Just back from meeting with some of our artists

Last weekend we went to Las Vegas for a couple shows where we meet with some of our artists. It was 114 degrees!

Not only did we meet up with some of the artists whose work we've carried for many years, like Robert Rickard, Trudi and Eric Cooper, Mikutowski, Rebecca and Dean Derby, Justin Berg, Susanne Lorraine, Sticks and others but also some of our new artists like Sue Savage, whose work we just received.

We met some great new artists whose work we're looking forward to getting in like Shawn Tsai, glass artist; Charlotte Behrens, glass; Michele Smith, clay fan pulls; Callie Seymour fine silver jewelry just to name a few. We'll have a lot of exciting new work for later in the summer and fall.

While there, I sat on a panel about social networking, as well as led a discussion on blogging!

It was a very short trip. We left at 5:30 am on Saturday and came home Monday at 10:55 on the red eye. Don't think we'll do that again! We should have had another day.

The only thing we did other than work was to go to the botanical garden at Bellagio.

You can't really tell but the red and yellow flowers are about 5' across and are made of glass or fiberglass. At any rate they are beautiful.

Now back to work! I'm working on new paintings for my upcoming show with Carol Tokarski.

- Janet Francoeur

What we've been finding

Michael and I travel looking for new artists to represent and this year we've found some great ones!

Two I'm going to introduce you to today live in Michigan right near my sister Gail.



Trudi and Eric Cooper create beautiful wire wrapped diachroic glass jewelry. We have many pendants and earrings in fall colors, it's very well priced as well.

Both attended Beliot College and studied art, Eric concentrating on photography, later sculpture and Trudi received her teaching certificate with a specialty in art. She also was a College level Teaching Assistant in Bronze Casting and Sculpture. After working in stained glass for some time they began creating dichroic glass jewelry and sculptures with her husband Eric.

"We work with a special type of scientific glass called dichroic glass. Developed by NASA to reflect ultraviolet light from the astronauts' reflective visors, dichroic glass is used by scientists to separate and filter specific colors of visible light. Its ability to reflect color in a beautiful way makes it a perfect material for jewelry.

Over the years, through experimentation and "happy accidents", we have developed techniques that involve layering a complex collage of dichroic and other art glass and firing multiple times in our kilns to 1700°F. In this way we achieve vibrant colors, textures, complexity and depth.

Working together, we build from each other's techniques. Although we have separate tasks within the process, our creative collaboration is constructive and dynamic.

Our studio is in a small converted barn behind our home in rural southeast Michigan.We have won numerous awards and ribbons, but our greatest reward is seeing how beautifully our jewelry harmonizes with those who wear it.

We have been working on reducing our environmental impact from our start 10 years ago.
- The glass we use to make our Jewelry is 80% recycled glass.
- We sell our work on through galleries significantly reducing the amount of driving we do.
- We recycle and compost.
- We've replaced every bulb in our studio with a Compact Flourescent.
- We walk from home to work.
- We pay a little more for our electricity supplier's green generation program receiving 100% green electricity
- Our kilns are not energy hogging. The bill for our studio is about $50/month
- We have purchased carbon offset for 32 tons of carbon a year with a company called NativeEnergy. The offset is through wind power generation at the Greensburg Wind Farm. We have been offsetting for 6 years.

Calculate your footprint and see what it takes to make it smaller: NativeEnergy
NativeEnergy is the company Al Gore recommends.

And our three kids, 18, 20, 22, are studying to save the world. SUSTAINABILITY!

You MUST come see their work!