Furniture Society Conference/ AAW Symposium Exhibits

I had a great time at both of these recent events. It was so nice to see the artists who are participating in the National Treasures exhibit again, as well as meeting a lot of great artists, furniture makers and designers that I hadn't met in person before.

We've signed up several more wonderful artists for the exhibit recently, including-

Judy Kensley Mckie, Vladimir Kagan, Alfred Sharp, Michael Puryear, David Lamb, Joe Tracy, Duncan Gowdy, Giles Gilson, Po Shun Leong, David Nittman, J. Paul Fennel, Philip Weber, Michael Bauermeister, Graeme Priddle and Norm Sartorius. We're still in the process of adding more great artists and furniture makers to the roster and will keep you posted.

One of the many highlights was to meet Vladimir Kagan and his wife Erica. We had a short but very nice conversation at the FS conference and have since spoken about his participation in the National Treasures exhibit. He's thinking of doing a small to medium sized sculpture. I was also pleased to see that Vladi was kind enough, and obviously impressed enough, to take the time to write about National Treasures on his blog.

Both venues presented a bit of a challenge while setting up, but I feel that the end result was worth the efforts. There were a lot of great compliments from many of the attendees, collectors and fellow woodworkers.

Better that the compliments though, I'm pleased to announce that two pieces  from the exhibit sold at the AAW symposium. The first was Binh Pho's  "The Architect of the American Dream", and Jacques Vesery's "A Fascination With Cherry Trees" Both pieces went to two major wood art collectors.

Jacques and Binh already have fresh wood and are working on new pieces to replace the sold work.

I also had the opportunity to visit with a good friend and sculptor Than Smith, who lives just south of Boston.  I haven't seen Than for 5 yrs. and finally got to meet his new wife for the first time. We had a nice BBQ, caught up a bit and visited his hometown Duxbury.

Because I had to do the" being in two places at the same time" thing, I didn't have the time I would have liked to hang out with all my new found friends, but it's always great to see everyone and hopefully, the next time we're all together, we can have some fun.

National Treasures will be on view again for one day only on Sunday, September 26th at a special collectors brunch in Bethesda, Maryland, that has been arranged by the Collectors of Wood Art.

This brunch is the last weekend event planned by CWA in conjunction with the Fleur and Charles Bressler's "A Revolution in Wood"  opening at the Renwick September 24th,2010.

Please visit CWA's website to glean more information about their plans for the entire week  surrounding the Bressler opening at the Renwick Gallery .