Sterling Silver and Copper necklace hand-stamped, on leather cording by Tammy Vitale.

That Social Butterfly mentioned in the title?  Laterly, that would be me, againt all odds since normally one has to shoe-horn me out of the house.  These days I can't get out enough.  Perhaps it is cabin fever, but suddenly I find myself seeking out folks to hang around with and adventure forth with.  Completely out of character, but hey, I'm liking it so I will not complain.

Thursday I was out making the above necklace at the Bead Boutique.  Friday I visited ArtWorks@7th where I discovered a focal piece by local PMC artist Barbara Hance that I could not live without (which I subsequently beaded – see photo here), and then onward to the Baltimore Craft Show for about 7 hours with Heron's Way Gallery co-owner and artist in her own right Mary Ida Rolape and Leonardtown Galleria owner and artist Carol Wathen.

This is a huge retail show which comes after the same artists staging wholesale both in Baltimore and many of them in Philadelphia.  One artist noted that there were about a total of 400 buyers at the Phil. Buyer's Market this year…a very unhappy sign for artists who want to sell wholesale and who decide to try at that show!  But we were retail buyers on Friday and spent a lot of time just drinking in all there was to see.  I'm going to give you links below so you can taste some of my favorites (pretty much in order of my preference):

Valerie Bunnell, mixed media sculpture made mostly from clay (click on "Catalog" to see the pieces I'm wowed by).

Lampwork artists working in Borosilica glass, which has a very low COE – that means that you can work in in the flame, and unlike higher COE glass used for beads, this glass can stay out of the flame without cracking allowing sculpting.  I am in passionate love with this medium (and oh, thanks to my bead mentor Sue Page, I also have 3 rods of it to play with – so why am I typing a blog?  Go figure).

Joe Peters and his whimsical and exquisite glass critters – his hermit crabs in real shells took my breath away…and his prices are more than reasonable – has to be my favorite except that  I can't decide if perhaps I like Mark Payton as well or better because he does female sculptures and you know that is where my creative energy always heads.  then there are the flower sculptures of Ronnie Hughes – a bit too delicate for me but one must revere the skill and artistic care in their creation.  I certainly wouldn't pass up the chance to take a class from him!

Favorite jewelry maker, hands down:  Carolyn Morris Bach, whose creations are somewhere between abstract figure and fantasy and lot of owls and birds…all combined into jewelry with an energy that hauls you in and hangs you there in front of piece after piece.

Sabra Richards' kiln-formed glass took my breath away, a clay artist who's card I have lost and will have to find him in the show book when I find that so I can share with you because he was so generous with technical info (something I find true of all clay artists, by the way), and Robert Harman who makes "Upholstered Fine Art" that I would love to live with and may use as jumping off place to redo some high back chairs of my parents – we sat in his chairs.  They are comfortable!  Jeff Margolin makes art that combines glass and clay (how could I not fall in love with his work?!)  Cosimo's Collection "Sculpture and Reflection" is a wonderful mixed media frames with mirrors and Sydney Cash's Jewelry, which literally glows in any light (I know, I cupped my hand over it so it got no outside light and it still glowed), came in a close 2nd to Carolyn Bach.

Then Saturday, the torso class came and glazed their torsos and Saturday evening I was back at the Bead Boutique for meet and greet with the Boutique artists, including Barbara Hance (mentioned above) who told me she made that focal piece with my masks in mind (!) and Liz Printz with whom I am taking  aclass (click on link and scroll down to "Wearable Art" section, 1st class "Bead MANIA" and go ahead, you're allowed to drool) this coming Sunday…and I cannot wait!  We apparently form a mutual admiration society.  Great food, great company.

I'm going to flit off now and either play with clay or glass, depending on how cold it is in the garage (glass)…since it has been snowing on and off all day – they're threatening 6".  This I want to see.  So far the "great storm" has been pretty much a fizzle – there isn't even 1/2 inch on the ground!

thought for the day:  Presence is the whole atmosphere of a person or thing.  Presence is more than the way a person walks, looks, or speaks.  It is more than the shape of a tree or the colour of a stone, yet it is  a bland of all these aspects.  Presence is mainly the atmosphere of spirit that is behind them all and comes through them.  This is why no two presences are ever the same.  John O'Donohue, Eternal Echoes:  Celtic Reflections on Our Yarning to Belong