight. As the gallery director, Brian J. Benedetti writes in the program, “Christopher Ries is fundamentally a sculptor of light.” Embrace is imbued with vibrant orange, but thrown magically from the base of the piece, to inhabit the clear crystal tip.

Margaret Almon with Christopher Ries Peace Sculpture. Photo by Wayne Stratz(2009).

Here I am next to Peace, a glowing whale’s tail on the waves, or as it now occurs to me, a white dove, in glass tourist glory. Tourists have their photos taken by monuments, often memorializing the war dead, so it is a relief to find a monument to peace instead. I will close with an excerpt from a poem called Sea of Glass, which I wrote about the first time I saw Ries’ work, in 1996.

“Ries presses his chest into the machine

he has made, polishing the opaque glass,

not knowing the inside

until it is finished.

The glass sculpted like praying, leaning on the heart

to change its inner shape.”

–Margaret Almon

My First Poetry Reading in a Long Time

Christopher Ries and a Sea of Glass

June 29, 2009

Christopher Ries and a Sea of Glass

Wendy Ramshaw Chain of Tears for a Weeping Woman.

Stratoz and I were invigorated by 4 days of jazz at the Rochester Jazz Festival, a fortuitous visit to the Memorial Art Museum exhibit “GlassWear”, and our annual stop at the Corning Museum of Glass.

We stopped by the Memorial Art Museum and were greeted by glass! A travelling exhibit from the Museum of Arts & Design with pieces such as Wendy Ramshaw’s Chain of Tears for a Weeping Woman.

The Corning Museum of glass had an exhibit of pieces from the Heineman Collection, Voices of Contemporary Glass. The Heineman’s gave their fabulous collection of art glass to the Corning Museum, and shared it with the world. Stratoz took a wonderful picture of Spirale by Lino Tagliapietra, and it’s a great example of a volute!

Lino Tagliapietra’s Spirale, Corning Museum of Glass. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

Getting home to my mosaic studio, I had many inspirations and ideas. I felt a bit of glass withdrawal, but discovered that Christopher Ries was exhibiting at Misericordia University’s Friedmen Gallery, August 22nd to October 25th, 2009. Dallas, PA is close enough for a day trip from Lansdale! The exhibit is called Guiding Light, and features some of his large glass sculptures. Ries is important in my evolving into a glass artist. I first saw an exhibit of his work at the Glass & Light show at Everhart Museum in Scranton, in 1996. The room was darkened, and the sculptures lit from below and I was mesmerized as I walked around each one, and witnessed the reflections, the changes, the transformations that the glass went through.

The Golden Egg by Christopher Ries via afagen on Flickr.

I was so moved by the glass, that I wrote a poem about it, called “Sea of Glass,” as I was a poet at that time, not a mosaic artist, but the glory of the glass spoke to me in a way beyond words.

Embrace: The Glass Sculpture of Christopher Ries

My First Poetry Reading in a Long Time

April 5, 2009

Strata: Anniversary trip to Philadelphia

The first full moon of April is our anniversary of being together. I like having a floating anniversary, connected to the moon. 22 years! We took an anniversary trip to Philadelphia to hear the Blue Note 7 at the Kimmel Center. Blue Note is celebrating 70 years as a jazz label, and 7 of their fine musicians are on tour together, with an album aptly named “Mosaic.” We enjoyed the concert, in spite of Wayne’s clogged head, and my bandages from the fall I took on Tuesday(I suppose it is convenient to have been on the way to work, at a hospital, when I tripped.)

We spent Saturday walking around Rittenhouse Square, visiting the Rosenbach Museum for the first time, and seeing Marianne Moore’s Greenwich Village apartment delightfully intact within the museum. My librarian self was thoroughly mesmerized by the Rosenbach’s collection of first editions, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, and the photograph of Belle Da Costa Greene, friend of Abraham Rosenbach, librarian to J.P. Morgan, passing as Portuguese to elude the prejudice she would have faced as an African American. Quite beautiful and stylish, she’s quoted as saying that although a librarian, she doesn’t have to dress like one. . .I’ll have to keep that in mind.

We came across an exhibit of prints at the Philadelphia Free Library, Intaglio a Go-Go: Etching Moves Forward. That is where I saw Cynthia Back‘s Strata, 2002, aquatint, etching, deep bite, chine colle. I love the layers, the colors and textures, and my mosaic artist self is intrigued by the tesserae-like stones. It made me think of my 22 years with Wayne, and his also apt name, Stratz, all the layers of history, of our travels, our love. He is my bedrock, and I am grateful what we have built together.

April 5, 2009

Botanical Pendants: UnaOdd’s Lovely Art

Pendants, originally uploaded by Lynn_EL/UnaOdd.

Back from the Reading-Berks show, where I had the pleasure of meeting Lynn Lunger of UnaOdd. She recognized one of my mosaic mandalas because she’d featured it in a Treasury on Etsy–a Treasury is a collection of items from Etsy that a particular person chooses to collate, and each has its own personality. Lynn makes cool botanical polymer clay & resin pendants, sleek like a well polished stone. She bought one of my log cabin trivets, for a wall in her house. I always enjoy imagining my work living in its new world!

March 19, 2009

Ann Hermes Miniature Quilts: Check this out at the North Penn Show

Ann Hermes makes really cool miniature quilts with antique and vintage fabrics. I have one of her squares for my Christmas tree. A resident of Ambler, transplanted from Illinois, she fell in love with the Pennsylvania quilting tradition. A chemist by day, she makes her pieces at night in what she calls her “quilt laboratory.” She certainly gets beautiful results! Her links page has a useful list of sites about quilt history and fabric. She will be in booth #51 at the North Penn Select Craft Show this Saturday, March 21st, 2009, 9:30-4:30.

Quilts have been a wonderful inspiration for my mosaics, and a show that I just visited was definitely visually satisfying: Bits & Pieces: Quilts from Scraps, February 22, 2009-August 22, 2009 at the Mennonite Heritage Center, 565 Yoder Road, Harleysville, PA.

Beautiful Thrift: Coin Quilt Patterns in Mosaic

Quilts of Glass: Log Cabin

March 1, 2009

Phillies in Mosaic: Jonathan Mandell

Jonathan Mandell Mosaic at Citizen Bank Park in Philadelphia.

In 2006, I took a fine art mosaic class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Jonathan Mandell. I learned how to use a tile saw, and discovered representational mosaic is not where my passion is! Of course I chose to render a scene with 4 sets of hands and feet. I admire Mandell’s ability to make lively figures and scenes, and one of the coolest is at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia, home of the Phillies.

I am not very familiar with baseball, having grown up in Canada, where it is not the national past time. Edmonton acquired a minor league team, The Trappers, in 1981, when I was 14. By then I was already embittered by my complete lack of ability in softball during gym class, and couldn’t understand why anyone would actually watch the sport. But now that I live in the Philadelphia Suburbs, I saw my first Phillies game, and to my surprise, enjoyed it! My husband introduced me to pleasures of snacking throughout on Cracker Jack, pretzel’s, and in his case, beer. I saw a new side of him when he would reflexively stand up and shout on the occasion of good plays by the Phillies. I was fascinated by the zenlike pace of play, and how I felt content to just be there. And there’s a lot to like about an organization that commissioned local artists to create pieces of baseball related art for the new park.

In a Dream: Jeremiah Zagar’s Document of his Father

Mosaic Immersion: The Magic Garden

Tiffany Dream Garden Mosaic: A Philadelphia Treasure

December 17, 2008

The Magic Garden: Mosaic Immersion

Margaret Almon at Magic Gardens. Photo by Joanne Leva Mosemann.

At a craft show at the Pen Ryn School, several people had a spark of recognition that I was making something like “that guy in Philly.” This is the first time I’ve had this comparison to the mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar.

Magic Gardens, Isaiah Zagar, Philadelphia, PA. Photo by Margaret Almon.

My friend Joanne Leva Mosemann took me to Zagar’s Magic Garden for my birthday. She couldn’t believe I had never been there–it’s a pilgrimage for any mosaic artist! And once I was there, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t really known it was there. It is a mosaic wonderland, through the “looking glass” of glass, tile, found objects, and covers rooms, walls, and a courtyard. Zagar’s work wends its way through South Philly, not without controversy, but instantly recognizable and memorable.

Joanne knew I had to see it. I met her when I was chosen to be Poet Laureate of Montgomery County in 2000. She has created a world of poetry in our county, starting single-handedly, and blooming into 10 years of bringing poetry into recognition. As I evolved into a mosaic artist, she has remained alert to the creative spark that all artists share, and all lovers of art.

Tiffany Dream Garden Mosaic: A Philadelphia Treasure

Phillies in Mosaic: Jonathan Mandell

In a Dream: Jeremiah Zagar’s Document of his Father

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