Stourbridge Open Studios

It's time to do a little last-minute marketing for the Stourbridge Open Studios event, which will be happening next weekend:

Jo Newman, one of the artists based at the Ruskin Glass Centre had a brilliant idea last year - to create an Open Studios network in and around the Stourbridge area.  Thanks to her determined steering, we will be opening our doors for the first official event on the weekend of 18 & 19 May.

May's Open Studios is the "test-bed" event, based entirely at the Ruskin Glass Centre - so that lessons about marketing and organisation can be learnt on a relatively small (and friendly) scale.  But the aim is to spread the network in the future, to include artists, studios and makers from the wider area.

There are 18 studios at the Ruskin Glass Centre (they aren't all focused on glass: have a look at the centre's "studios" page). So there's already plenty to see next weekend.  But as well as on-site artists/makers there are two additional highlights involving people from around the country:

Simon Bruntnell (a photographer with a studio at the Glass Centre) is a partner in an online glass gallery, Bruntnell-Astley.  Simon will be hosting a Pop-Up Gallery event for the weekend, showing Bruntnell-Astley artists.  The image on the right is his poster for the pop-up event - so you can get an idea of the stellar line-up! (The work that you can see in the poster is by Laura Birdsall)

And last, but not least, there will be the Black Country Echoes exhibition (you can see the poster for this on the left).  This is an exhibition of glass, metal and ceramics work from applied arts students at Wolverhampton University - including Tim Boswell (a previous winner of the Glass Sellers' Student Award at the British Glass Biennale)

If you can make it down to the Ruskin Glass Centre next weekend, please come along!  And feel free to share the information with anyone you think might be interested...

Glass from the Centre

Hurrah! It's all installed and looking good - and will officially be open from tomorrow (Saturday 9 June).  Glass from the Centre showcases the work of studio glass artists from the Ruskin Glass Centre in Stourbridge - and runs at Harding House Gallery until Saturday 14 July.

Glass from the Centre: exhibition view I

Glass from the Centre: exhibition view II

Blown glass, fused glass, cast glass, stained glass - and even some ceramics.  There is something for everyone - from jewellery through to sculptural pieces.

A big 'thank you' to Lynn Baker and Soo Durham - who look after the exhibition space at Harding House Gallery.  Set-up would have been much more difficult without their expertise (and patience!) with everything on Tuesday.  It meant I could spend Wednesday making sure everyone's work was shown to best effect!  Along with putting on those all-important name and price labels...

If anyone else has set up an exhibition recently, I'd be grateful for feedback - and for any tips and tricks to help in the future!