What's film? Are you kidding?!

I recently spent some time talking about documentary photographer, Dorothea Lange with my son’s 3rd grade class. I went in armed with pictures of the 4 x 5 camera she used and a piece of 4 x 5 film to show them. One of the key things I wanted them to understand was that in the 1930s the process of picture making was quite a bit more involved than whipping an iPhone out of your pocket. We had a great discussion about the FSA (Farm Security Administration) and the power of documentary photography and I have to say I was really impressed with their analogies between Lange’s Migrant Family and the disheartening images coming out of Haiti after the earthquake.

What blew me away, however, was when I asked them what they thought photography was like when Lange's pictures were taken. I got answers like “big camera”, “the camera you had to put your head under a cloth for” and the like. They got the challenges of shooting with such a big camera. That was great. But when I took out the sheet of film the connection was completely lost. “What’s that?” they said and then when I explained that it was sheet film for the large camera I got “what’s film?" What's film?? Are you kidding me? I totally wasn’t prepared for that since film was such a large part of my childhood and early professional life. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised since I’ve been messing around with digital cameras for almost 18 years but I really was caught off guard. Film, gone the way of the 8-Track. Wow. You do know what an 8-track is right?

Solving an art glass mystery: kilnformed glass

I was speaking with a customer the other day about a gorgeous Kristy Sly bowl and she asked me how the artist was able to make the glass bend into such an exquisite shape while merging differing colors together. Sure, simple. Well maybe not so, but I do know the answer. Kristy uses a glass working process called kiln formed or warm glass. This process requires working with glass that has been “warmed” to between 1100 and 1700 degrees Fahrenheit. The quotes are for the ridiculousness of that temperature. It’s obviously crazy hot as a temperature in our everyday world but when you consider that glass blowers are working with molten glass that is over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit warm becomes an acceptable and proper description.

Warm glass techniques are usually done in a electric kiln, similar to the ones used to fire ceramics. There is an electrical controller and a pyrometer to control and measure the temperature inside the kiln. Fusing, slumping and casting are all warm glass or kiln-formed glass techniques.

Glass fusing is the process of joining two or more compatible pieces of glass together into one solid piece. As heat is applied to the glass pieces they become soft and more fluid until they flow or fuse together to form the final piece.

Slumping is another warm glass technique that uses a mold to form the kiln-heated warm glass into its finished shape. The sheet of glass is heated until it sags into a mold and voila there you have it. What gets really interesting is that fused glass can also be slumped so the combinations and the results are only limited by the artist’s imagination and skill.

Kiln-formed or warm glass--the name is just symantics. What artists like Kristy Sly can do working in this process, however, is truly inspirational. Please take the time to click here to see more examples of Kristy Sly’s kilnformed glass on her page at the Red Elephant Gallery.

Panda Tai Shan gets FedExed to China!

Today is a sad day in our house…little (or not so little anymore) Tai Shan the Giant Panda born in the National Zoo in Washington, DC is starting his journey back to China. Yes, he is going via Fedex but not how you think....Fedex has donated a plane for his private and safe transport. I kind of feel like Tai Shan is part of our family. We had a video of his birth and an hour long video of his first year of life, marking and explaining all his milestones. I’m pretty sure we don’t have as detailed video footage for our children. There was a period of time when Tristan would watch them over and over, it was kind of like his version of Thomas the Tank Engine. Please, ask me anything about panda habitats, growth cycles, or better yet panda reproduction and mating rituals. (we won’t need to have that bird and bee talk with him!)

Tai Shan has inspired Pandamonium in our house. I think at last count there were no less than 25 pandas sitting on Tristan’s bed. On a good day, when he has actually made the bed, they can be found arranged by pairs or in families. There are lots of Giant pandas but also a fair share of Red or Lesser Pandas. There are Panda books, panda bags, panda pictures, and panda ornaments on our tree at Christmas. Pandamania!

Oh yeah, sorry, got off track…this is an art blog.

Washington's DC Commission on the Arts public art project sponsored it own version of Pandamania. The PandaMania art exhibition that took place in the summer of 2004 throughout Washington, D.C., was a collection of more than 150 pandas that had been decorated, painted or customized in various ways by artists and displayed around Washington. The project is similar to the cows done in Chicago or the Mr. Potato Heads here in RI. Some of these are quite fun. My favorites are Bear Naked Ladies by the Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts and Bling Bling by the Washington Glass Studio


The bling bling panda is covered by more than 7,000 pieces of recycled glass, each cut and fired in order to eliminate any sharp edges. The Bear Naked Ladies panda is an homage of sorts to the female nude in art, and each of the small paintings on the figure depicts a panda in the same another cool piece called "Periodic Table of the Elephants" and you know we feel about cool Elephants at the Red Elephant Gallery! This just goes to show you that there is art in ALL aspects of life…even pandas and elephants ;)

Lessons in Clay

Our littlest guy, Tristan, just finished his first official art class, a hand-built clay class, offered by Mudstone Studios in Warren, RI. Last Saturday he brought home all his little treasures and lined them up on the living room table where he can show them off to any willing (or not so willing) visitor who wanders through the front door. There is a snow monster, a turtle teacup, a birthday cake that holds a real candle and a plate of food containing sushi, waffles and spaghetti—yup, they’re on the same plate! It’s great to hear him explain the process using all the new vocabulary he has acquired over the span of the class…”then you slip n’score the pieces together”, “the clear glaze is actually green before it goes in the kiln,” “it has to be fired in the kiln before you can glaze it” and my personal favorite “ if you make it too thick and don’t poke a hole in it, it will explode like bomb!” You can just picture how excited he is about that!

For me the best lessons were not those that have to do with technique but rather the more subtle aspects of patience and appreciation. The process of creation from lump o’clay to final piece takes several weeks. First you create your work from clay, then it is fired, the next week you glaze it and it has to be fired again before you can take it home. He even had a few pieces that got fired a third time for the right effect. For a first grader 3-4 weeks is an eternity yet he seemed to look forward to seeing the evolution each week.

Tristan’s growing appreciation for the artsy has intrigued his older brother and much to my satisfaction both of our boys asked for and received a piece of art for Christmas. Clay artist, Ellen Blomgren, sculpted small seals out of clay for the holiday show at 30 Cutler in Warren. It was love at first sight for the boys! It has been very cool to watch them show off their new little treasures and explain to relatives how they were “pit fired” in the back parking lot. And unlike many of their other gifts that are left laying around the house these little seals are carefully handled and hold a place of honor on the piano.

It is now February and all the holiday decorations are safely tucked away in the attic…all except the clay snow monster which he refuses to let me put away. Why am I suddenly seeing that snow monster transformed into the Easter Bunny? If you have youngsters with an interest in art, look up a clay class in your neighborhood…the lessons go way beyond sculpting with clay.

If you would like to see so examples of handmade pottery done by grownups - visit the ceramics section of Red Elephant Gallery!

American Fine Craft, Contemporary Craft, American handcrafted art or American handmade art…what is this stuff anyway?

Five years ago when we opened Red Elephant Gallery I had this vision of it being all about the art (craft?) and working with the artisans. Silly me, it’s really about words and working with words. You see, search engines love words and any online businesses live and die by their prowess in working the search engine game. So back to the words…in this business called key words. See keywords are the most important words that describe what your business is about. These are the words that you want to rank well for in google and other search engines. Sometimes these keywords are tough to determine because what you think your business is about and what your customers think your business is about don’t always match. For instance, now that we have a retail space I’ll say to a customer who has just finished raving about how cool our stuff is, “If you were going to search for work like this online what would you type into google”? Me thinking my world is about the art thinks of terms like, handcrafted jewelry, handmade pottery, art glass etc…the response I get is “funky martini glasses”, “cool unique jewelry”, “unique gifts” …. really?

Through the years I’ve managed to find a bunch of key words that work for us but the one I always get stuck on is the “big picture” or umbrella word. You know, the one word or phrase that nicely sums up your business. For me it would be Fine American Craft but not everyone agrees. I just read an article in the Temple written by a woman who had just attended the prestigious Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 33rd Annual Craft Show. Apparently I’m not the only one who is a bit baffled by the terminology. Here is the article below and if you have any ideas on what to put in our keywords please send me an email . . .Karen (karen@RedElephantGallery.com)

Crafts an unfair art subcategory
November 17, 2009, by Nicole Welk

Last weekend, the Philadelphia Convention Center became the home for more than 200 talented craftspeople for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 33rd Annual Craft Show. From jewelry and textiles to ceramics and glass, the show brought a diverse audience of art enthusiasts to the Philadelphia area.

Walking among the many booths displaying the creations of the craftsmen and -women, I began to think of how the show was advertised. It was a craft show – not an “art show” or a “fine arts show,” or even an “artists’ showcase.”


When it comes to fine art, crafts seem to be constantly swept under the rug when compared to more “fine art techniques,” such as painting, drawing and classic sculpting. In the university setting, crafts are defined by classes like glass blowing, metal working, jewelry making and textile weaving.

These crafts are the creations of beautiful things that are not just art but could ultimately be used in everyday life. Fine art, over time, seems to have taken this manifestation of something that can not to be handled by the average hand, work meant to be looked at, appreciated, but not touched or used for daily activities.

Philosophers have argued over time that fine art has only aesthetic purposes or at the very least, solely visual purposes. The battle between art and craft has waged on, but some craftsmen have raised their blowtorches, looms and saws and said “no more!” to this divide, and the lines between art and craft are becoming more and more blurred.

Click here to read the entire article.
Nicole Welk can be reached at nicole.welk@temple.edu.

The Opening of a Gallery and a new home for American Handmade Art!

I wanted to open a bricks-and-mortar gallery. Have since we started the online gallery four years ago. Well, in late October we did just that. We’ve sublet some space at 30 Cutler in Warren, Rhode Island, and set up shop. Our grand opening is November 13th . . . yup tonight! We’ll be there (30 Cutler Street, Warren, RI behind the new Tom’s Market) from 6 to 8:30pm tonight and 10:30 to 4 pm on Saturday. There will be wine, cheese, other munchies, good people, and great craft. An additional bonus is that an architectural art show is open as well.

The space really looks great. It’s so nice to see nearly all our inventory out, lit, and looking really cool. We’ve never been able to do that before. You see since we buy all the pieces that we sell, rather than have artists drop ship their works once we sell them like most online companies do, we’ve been storing some really great pieces in our attic---not very glamorous, eh?
We’ve been open for a couple of weeks now and the hours have been rather “flexible” let’s say, but there are still some people that wander by and others who are taking ceramics classes at Mudstone Gallery from who we sublet to keep Karen busy on site. It also gives her the opportunity to get out of the house and think about other topics then laundry, loveable challenging children, and, well . . . me.

There was a walk of Warren the weekend we opened and a lot of people came in to our space and the 30 Cutler complex in general along with galleries all over town. There were a lot of great comments, substantive oohs and ahs, and a buying clientele. That was good for business of course, but it was also good for the old jitters. You see, we’ve “built” it, now we have to see if they will come (“If you build it they will come” is a famous Field of Dreams quote, baseball movie, guy builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield because some voice tells him to, shoeless Joe Jackson comes to play with his buddies, yeah, he’s a ghost of some sort. Cool movie, put it on your Netflix list).

We’re psyched to be open and hope that we’ll be able to show you the Red Elephant Gallery in the flesh, well, bricks and mortar (it’s an old brick mill so the term really works for us!), check out what we have to offer and if it suits your fancy, take something home with you. You’ll cherish the experience and the item. Fine craft is cool like that.
See you there! – Michael

Gallery hours: Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 10:30am - 3pm, Saturday 11am - 4:30pm. Any day by appointment - just call (401-965-0724)!

Recycled Wool Ornaments - Is wool the perfect textile?

Green remains an “in” adjective as every day we learn more about how we must decrease carbon dioxide emissions, clean up the oceans, quit overfishing, quit throwing cigarette butts on the ground, and in general get our world in shape. At the Red Elephant Gallery, we believe in green as we’ve said in previous blogs and we continue to support the artists who believe as well.

One such artist is Heidi Leuger who makes fantastic items from primarily reclaimed wool. Her goal of zero waste, is more than admirable, it’s necessary, vital, and really cool. Her embroidered ornaments have an interior core made from 100% recycled wool including sweater scrap, bits of yarn, waste roving, and wool fibers. Each year she recycles hundreds of pounds of post-consumer wool sweaters for the core material. The exterior is covered with virgin wool felt roving she buys directly from American shepherds, farms, and processors and is traditionally wet-felted, then embroidered in two patterns, a star pattern or an "X" pattern. What’s great about this process is that Leuger uses very little glue, if any, and nothing goes to the landfill. It’s art with a conscience. Very beautiful and very green.

In her words:

“My artistic vision is to explore and discover how these things (indeed, all human-made creations) can be created in a caring, responsible and thoughtful way when our relationship and interdependency to each other, the earth and its life forms, as well as our “self”, are included in the making process,” Leuger says. “We need beauty in our everyday lives/everyday stuff, but right now beauty needs to be sustainable, and I don’t believe art or craft gets a “pass” in this regard.”

‘nuff said. Go see her work at the Red Elephant Gallery. The ornaments are as beautiful as they are eco-friendly.

--Michael

New ways to shop at the Red Elephant Gallery

Ahhh … I love September. No matter my age I always feel like September is a time for fresh starts. It is that back to school mentality that doesn’t end. As a kid it meant new school clothes and supplies and new schedules. Today my kids get the new school clothes (darn!) and new schedules but I get something better -- the thrill of seeing all the new pieces ordered for fall delivery arriving almost daily into the gallery!

September is the start of the new year at the gallery and January is really a “recover from the holiday season” This September, in my “get organized” whirlwind, I’ve added some new categories to the Red Elephant Gallery website. In addition to the mediums of Glass, ceramics, and jewelry I’ve added a way to shop by different product types.

The “art for the table" section includes pages of plates & platters, bowls and serving pieces, barware and glassware, sushi sets, and pitchers & vases.

The home décor section includes pages of Glass perfume bottles, handcrafted ornaments, and garden art.

The new "jewelry by category " section includes the usual pendant, earring and bracelets sections, but to these we’ve added silver, glass, and clay jewelry sections.

I’m also working on a gifts section…more changes and artwork to come so please visit us often to see the latest American handmade functional art at the Red Elephant Gallery.

The Legend of the Mardi Gras Pumpkin played out in Art Glass

New Orleans is a city with a soul. I don’t know why. It had one long before I rolled into town as a freshman at Tulane University. And at 18 I didn’t really care what made New Orleans soulful, I just enjoyed it. From the Audubon Zoo across the street from campus to the esplanade along the Mississippi from where you looked down on the river but, weirdly, looked down further into the city, to the amazing French Quarter and the crazy beignets at Café Du Monde. Ah yes, and Cooter Brown’s late night cheese fries and Popeye’s even later buttery biscuits . . . whoa, nice trip down memory lane. New Orleans was a fantastic city in which to learn both academically and emotionally. I miss it.

We almost lost New Orleans four years ago and as we enter another hurricane season this month, let’s all send out our most positive Karma to the Crescent City and all the cities, towns, hamlets, and whistle stops along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.

New Orleans is still rebuilding her infrastructure, her neighborhoods, her soul. Rosetree Glass Studios was “lucky” if you can call it that, in that their home and business was not flooded by Katrina. The Algiers section of the city where Rosetree calls home, was lashed by winds that stripped trees, ripped off roofs, and caused all manner of destruction, but without the standing water that inundated lower lying areas of the city, glass artist Mark Rosenbaum and his family were able to get back to work relatively soon after Katrina blew through.

When we talked with Mark in February, he introduced us to his remarkable glass pumpkins. He said he was inspired to create the colorful gourds by a hundred years old legend and the modern legend sparked by the hurricane of the century. Here’s how they go.


A legend is told of a magical occurrence three-hundred years or so ago. In the mysterious backwaters of the Barataria bayous in Louisiana, a crop of spectacular golden pumpkins was discovered. The valuable vegetation grew in the murky area that was believed to be the secret hiding place of ill-gotten pirate treasure. This incredible discovery remained a mystery until the present day.

After Hurricane Katrina, a new harvest of incredible pumpkins surfaced along the bayous. The pumpkins were not golden, but multi-colored in hues of purple, green, and gold. Experts have analyzed the phenomenon and have speculated that high concentrations of Mardi Gras beads and dubloons found deposited near the colorful treasures enhanced their growth.

Still a mystery, scientists have named them Curcubita Festivalis. Those lucky enough to own one call them "Mardi Gras Pumpkins"!


Mark’s pumpkins are thought to bring very good luck, but whether or not you adhere to the Louisiana bayou magic infused into the legends past and present, there is no denying the pumpkins are fantastic. We hope you like them as much as we do.

Anniversary gifts made easy at the Red Elephant Gallery

We can always tell when the big wedding weekends are, or rather were. The indicator is not some scientific or statistical formula, intensive market research, or even a gut feeling. It’s sales receipts, and not sales receipts for wedding gifts, but specifically 7th anniversary gifts that fly out the door. How do we know they’re anniversary gifts you ask? Well the traditional gift for the 7th anniversary is copper and in some random way (as can only happen on the web) the Red Elephant Gallery has hit a niche with copper gifts. There are certain summer weeks when it seems that all we sell is copper--copper martini or wine glasses, copper ikabana, and copper sushi sets are very popular.

We never gave the traditional wedding gift process much thought until last June when it really worked out well for us. Just before our 11th wedding anniversary we had splurged on a new stainless steel grill for our small cruising sailboat. Yeah, not too sexy, but hey, we’re sailors. Michael’s mom, who loves to follow the traditional gift list saw it sitting in the trunk one day and started asking all kinds of strange questions about the material it was made of. Turns out that steel is the traditional gift for the 11th anniversary and all of a sudden that grill became both a gift for us, and a check off the to-do list for mom. Bonus for all!

So personally and professionally, anniversary gifts have worked out well for us. Maybe they’ll work out well for you too so we did the research and here is what we found. Traditionally lists like this go one through ten, but of course we included the 11th in our list! Looking through them it’s pretty crazy that diamond jewelry is 10th on the modern list. We don’t know many wives who want to wait 10 years for more diamonds! Honestly, the “today” list could probably have diamonds, or other valuable gemstones, every year, only growing in size as the years pass!

Have fun,
Karen & Michael

     Traditional Modern
1st   paper clocks
2nd   cotton china
3rd   leather crystal glass
4th   fruit/flowers appliances
5th   wood silverware
6th candy iron wood
7th wool/copper desk sets
8th bronze/pottery linen/lace
9th pottery/willow leather
10th tin/ aluminum diamond jewelry
11th steel fashion jewelry

Recycled Newspaper! Who knew it could be so cool!

Here at the Red Elephant Gallery, we consider ourselves good stewards of the environment. We recycle the newspaper, boxes, bottles, and cans, turn down the heat when we’re gone, eschew air conditioning in general, and compost what we can. Hey, I’ve even been known to fetch the cardboard center of the tp roll from the wastebasket when one of the kids goes down the wrong path. Pretty good, right?

Well at this year’s Philadelphia Buyer’s market, where hundreds of artists show their wares to gallery owners and buyers from around the country, there were lots of recyclers and other greeners who put our efforts to shame. It was awesome to see what was being made with and from recycled and reused material in useable art.

We saw lots of pieces we liked but one artist’s work in particular that tickled our fancy is made by printers everywhere and one Californian, Ms. Dahli Coles. Ms. Coles laminates recycled newspapers, magazines and more with a durable, water-resistant finish then fashions this material into bags, wallets, pillows and other accessories. The final products are tough, softer than you’d imagine, and downright cool.

So what began as a school project at Cal State Northridge for Ms. Coles has morphed into her company, The News, and one of the latest and most fun product lines in the Red Elephant Gallery. Check out the National Geographic cover series, and the limited edition Obama inauguration bags. One of our favorites is the wine carrier, especially the double-one!
--Michael

New Handmade Ceramic Bird Feeders to celebrate National bird feeding month!

Did you know that factors such as global warming, loss of habitat, and the increase of invasive species have led to a rapid decline in some typical backyard birds? For example the chickadee population in the United States has declined by 73% since 1973. Crazy huh? What can I do you ask? Well here are four easy and inexpensive things you can do to attract birds to your home and gardens.

1) Provide plants in your landscape plan appropriate for your area in which birds can rest and feed. Gardens in your yard are great but if you live in an urban setting container gardens (link to a container garden site) can work just as well.

2) Provide water for drinking and bathing.

3) Provide nesting materials and nest boxes in the springtime (some examples).

4) Provide bird feeders if possible during the winter months.

These suggestions don’t have to be expensive to do. Use your imagination and recycle something found at a yard sale or around the house…a wheel barrel, an old tub or sink can make a great container garden and a nice old bowl can provide water for your feathered friends. My kids love to put the lint from the dryer out in the spring. It provides nice soft bedding for a bird’s nest. This year we moved our Christmas tree, stand and all out too the porch to decorate with popcorn strings and edible ornaments.

If you do want something a bit nicer, we just added some new work to the Red Elephant Gallery that might just fit the bill. Our friends at Anthony Stoneware make beautiful ceramic bird feeders, birdbaths and nesting boxes. The small bird feeders are perfect for chickadees and are a great price too!

If you want to know more about birds and what you can do to help there is a bunch of fun info at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology.

Red Elephant Gallery Heads to Buyer's Market of American Craft (BMAC)

This new and hopefully temporary economy has brought home to the Red Elephant Gallery the wonderful, simple pleasures of life at a slower pace. Two kids and their friends run through the place all the time and living through their smiles, grins, pouts, temper tantrums, and innocence is one of our great joys. We’ve been sledding on local humps in the next town over rather than worrying about which weekend we might fight traffic to get to the ski hills up north. We’ve been hunting for wine bargains and simple eats to bring friends together for company and good conversation rather than heading to the movie theater or going out for an extravagant dinner we don’t want to pay for right now. Honestly, it’s been good to bring it all in closer where we can handle it just a little better.

This weekend we’re heading to the Philadelphia Buyer’s Market of American Craft (BMAC), an annual pilgrimage of all things arts and crafts. We’ll see friends made in past years and make friends we’ll follow for years to come. We will also be looking at what various artists have to offer in a new light. We’re going to focus a bit more on reused/reusable and recycled/recyclable pieces. There were some artists last year in this category and we already carry many products of the type, but we’re sure there will be many more this year. Artists whose creativity will blow us away, and artists whose simple, enduring style will leave us awestruck. We’re also going to be looking for pieces that make us comfortable, happy, optimistic, goofy—ones that make us love life, art, and simple joy.

There are hundreds of artists so we’re confident we’ll find greatness to share with you our gallery goers. When we’re back and the new pieces start arriving we’ll set up a section in the gallery of what’s new from Philly for you to see, discuss, enjoy, pine for and, if we’ve done our job well, purchase.

The economy is the economy and there’s little we can do about it but be patient, support the artists who put their heart and soul into their work, and hope we offer works that you’ll want to use in your home, during your next gathering of family or friends, or share as a gift with someone who means a lot to you.

---Michael

Just a quick note about Valentine’s Day. It’s this Saturday guys!!

Anyways, I was driving to the airport this morning listening to Cat Country 98.1 and the DJ, Tim Leary, was talking about a dilemma he was trying to work through. Seems his associate, a young lady named Amanda, had let slip to him off the air what she wanted her boyfriend to get her for Valentine’s Day. Her boyfriend, however, had not a clue even though she’d been dropping hints for weeks.

Tim’s dilemma was whether he should be the boyfriend’s wingman, you know, guys stick together stuff, and tell him on the air what she wanted, or should he put a large price out there for Amanda to pay for his silence—yeah, blackmail.
Unfortunately I never found out the result as the airport trip was shorter than this drawn out dilemma, but I’m sure Tim, ever the country gent, kept his secret. I doubt he got the money either, even though many listeners were telling him to get the money, and then announce the gift anyway!! Yeah, they were guys.

I find it inconceivable that women of today do not understand that if they want something specific for Valentine’s Day hints are not going to get it. They shouldn’t expect them to. Since Hallmark invented Valentine’s Day men have forgotten to do anything or have done the completely wrong thing. Only in diamond ring commercials do we get it right.

So I’m here to fix it.
If you’re a lady reading this please email your significant other the link to the Red Elephant Gallery’s Valentine’s Day idea page. Although we may not have the exact thing you’re looking for--unless you tell him what it is you’re not going to get it anyway--everything we have is cool and even he will find something there you’ll like.

If you’re a guy reading this, get off the dime, there’s only a day or so left to get your significant other something she’ll really like from our site. Heck, if she doesn’t already know about us you will look heroic in finding such an interesting source of cool stuff for her now and in the future.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all. And honey, what was it you wanted again?

---Michael

Follow RedElephantGal on twitter

Everyone seems to be talking about social networking. I really didn’t understand what all the chatter was about. After all, my idea of networking is face to face with a fat glass of red wine in hand and maybe some nice passed hors d'oeuvres. Never the less I was beginning to feel left out, so I made my New Years Resolution this year to begrudgingly give it a shot.

I decided to start with twitter, I must admit that the 140 character limit was the main appeal (pathetic huh). Honestly writing isn’t my forte and between this blog, marketing materials and the text for Red Elephant Gallery, there are some days I feel that is ALL I do. Back to twitter, I create an account and presto, chango I am now RedElephantGal! Fast forward 1 week......

Well…I have to admit it’s kind of fun. To the point I find myself eager to log on in the morning to see how many new followers I have and what all my new found friends are up to. I can see how this can become a bit addicting, not to mention a complete time suck. It has only been a week but I can already see I might even have to set the timer like I do to limit the kids Wii time.

So come follow me on twitter!

I’m off to tackle FaceBook…I hear I can dig up lots of relics from my past. Although, I'm still not convinced that's really a good idea!

Would American Craft, Music or the Visual Arts Benefit from a Cabinet Level Arts Post?

We're not big on clambering atop the political bandwagon as far as sharing our beliefs with our gallery goers is considered . . . and we're not starting now. But dang if inauguration day wasn't one of the coolest, most awe-inspiring days in recent American history, even not-so-recent. Regardless of your political views, party affiliations and the like, the activities surrounding inauguration day and the inauguration itself created the feeling that a breath of fresh air has blown through this country and maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel of bad feelings and depression. It's a long tunnel, admittedly, and we all have a lot of work to do to get this country and this economy back on track, but hey, we know how to work hard, we just need a little direction right?

One topic that has resurfaced in the past months and come to the fore recently is the creation of a cabinet-level position focused on the arts. The idea has been around since the 50s, but recently composer and producer Quincy Jones has started an online petition to ask President Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts stating it is needed to signify the importance of the arts in society and especially in education. According to some sources, over 100,000 people have signed this petition.

But is a central government agency the best way to support the arts in our schools and society? That's the question that is out there to be discussed, argued, and bandied about over wine throughout the arts, education, and parenting communities. While no one contests the idea that more art is needed in our schools, since study upon study have shown over and over that visual art and music programs in school improve test scores and increase creative problem solving abilities the question is how best to argue the point where it may matter most, in Washington DC.

We're not advocating a plan of action, but came across the original Quincy Jones proposal and an opposing editorial in the Wall Street Journal that opened our eyes even wider to this issue. We hope you'll take the time to follow the links below to educate yourself about this fascinating discussion on how we should move forward toward a goal that we all agree on but might support very different paths to achieving.

Click on this link to see and, if you agree, Sign the Petition.

Click to read David Smith's Wall Street Journal article "An Old, Bad Idea for the Arts"

To bring it back down to the local level, remember that whatever the movers and shakers in the national arts community and the government decide, we can work within our area school systems to support the arts in ways that may not be obvious, but once determined can work really well. For example, here at the Red Elephant Gallery we helped initiate an Arts Docent program, based on one in Washington State in our children's elementary school. It's a bit of work but with parents and friends volunteering to help with individual classroom sessions it's been fun for us, the kids, and the volunteers.

New Art Glass, Recycled Art, Pottery and Handcrafted Jewelry in 2009!

The kids are FINALLY back to school (oh I remember the days when I thought a two-week vacation proceeded by a snow day was a good idea! ) and I've had a few days to reflect on the 2008 holiday season and think about the gallery in 2009. This is always a fun time of year. It’s buying season! Of course we have already done some of our inventory picks for the year but I always like to wait and see what sold and was requested during the holidays to make room for some last minute changes.

In keeping with our commitment to sustainability we continue to keep and add more recycled/green products. John Cook’s recycled fish were a hit over the holidays so we will be looking at more of his recycled glass creations as well as adding works from our old favorites Fire and Light, and Smart Glass.

Also on our list for this year is to expand our line of art glass perfume bottles (we are currently out!) and garden art. On the technology side, we are planning to tweak the website a bit to make it easier to shop by category rather than just by artist.

And along with the rest of the world, we’ve just added a new specials / sale section. Most of these pieces are from artists from whom we have limited inventory remaining. Every year we “retire a few artists” to make room to feature a few more. It is always sad to do this because we become friends over the years but we realize it has to be done.

So keep checking back to see what is new as we'll be adding new artists and new creations from our existing artists over the next month. Our goal is to make the Red Elephant Gallery the first place you look for unique, usable, hand crafted gifts for your friends and family, and of course, yourself.

Our little Art Glass Adventure

School holiday vacation was two weeks long this year. Two WEEKS! We love our kids as much as anyone but with dad taking time off from work and the kids around all day, the house got mighty small in a hurry. One of the great things we did to get out together was to take the kids to see the glass exhibit at Rhode Island School of Design’s new Chace Center. Our youngest is the little glass hound in the family. He is always the first to unpack the boxes when they arrive at the studio, always poking around asking questions when things are being photographed. He’s been like that ever since I can remember. He was 2 when we opened the Red Elephant Gallery. Today he’s the one that unpacks, counts and sorts the Christmas ornaments when they arrive during the summer. He does pretty well for a 6-year-old and has yet to break a piece (more than I can say for his mother). Anyway, I thought it would be fun for them to see the large scale glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly and there is one other piece in particular I thought the little guy should see. We have a book by glass artist Dan Dailey called the Glassigator. It is a children’s book that describes the glass blowing process through the blowing a glass alligator head. There is a glass alligator head by Dan Dailey (not sure if it is really titled “the glassigator”) in this Glass exhibit at the Chace Center. Anyway it was really fun for him to see his story book come to life and we had a good time picking out the differences between the glassigator in the book and the one in the exhibit.

Visiting the many, varied, and wonderful museums in the Northeast and down to Washington, D.C. has become one of the best ways to spend some time with our kids. Any size or subject but we're passionate for the more artsy! And If you have a little one who likes glass or understanding how things are made I highly recommend "The Glassigator" published by the Toledo Museum of Art.

YogaGoat Pottery - New for your Trunk at Red Elephant Gallery!

A couple of friends and I were in Manhattan the end of September with a compact list of places to go during the short time we had. The new Museum of Art and Design at 2 Columbus Circle had finally opened and it was at the top of our list. Unfortunately we hadn’t planned far enough ahead so there was no way we were getting in to see the new facility but once the crowds cleared I was able to get a peak into the museum store. There, among all the gorgeous art glass, clay, wood and metal sat a beautiful red hyacinth bowl from YogaGoat Pottery.

Even though it would have stood out had I not been familiar with Amanda Ryznar’s work, we started carrying YogaGoat Pottery this summer, seeing it in this prestigious venue was a nice surprise. We first met Amanda this spring and once we saw what she was doing with bowls, plates, platters, and beautiful handcrafted vases—the exquisite design, the unique color, and the enticing texture – we knew we had to offer her functional handmade pottery to our customers. Here’s how Amanda explains the process:

First, the pieces are thrown on the wheel, either from white stoneware or porcelain. Any trimming is done, and attachments such as handles made, when the piece is "leather-hard". The colored slips are also applied at this stage. When the slips dry a little, Amanda draws through the slip down to the clay underneath. The excess slip is carved away. The piece is fired to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, then coated in a clear glaze and fired again to 2380 degrees.

The process is rigorous, but the results are simply gorgeous. Please have a look at our YogaGoat inventory then try to decide which piece is your favorite. It’s excellent work and we hope you enjoy it.

Unique Gift ideas for this holiday season

We headed out to a show in Connecticut just as the sun was coming up over the river near our house. I put the mini-van in drive and pulled forward out of the driveway for three feet then stopped. I couldn’t see a thing. What I thought was dew on the windshield was in fact frost. The scraping windshield wipers’ telltale winter’s sound burrowed into my psyche that we are heading for winter here in the Northeast and it’s time to get prepared both physically and mentally.

The frost was gone in a few minutes time under pressure from the de-froster (clever name that) and we were on our way. But the frost started me thinking about Christmas and the timing of gift-buying. I am a practicing procrastinator so for me to be thinking about Christmas gifts before Halloween, is unheard of. The fact remains, however, that I was thinking about Christmas gifts as we unloaded our wares in New London. We bring a pretty good sample of what we have to offer to shows such as these and yes, the selection included great Christmas gifts.

Ornaments: We’ve got amazing ornaments from blown glass to ceramic. From see-through to opaque. From small to large. Click here and take a look!

Banks: These aren’t just any banks, these are the coolest, cutest, ceramic banks ever. Hippos, sheep, dinosaurs, aardvarks, and yes, of course, piggies.

Sushi sets: We have ceramic and glass versions of this popular gift item. They are cool and quite unique being individually handmade.

These are just a small sample of what’s available at the Red Elephant Gallery for you to buy for your family and friends this holiday season. We hope to see you on the site.

Art Glass Pumpkins – Art and agriculture on my mind

In my other life I go to a lot of boat shows. Every fall the classic United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, calls it’s swan song to those of us in the marine biz and we all trek to the shores of Chesapeake Bay and one of the cutest little towns anywhere. Problem is, almost every year this show happens the week the fall leaves are at their best color in the mountains of northern New England. Never fails.

When I get home after Columbus Day my only consolation is that I can usually make the local pumpkin weigh-in at Frerich’s Farm in Swansea, MA. There are some BIG pumpkins, in the field when I get there, trucked in from all over. Seriously big--hundreds of pounds. Huge. To grow one of these behemoths requires creativity, patience, skill, and innate pumpkin knowledge. To win, well, that’s just way too much pumpkin know-how to even consider with a big dash of luck thrown in for good measure.

But what in the heck does this have to do with the Red Elephant Gallery other than our family makes up part of the weigh-in audience? Not a lot, but something important. Artists, whether they grow pumpkins or blow art glass, are in constant evolution from where they began through where they are in their craft, to where they’ll end up. When we check in with them at a particular time and place, they are somewhere along that evolutionary trail and the fact is we don’t know where. That’s the fascination. How does one person gain so much knowledge that they can grow a thousand-pounder or caress molten silica into something as glorious as Luke Adams’ under-a-pound art glass pumpkins,. What life events brought them to this point? How will they evolve?

As much thought as I’ve put into the behemoths in Massachusetts I’ve put into the fine detail of the delicate specimen on our windowsill. I stare at Luke’s work and wonder how he came to be in the place that he is and how lucky we are to be in the right place and time to enjoy it. How does he do what he does? I don’t know. It’s magic for all I care. Fascinating, beautiful magic.

So do hit the link above and check out his work. And if pumpkins aren’t your thing, they’re not all he does. But take some time with the pumpkins this fall. They’re very cool.

--Michael

Three pandas, some rockets and a bit of Modern Art

I love family trips . . . driving trips . . . long-distance family driving trips. My wife thinks I’m nuts. The kids aren’t sure yet.

Last week was spring vacation and the littlest one has always wanted to meet Tai Shan, the young Panda born at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. He watched a movie on the web from the panda cam in Mei Xiang’s pen of Tai Shan being born as did the rest of us. We’ve all become quite the baby panda fans around here so it was time to go meet him. That’s 10 hours in a car. I was psyched, the rest less so. We did the trip, had some fun, had some fits, and all-in-all survived in good fashion. And Yeah, Tai Shan is pretty amazing.

Washington DC is simply a fantastic city. There are innumerable museums, parks, monuments, and all sorts of activities for an active, inquisitive family. We did a lot, but the most unlikely place we visited was the east wing … not of the white house, but of the National Gallery.

We’d pretty much done the Air and Space museum, oohing and aahing over rockets, spaceships, airplanes, and more rockets and spaceships. The boys were in boy heaven! Heck, so was I! Of course you can’t get through everything in the museum in even a week, but there’s only so much we could absorb at one visit. The boys were satiated, so we asked mom what she wanted to do next. Oops.

The only place that mom wanted to see before we left Washington was something called the east wing of somewhere. Never really did get the name right before we got there. As we walked across the mall, stopping to watch a way-too-serious adult kickball game and take pictures in front of the Capitol building, she told me we were headed for the east wing of the National Gallery, the modern art repository. MODERN ART. The only modern art I thought I needed to know about was 7 white painted panels I’d seen at the Hirshhorn Museum, the Smithsonian's museum of international modern and contemporary art many years before. I know I’ve painted walls that were more intriguing than those panels and I’d subsequently sworn off most modern art. Of course I was wrong. I often am.

We studied some fantastic mobiles both very large and quite small and a great Roy Lichtenstein of Donald Duck catching his own shorts with a fishing rod. There were also a Warhol Campbell’s soup can painting, and a great Jackson Pollock. Upstairs was a room full of very interesting Picasso’s and we just missed the Matisse exhibit that had closed for the day. The boys already knew these artists’ names and had seen their works in books Karen had showed them. It was fascinating for me to watch my kids see with their own eyes what they had previously only seen in books and for that matter on the web. It was a great experience for all of us.


Going to Washington last week reminded me that there’s only one way to see the Tai Shans, Andy Warhols, Washington Monuments, and White House’s of the country. Just Go. Take the trip. They’re waiting for you.

And what does this have to do with the Red Elephant Gallery you ask? Not much other than whatever you order from us was created by an artist and will look and feel even better in person. Don’t wait, order today.

Shayla Su: Decorative Ceramic Handbags

Shayla Su is a really cool artist. Her medium is ceramics and we have completely fallen for her hand-built handbags. She says she was inspired to create them while walking the streets of Venice seeing handbags there she could not bring home. In her words . . .

“When we visited the ancient city of Venice, Italy, in 2003, it was with the intention to view its art and architecture. Instead, I became enthralled by the myriad handbags displayed so opulently in Venice's shops – their sculptural nature was a revelation. Since I couldn’t take them all home with me, I found a lasting way to bring their beauty into my life.”

When we were in Venice last Spring the art scene became completely overwhelming for us. We were really following the glass path, but handbags did come into focus for Karen. It took us until we got to Florence, however, for her to find the one she wanted to bring home. I kept telling her she could have only one, not the hundreds we saw, which was always a difficult conversation. Suffice it to say I spent a lot of time in Italy on the couch. Just kidding. Anyways . . .

Back to Shayla Su. She has a little one running around her house and has therefore been on maternity leave for some time now. This recently created a dilemma for us as we want to sell her handbags but she isn’t planning to make anymore anytime soon. After a brief discussion amongst the principals at the Red Elephant Gallery, we decided to jump in and pretty much bought her inventory. They really look fantastic so please visit Shayla Su’s portion of our site for your share of exquisite colors in the handbags we have.

Red Elephant Gallery finds new Ceramics, Art Glass and Handmade Jewelry at BMAC

Philadelphia Buyer’s Market of American Craft (BMAC), next year we’re actually going to wear the running shoes, not just talk about it!

There is nothing quite like the Buyer’s Market we attended last weekend organized by the creators of Niche and American Style magazines. We walked for two days straight and still didn’t get to see every artist’s work. But we did see some amazing work and slowly but surely some of it will be coming “home” to the Red Elephant Gallery for you to see and, if you like, buy for you, your home, or as a gift.

We attack the market each year with a plan that nearly immediately is tossed aside as we wander wide-eyed down the aisles. We know what we need to fill in our inventory and the rest just cannot be programmed. This is a heartfelt personal industry. The pieces we saw each represents an artist’s passion and talent so picking them based on some pre-thought list of needs borders on the ridiculous. We buy what speaks to us and we hope will speak to you. We buy from artists we like both personally and through their work. We are relationship buyers at the Red Elephant Gallery and it’s these relationships we will be sharing with you.

One of the stronger themes of this year’s buyer’s market was environmental art of all types. This isn’t the traditional meaning of environment in art, as in of a certain environment, but honest to goodness, don’t harm the planet, let’s hug a tree environmentalism. From recycled glass formed into pieces to pieces made from bottles before they hit the recycling plant. From recycled stainless and aluminum pieces to once again, pieces of stainless and aluminum captured pre-recycling plant post consumer usage, formed into truly amazing art. It was phenomenal to see the variety of work in this fast growing genre and you’ll be seeing a good selection coming to the gallery soon to augment what we already have in Willyware and Sea Stones.

So it was a fantastic weekend of strengthening existing friendships, making new friends, and perusing what must be the most amazing buyer’s show in the country. There’s passion, talent, desire, and patience evident in all the artists’ work and we can’t wait to bring the best to you in the coming months.

New for your trunk: Handmade gifts from Sea Stones

Christmas shopping season is nearly upon us, what with “Black Friday” less than a week away. So here at the Red Elephant Gallery we want to take the worry and fuss out of your holiday season shopping routine and have many great gifts in our inventory for loved ones and friends. We wrap and ship, you gain good Karma points.

One of the coolest gifts we’ve found is so simple it certainly falls under the heading of why didn’t I think of that. We are always looking for big sturdy wall hooks for our kids and us to hang their coats, scarves, umbrellas, and even the kids themselves some days, and we live in coastal New England where throwing rocks into rivers and the ocean is a bona fide sport. So why didn’t we see the rocks for what they really are . . . wall hooks. D’Oh!

Sea Stones, a company near us, takes the beautiful rocks that Mother Nature has turned from rough and chunky to smooth and silky and mounts them to sustainably harvested hardwood backing plates. These stones, gently rounded through years of rolling in the rivers and oceans of New England, are carefully selected for their shape, texture, and color. In the spirit of conservation the artists at Sea Stones replace each selected stone with one from a local quarry, which is their stone “planting” program. Additionally, they plant 10 times the number of trees used for the back plates each year.

Sea Stones also makes beautiful cherry clocks and their wine stoppers make great stocking stuffers or housewarming gifts!

Unique Handmade Secret Sister Gifts

If you are looking for something special for your secret sister, (secret pal, friend or even secret Santa) then you have come to the right place. The Red Elephant Gallery has a great selection of Unique Handmade Secret Sister Gifts. We’ve highlighted a few items that have been popular and we make the process of secret gift giving easy!

One of our most popular girlfriend gifts is the interchangeable marble necklace from Studio 220. It comes with a bag of thirty marbles that can switch out to match any outfit! The Love and Peace Bracelets from Sergio Lub are also best sellers. If your secret sister needs a laugh or you want to thank her for all the support she has provided maybe one of our “Flying Buttress” rattles by J. Davis Studio will do the trick. You can also send along a bit of love and environmental consciousness with the recycled glass heart from Fire and Light.

When you get to the checkout section of your order just write in the comments section that your gift is for a secret friend and we’ll make sure we don’t include your name or billing information in the package! If you would like us to include a message for your secret friend just enter that in the comments field as well. Don’t worry your identity is safe with us. Put your information in the “Billing address” and your secret sister/friend’s information in the “Shipping information” section and we’ll do the rest – it’s that easy!

Ceramic Artist Liz Kinder has a new baby girl!

One of our favorite ceramic artists, Liz Kinder, brought a new little ball of inspiration into her world on Halloween. "She's here! Her name is Elizabeth and she was 7lb. 2oz. and 19.75 inches, Liz wrote us today. "I'm so excited to get in to the studio tomorrow. It will be so nice to make stuff without a basketball on my stomach. I'll just have to stop every couple of hours to feed the baby!"

Liz makes beautiful ceramic bowls that we have a hard time keeping in stock. So we're excited she's going back into the studio too!

Random gifting is its own reward

I’m not a very good gift-giver. Being a guy, being so busy, being, I don’t know, name your silly excuse, I’ve never been very good at random gifting. If I know your birthday’s coming or a big anniversary I’m all over it. It’s the little stuff that really means a lot that I mostly miss out on. But, I’m getting better.

Here’s an example. There’s a woman with whom I’ve worked for a number of years. She’s funny, works hard and accurately, and saves my sorry butt on a monthly basis. She gets paid to do her job, sure, but keeping a sunny attitude and desire to do good all in the midst of publishing deadlines for multiple monthly magazines is pretty admirable. Basically, she’s the best and I tell her so. Maybe that’s enough, and I thought so.

Then one week I traveled to our home office and met with a team of people who also do a very good job in the face of goofy clients. These women chase the money that’s owed us and help to put the magazines together every month. They’re solid. I bought them some beer. Well heck, you’d have thought I gave them a key to the universe. Maybe not that, but my tiny extra bit of “gifting” in the form of a couple of glasses of barley and hops, showed them that I actually care a bit and our relationships have grown even stronger both professionally and personally. Fantastic.

So back to my office. I return from my trip determined to do something special for my co-worker and butt-saver. Drink and food are not the answer here so I hit the red elephant gallery and found her the perfect pair of earrings. Simple Kim Caisse Ocean Wigglies looked to fill the bill. They’re inexpensive but not cheap at all, just simple and cool. The cool factor and the color were the strong selling points.

The Red Elephant team boxed them up with their cool, funky ribbon and that great little elephant and I brought them to my co-worker. I didn’t want to make a big fuss, but wanted her to know that she meant a lot to me so I thought of dropping them on her desk with a card, or asking her into my office . . . . What happened was perfect, we happened to arrive at the office at the same time and as we were walking from the parking lot, I pulled the box out of my shoulder bag and handed them over with a simple explanation of thanks. She was surprised and very thankful. Later, after she’d opened them, she told me they were perfect. I glowed inside.

Giving is a tremendous “up” psychologically. There are studies I’m sure that prove that some enzyme or group of cells are stimulated by gifting giving. I also know that office gifting can be a bit touchy in the new politically correct world. But you know what, I don’t care what it is physically, or whether it’s PC or not, giving someone you appreciate a random gift is one of the coolest, best-feeling things you can do so do it soon.

I suggest Mondays. What a great way to start off the week for the both of you!

Michael Tamulaites

“Flying Buttress” Rattles from J. Davis Studio - Sometimes you just have to laugh.

There are many different factors to consider when shopping for the Red Elephant Gallery. Is the work exciting and creative, is it by a new or established artist, does it fit into one of the categories we focus on – Glass, Ceramics or Handcrafted Jewelry. While all of those are important things to consider in operating a profitable business, sometimes the reason to add an artist is somewhat less tangible. For instance, I know that if we decide not to purchase something but I am still thinking about the artist weeks or months later there was something special about the work and we just take the risk and add that artist. This was the case with the handcrafted jewelry by Willy Scholten of WillyWare. I had seen her collection at the Buyers Market but we were already over budget (no surprise) so we ooohed and aaaaahed but walked away empty handed. But I kept thinking about how ingenious it was to create jewelry out of materials that Silicon Valley discards every day and how gorgeous the pieces looked as jewelry. The next show she was one of the first new artists to be added to the gallery.

Also, it is rare that I will walk away from something that makes me burst out laughing…hence the addition of the “Flying Buttress” ceramic rattles from J. Davis Studio. Those little cellulite filled butts just made me laugh. So I bought them on the spot, no thought what so ever about the budget or if someone else would actually buy them. I didn’t really care. The fact that my girlfriends and I got to share a bottle of wine and many laughs while naming the little ladies was just icing on the cake.

Hope they make you laugh too!

Fused Glass tableware by Sarah Hirneisen of Mediums to Masses added to Red Elephant Gallery

Mediums to Masses glass tableware is designed and handcrafted by Sarah Hirneisen in her California Studio. Sarah received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in glass. She also studied at the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass and the Rochester Institute of Technology. She has worked with glass for over 10 years for a variety of glass studios in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and California before opening her own glass studio in 2005.

Sarah combines her love of glass with that of textiles to create her unique line of tableware. Vintage fabric patterns are hand silk-screened onto each glass piece using ground up glass enamel in a multi-step process Sarah developed. The resulting works give the fabric patterns a second life while creating a juxtaposition of vintage with modern.

When we saw Sarah's work we knew we had to carry it at the Red Elephant Gallery. The Sushi set was what first caught my eye. It is such a fabulous shade of mint green it reminded me of the old (now considered retro) serving pieces my mother used to have.