shows shows shows

Star and Nancy returned from the Philadelphia buyers market and then headed to Atlanta to the jewelry show! We are excited to see all of the new artwork and jewelry that will be heading to the gallery soon. Stop in to see the new arrivals!

Adventures in Glass ~ A Visit with Stan Harmon

This past weekend my boyfriend, Robert and I enjoyed a great visit with glass artist, Stan Harmon, at his home and studio on the Neuse River in New Bern, NC. What started out as an invitation to go fishing turned into an artistic retreat when the weather turned rainy and cold.

Just touring Stan's eclectic studio is a real treat. This custom built garage/art studio/ apartment is crammed with all kinds of fascinating art, tools, equipment and cool stuff he's collected over the years. He's set up to create a variety of glass art, from the stained glass panels builders commission for their custom homes to the fused glass artworks we currently feature in the gallery as well as anything else he can come up with. Wife, Marti, also loves to play in the studio and her creations are scattered through the space.

Stan uses the light table, shown in the right side of the photo above, to lay out his glass panels. These designs are really like paintings in glass. He uses fine powdered glass "frit" to make up the colors of the lifelike fish he favors.

Note the tuba horn crafted into a ventilation hood. More evidence than Stan never throws any ting away, finding utility in all kinds of stuff. The jars along the right side show different sizes and colors of frit. In the rear you can see the clamshell kiln he uses to fire his larger pieces. He has two other kilns as well.

Here is the wood/metal shop where Stan creates his hand forged sculptural copper hangers. He has everything he need to noodle around and make just about whatever he wants. That is, if he can find a square inch of counter space to work. This shop is a tinkerer's dream.

Here are our art camp creations. Above is my abstract platter. It's been through the first firing and now will be slumped into a form to make a square platter with raised edges. What you can't see is the sparkle from the adventurine glass and the irridized glass. One thing about a freeform pattern of color, you really can't make a mistake, it is all good!

These two adorable designs are what Robert created to give to his young granddaughters. You see them placed in the kiln about to be fired to fuse all the parts together. What you see is powder and fragmented bits of glass arranged on top of two sheets of glass, one clear and one white. The glass seeks to be 1/4" thick and everything will melt together and end up as a flat piece. In a subsequent firing these disks will be slumped into a form to make cereal bowls.

It was great to have the opportunity to just play for an afternoon with all the supplies and tools available and ample coaching from both Stan and Marti. We learned a lot and I have a whole new appreciation for Stan's gorgeous fish panels. They really are paintings captured in glass.

To see more of Stan's work, click here. Remember, that it's very difficult to really capture the sparkle and 3-D effect of these panels. Stop by the gallery to see them in person. Hope to see you soon!

Star Sosa

A Visit to Basel World Jewelry Festival in Switzerland

By Star Sosa

Nancy and I recently had the opportunity to attend the fabulous watch and jewelry festival in Basel, Switzerland. I have to say that this show was unlike anything I have ever attended in the US. We first flew to Frankfurt, Germany and took the train down to the town of Freiburg, which is just a short ways from Basel.

Freiburg is a delightful university town in southern Germany and is a 30 minute express train ride from Basel. It allowed us to stay in much more affortdable accomodations with access to great restaurants and shopping. The train station was only a five minute walk from our hotel and a ten minute walk from the convention complex in Basel.

Honestly, the train travel and public transportation in Europe is awesome. It was easy to understand and enjoyable to use. In town there are quiet and convenient street cars to take you to your final destinations.

The show in Basel is housed in six buildings, all huge. The primary emphasis is watches and jewelry but there are also suppliers of loose gems, beads,jewelry parts, displays, packaging, tools and machinery. We were overwhelmed from the start.

Our first stop was to visit the gem dealers who had provided our free passes into the show. Unlike the shows here at home, you have to pay to attend. Also, the Basel show is open to everyone not just the trade. However, at 45 Euro per day per person, it can get pretty expensive. We were grateful to have the passes, even if they were second hand from other jewelry buddies.

Of course, once we stopped in their booth, it was hard to not get involved in perusing their fabulous wares. A word about the boothes, these are really more like buildings than anything one could call a "booth". First, they had hard walls with display windows, second they were HUGE with multiple rooms and comfortable sitting areas and all the amenities. We were invited into a private viewing room to look at gems and beads. The light was excellent, which is unusual, and while we looked someone brought us coffee and cookies. What a civilized way to shop!

So, it was hard to resist and we ended up purchasing some incredible Paraiba Tourmaline beads and some Namibian blue green tourmaline cut gems. What a treat. We couldn't wait to get our package so we could start working on the designs.

We spent the balance of the day visiting the different floors of this one building, just blown away by the variety and quality of the gems and jewelry. I can't get over how many diamond tiaras there were in the estate displays. After all, how many opportunities to do you get to wear one of those? There were incredible suites of gemstones in matching color and graduated sizes including emeralds the size of robin's eggs and fabulous sapphires and diamonds.

The next day we returned to visit the designer jewelry building. This housed mainly german designers and every one was inspiring. Our first visit was with Tom and Bernd Munsteiner. Bernd is probably one of the most celebrated gem designers in the world. His cut crystals and gemstones are in collections and museums around the world. Tom is his son and together with his wife, Jutta, designs some incredible jewelry around the gems they cut. We hope to represent their jewelry in our gallery in the coming year. I really think it will be a good fit.

It was a treat to visit the other designers in this building. The displays were mind boggling. I have to thing that they hired movie set designers to create their displays. There were crystal chandileers, fancy buffets and expresso or wine bars. Many had elegant furnishings and it looked like private parties going on. The glitterati from everywhere were there. We asked around and were told that there were very few American buyers there. The strong Euro has made a dent in our ability to buy European.

I looked at this trip as an excellent opportunity to research and learn more about the international jewelry market. It was an eye opening experience, to say the least. I don't know if I can afford to return next year, but I have every intention of doing business with some of these vendor in the future. I'd like to return with a suitcase full of money, to buy some of the gorgeous creations we saw there.

Next we made our way to Paris for some R&R and for Nancy to get materials for paintings. More about that in another post.

Star

Our Trip to The Buyers Market of American Craft/Rosen Show

by Nancy Noel May

Our annual trip to Philadelphia and the Rosen Show is always greatly anticipated by Star and myself. We know we are going to be excited and inspired by the national artists showing there. The Rosen Show is well thought out and is easier to navigate than ordinary craft shows. All venues of artists are displayed by medium, i.e. glass artists are together, jewelers, clay, etc. This makes our job easier, by allowing us to focus on one medium at a time, determining who we already carry and those we want to add to our roster.

We take into consideration how well an artist's work sold the previous year, how easy they were to work with (could we reorder or special order a small amount?), and also their pricing. All of these factors play a part in our decision. We also listen to our customers; what colors, shapes and sizes are they wanting for their homes.

I love to walk down the isles, eyes moving left and right, waiting for that special piece to reach out and grab me. It never fails to happen, there is always at least one, and more likely more than that, special piece that I just can't wait to arrive here at Spectrum so we can show it off to everyone. I think our skills at reading what our clients want and have a fabulous reaction to have helped make Spectrum Art & Jewelry the spectacular place to shop. Whether you come in to fill your need to be around beautiful things or you need to find that incredible gift, come see us and all of the beautiful things we picked out for you.

Photos from Tucson Gem Show Trip

Nancy & Designer, Barbara Westwood. We are her exclusive North Carolina representatives. Scroll down to see some of her jewelry.


Loose Gems at the Gem & Jewelry Exchange. This is one booth out of hundreds. We purchased some gorgeous faceted quartz drops for earrings and pendants. The quartz had tourmaline crystals inside and some had golden rutiles. Very pretty!



This guy is using a laser to fix the clasp on my necklace. There were all kinds of facinating tools in this booth. The amazing thing about the laser was that it welded my clasp, but if he shot his finger, it did no damage!

Selection of Barbara Westwood's fabulous jewelry. This collection will be in the gallery by mid-March. You must come and see. These gems are cut by some of the finest gem artists in the world. The materials are quite exotic and everything is accented with diamonds.

This Indian woman made such a pretty photo, I couldn't resist. Unfortunately you can't see the lucious jewels in her display. Such bright colors, they looked like candy!

Gem Hunt - Journey to the Tucson Gem Show

Gem Hunt
By Star Sosa

Every winter, for the past 15 years or so, I’ve made the journey to the Mecca of the gem world, the Tucson Gem Show. Nancy has joined me for the past four or five trips and it is now our yearly ritual to go out west and see the latest and greatest in gems, beads, pearls, parts, tools, jewelry, you name it, if it pertains to jewelry, it’s here.

The name of the show is a bit misleading. This is not a singular event, but a convergence of multiple promoters, venues and shows. There are actually forty separate shows going on over approximately two weeks. People converge from all over the world on this desert town to buy, sell, learn and interact. In addition to the recognized venues, the Interstate 10 corridor is usually lined with tents and a flea market atmosphere reigns.

You can find lots of fascinating things here in addition to gems and jewelry. Many shows specialize in exotic mineral specimens or collectible native artifacts from Africa, India, Tibet, South American and the American Southwest. The metaphysical crowd is here with jewelry made from meteorite borne gems, exotic crystals, quartz “singing” bowls, prayer flags and Buddha sculptures. The crowd varies from men in business suits to guys in full-fringed buckskins and women in saris. It’s really a bit of a circus.

Nancy and I typically take in only about five of the shows and that’s still quite a project. I took some photos to indicate the scope and the volume of product available. This year our purchases included more finished jewelry than ever before. In the past, we have concentrated on finding great pearls and beads and parts. When I first visited Tucson with my ex-husband, a gem cutter, we were looking primarily for rough, uncut gems and minerals for him to carve and sculpt. Each focus requires visiting a different part of the show and dealing with different people. Over time, you learn the best places to go and develop relationships with the right people.

You’ll also find tools and equipment and software and anything you can think of to set up or supply a jewelry studio or run a jewelry store. I managed to get one vendor to fix my necklace for me using a state of the art laser welder. In the past, we would have fixed the clasp with some epoxy, but the laser weld is a bit more permanent. The tool vendors usually have guest jewelers and vendors in the booth to show you how the tools work and provide the background of a bit of personal experience with the products.

The new CAD or computer aided design systems are really something to watch. It’s like Greek to me! But a skilled tech can enter the information into the computer to render an incredible 3-D image of the proposed jewelry design. Then a milling machine will actually take that information can carve the original wax prototype. There’s even a machine that works by spraying minute amounts of wax, like an ink-jet printer, gradually building up a 3-D prototype of the jewelry.

While at the show you also can further your education, getting certified in many levels of the industry. The AGTA, American Gem Trade Association, hosts a wide variety of classes and seminars and the GIA, Gemological Institute of America offers classes toward your Graduate Gemologist degree.

As you can see, there’s an amazing variety of interaction going on. What a great place to network, brainstorm, fantasize, and just hang out with beautiful things and interesting people. At dinner Saturday night I was joined by jewelry designers, a gemstone carver, a magazine publisher, a wax jewelry model maker, and several gold smiths. It’s an incredible mishmash of artists, miners, brokers, dealers, designers, manufacturers, and more. I can’t wait to go back.

Now, the next trip is to journey to Philadelphia to visit the Buyer’s Market of American Craft. There Nancy and I will place our orders for the year for original art glass, fine craft and fine jewelry. All handmade by North American Artists. This is a gorgeous show and stay tuned for my next installment with detail about that adventure.