Winship Designs Hosts Open House

On May 12th, Winship Designs (Torrance) opened its doors on a Saturday for an open house and open torch! There were a handful of SCFS there as well as some new flameworking friends. Since I maily use soft glass, I am always fascinated by boro glass demos. I demoed a clown fish bead which annealed all by it's lonesome in a small kiln.

My friend Beau Tsai was there and demoed a beautiful lizard. Beau created the body of the animal and then just set it down on a graphite plate to cool. He came back later, adjusted the tail and legs, let it cool, then came back again to add the most delicate little feet! He is truly a gifted artist and has been creating glass animals for 30 some years. I wish he had a website... but he doesn't. So I will share a photo of one of my Beau treasures, a Manta Ray that I got from him at the recent Vegas Glass Expo. And you should see what he can do with color! In addition to watching glass demo's, Karen Hardy showed us how she puts together a chainmail bracelet...and made it look so easy too! Joe Rooks, who will be our guest demo artist at the SCFS September meeting, created his crazy, (yet gorgeous!) one eye worm sculpture. You can see more of Joe's work at www.incalescence.com.

It was a really fun afternoon! We enjoyed a BBQ lunch and everyone there was treated to a sample pack of boro glass. Thanks Dave, it was a great day!

Welcome to May! (already?) The last Sunday of April, the So Cal Flame Surfers had a booth at the L.A. Bead Society Spring Fair. We had a wonderful turnout of members to help promote the club and show off their work (and sell some too!). I want to thank Barbara Birbeck again for her help organizing the booth schedule. I also want to thank Susan Walter, Rich Shelby, Bindy Lambell, Linda Ames, Alaina Cunningham and Patrice Shepherd (I hope I didn't forget anyone!) for volunteering their time to man the booth. I hope everyone had fun at the booth and at the show!

Winship Designs in Torrance will be having an open house on May 12th from 12 noon to about 4 pm. This is a fun, casual get together with lots of guest artist demoes, food and other goodies! In fact I will be demoing a fish bead...not sure what kind of fish yet...you'll just have to come to find out. Check it out! This will also be the location for the SCFS September meeting. Please visit www.winshipdesigns.com for more info and driving directions (scroll down, left side of page)

Summer is just around the corner and I certainly hope that means sunshine! It also means that it's almost time for another SCFS meeting. A reminder to everyone that the June 16th meeting will be held at The Mandrel in Redondo Beach. The bead exchange theme will be "Hawaiian" to go along with the Luau potluck. There will be another reminder sent out the beginning of June with more info. Please visit www.themandrel.com for shop and driving directions.

Check out the calendar page for upcoming shows and events!

If anyone has any news regarding bead shows, classes, open houses or anything fun to do with glass, let us know! We are happy to post the news on the SCFS website.

Feel free to email me with any questions/suggestions at judy@jujeebeads.com
So until we meet again, have fun with the flame!

If anyone would like anything more posted let me know and I will me more than glad to post it. admin@socalflamesurfers.org