Mayfest

There's always something new, something that one person makes, then two or three start making and then, bam, it's everywhere and not unique any more. Fused glass, right now for me, is old. Still beautiful colors, still fascinating, but booth after booth of fused glass jewelry is not exciting. New this year were earrings made out of guitar picks. I saw at least two booths with jewelry made from guitar picks. Not something I would wear or buy, but fun to look at and at the very least, an interesting idea.

I spent some time talking to Sally Wade, an artist from Tyler, Texas, who does silver work. What caught my eye about her work was that she did lettering on small pieces of jewelry. Stamping each small stroke. She explained that she makes her own chisel tools for stamping and had designed an alphabet that could be entirely constructed using only four marks. Sort of a Neuland alphabet, for those of you who know what that is.

Another artist's work I was fascinated with was handmade paper projects and I can't believe I didn't get her name. Narrow pieces of handmade paper folded into zig-zags and woven like a lattice-top pie crust. I immediately saw torn paper with calligraphy on it woven like that -- that will be something to experiment with.

A drop-dead gorgeous day for art. Throw in a little jazz, a bratwust and voila, you have a day. And if you're brave enough, you can climb the jungle-gym made out of old bicycle frames.