I had the pleasure of being a demonstrator all weekend at the American Craft Council Show in St Paul.  The Craft Council recently relocated from NYC to Minneapolis as their headquarters and I know some of their staff and have visited their library several times.  The ACC puts on 4 huge shows a year: St Paul, Baltimore, Atlanta and San Francisco.  In addition to the 250+ artists at the show, they also invited 5 arts groups to come and do live demonstrations in an open studio area.  Textile Center had artists demonstrating digital fabric design, shibori dyes, nuno and needle felting and katazome (Japanese stencil resist dye).

Cuff bracelet by Connie Verrusio

I bought this fantastic bracelet from my next-door-neighbor booth, Connie Verrusio.  She doesn’t have a website, but this is a great article about her from a few years ago.  Her jewelry was so cool!  I also loved the chunky bracelets made from wooden letterpress letters.

Andy's still life "tongs with eggs in pyrex bowl"

Then we met Jonathan and Julia from MoonSpoon.  We completely monopolized Jonathan for 20 minutes talking about laser cutters and being complete geeks.  He uses lasers and more traditional woodworking to make really functional and unique kitchen gadgets.  He showed us a couple of really clever designs that he has figured out that make the most of both techniques.  It was fascinating to talk to him and his passion for what he does is absolutely infectious.  I also love that he works pretty much only in cherry, which is my very favorite wood.