Jung Yeon Choi

Haley Reneé Bates

Hello, I'm Rania of goshdarnknit. This is my first post here and I thought it would be nice to start with details about my trip with Sean to visit the American Craft Council show in Baltimore. The two main reasons I really wanted to go to the Baltimore Craft Show were to meet CircaCeramics and Margaux Lange, but I also ended up finding some new favorites.

I've been a big fan of Chicago based CircaCeramics for a very long time: gocco and ceramics, genius! I frequently covet their work on Etsy where they've had some fabulous articles written about them in the Storque.

CircaCeramics

At Crafty Bastards 2007 I had wanted to see Margaux Lange's work but I didn't have a second to skip over to visit, so a few weeks later I bought this as a little gift to myself when I reached 300 sales on Etsy. Getting to meet Margaux in person was awesome, and I hope to cross paths with her at some point again in the future. Be sure to visit her blog where she writes more about her work.

Margaux Lange

It's always nice to visit with familiar faces, Caitlin of Rebound Designs is a member of Craft Mutiny and this was one of her biggest shows ever. Her display looked fabulous!

Rebound Designs

One of my favorite finds at the show was artwork by Elizabeth Perkins, made of cast glass. Described on her website as: "cast glass using the pate de verre method. They are replicas of tatting, lace, and doilies made by my great-grandmother and her sister. The colors are inspired by 1940's lingerie."

Elizabeth Perkins

Almost all of the work I was attracted to was in the 'New Wave,' 'Searchlight,' and 'School to Market,' sections, but all three of these areas were hardly given any space at this event. The New Wave section artists barely had three feet of space each, and they were all crammed together in a fenced off area. I would hope that a greater focus is given to up and coming artists at these future events.