Glass Craft Expo Las Vegas

Me and some fellow beadmakers went to Las Vegas to partake in a very beady event at the Glass Craft Expo at the Southpoint Hotel. (miles from everywhere exciting... oh well) The events and the classes and the trade show were terrific. I took a class with Leah Fairbanks http://www.leahfairbanks.com/ and loved it! She is well known for her beautiful floral beads but the class I took was sea and shore beads.

Here are some images of Vegas, the International Hotglass Invitational, and some beads of course. The Hotglass event was for teams of flame workers. This is different from lampwork which uses a much smaller torch and soft glass. The flame workers use really really big torches and work with borosilicate glass. They made some very interesting and some very awesome creations over the 2 nights the event took place. The results were revealved the next morning at the Exhibit hall.

Creation by Studio Anonymous (above) http://www.studioanonymous.com/

Creation by Onion Mountain (above)

A beautiful mermaid diving through the surf....

Hotglass team preparing gather for longest pull - they were hoping for a world record with a pull the length of a football field. Sadly, it did not happen.

Some very decadent things!

Dale Chilhuly's ceiling at the Bellagio

Below are beads made by me in class. The first is an aquarium bead with sea urchins, angel fish, jellyfish, seaweed and coral. I smudged the angel fish when I covered him with hot glass. Oops! Next time I'll try to avoid doing that. The 2nd picture is a little star shaped bead, then my fish and a pair of mermaids

Lovely Mermaid by Leah on the left, WWF Mermaid on the right by me!