“These are not hobbyists,’’ says Nancy C. O’Meara, the show’s longtime manager. “Most of the artists have been to art school and many teach.’’
To her point, straight ahead lay a collection of polymer clay women’s party purses exquisitely shaped like blossoms and pods, while an assortment of jaunty, colored raincoats hung in the distance. It was the next-to-last day of the five-day event that draws 25,000 visitors, and we wanted to meet the artists, peruse their offerings, and buy something special.
This year’s show, Nov. 11-15, promises to be just as enticing. Among the 195 featured American craft artists will be Robert M. Dane from the Berkshires, displaying his Italian-style glass dishes, vases, and “Tutti Frutti Goblets.’’ Erica Gordon, a blacksmith artist from Seattle, will exhibit bright leather belts with metal buckles resembling striated discs and bubble clusters. And Bradford Smith from Pennsylvania will showcase his furniture, including a white-washed cherry bed with steel birds perched atop each post.
As with last year, there will be almost a dozen emerging artists, including Tami Rodrig from Lexington, showing her painted, bezel silver jewelry. For the first time in the history of the show, there will be 26 guest artists from Korea, including Haecho Chung, who will present his sensually-shaped lacquered containers in red, yellow, green, and blue.
“Artists say that they’ve made it when they’ve been invited to the show,’’ says Elisabeth Agro, an associate curator at the museum. As one of five jurors for this year’s show, Agro viewed 1,402 applications before making her selections. “I wanted to see that the artists had taken their work to the next level, found a new approach to the material, and were pushing themselves artistically,’’ she says.
