Samantha Stitz, of Hextasy Glass - featured exhibitor at the 2021 Festival Expo

Samantha Stitz (Sam) lives and works in sunny Brisbane, but has displayed her glass art at markets and exhibitions all over Australia. Her first contact with the amazing world of glass was in 2008, when her mother bought a fused dichroic pendant "I was mesmerized!", she says. "I'm fascinated by its different colours and by the different glass working techniques."

From fusing to lampwork to sculpting

Fusing pendants led her to lampworking (using an oxygen fuelled torch to melt glass) and she started making beads in 2010. From beads, Sam moved on creating glass sculptures, using primarily soft glass. " Soft glass can be a bit temperamental", she says, especially when you are working on large pieces. So I talk nicely to it! I design my sculptures as collections of individual components, to avoid changes in temperature stressing the glass as I assemble the components into the finished sculpture."

 

More recently, Sam has added enamelling copper to her repertoire of techniques. "This is lots of fun to do", she says, "especially in the summer months in Brisbane as it can get very hot and humid - not suitable for spending hours at the torch!"

 

Building community

Sam's new to MadeIt, but she's thrilled to be part of their community. "We all need to support the market for crafts that are handmade in Australia, especially in our currently uncertain world", she says, "There is just so much talent and inspiration out in the community. I'm happy when someone adopts one of my pieces, so I'm happy to support other artists when I'm looking for gifts and homewares."

 

Let's give Sam the final word: "Over the years, glass has brought me so much joy and taught me great patience, perseverance and humility. Not everything you try will work the first time, but practice and hard work will always get you where you want to be. I am largely self-taught, but in the past few years I have attended the amazing workshops by glass masters at the Festival of Glass; and I enjoy teaching and sharing what I do. I hope that you will enjoy my passion as much as I do."

The FoG blog is back!

The 2021 annual Festival of Glass is online, to keep everyone Covid-safe. Festival favourites are still running, but with a radically new look!

 

An Expo with a difference

You join us as we prepare to launch the 2021 Festival Expo on Sunday 21 February. This will be an Expo with a real difference, because it will be totally online.

 

In partnership with Madeit, Australia's leading online craft retail site, the Festival is running two online boutiques between February 20^th and May 21^st - one for jewellery, one for sculptures & homewares. Visitors to the boutiques can browse and buy a range of glass art; they can meet some exhibitors online in "Meet the Maker" sessions; and they can watch exhibitors at work in and online "Demonstrations". Details of these online events are on the Festival's web site.

 

A Treasure Hunt makeover

This 2021 Festival's Treasure Hunt was launched with a High Tea on Monday 11 January at Drysdale's Café Zoo and has attracted twenty five North Bellarine businesses. The original closing date has been extended a week to February 27^th, to accommodate Victoria's recent 5-day lockdown. So there's still time to hunt for treasure!

 

Each participating business is displaying a piece of glass art and a glass 'Tiny Treasure' it has commissioned. A treasure hunter who finds a 'Tiny Treasure' e-mails a photograph of it to a dedicated address (fogTH21@gmail.com); for every ten different 'Tiny Treasures' they find, they enter a draw for the commissioned glass art. On February 28, Festival organisers will live stream the draw from the Festival's Facebook page, then e-mail each prize winner. 

 

Face-to-face worshops!

Inspired by the glass art in the Treasure Hunt and the Expo? Tempted to create your own? Then a Festival workshop is the place to be! Between February 25^th and March 13^th, there are eleven Festival workshops: make leaves and trees and birds and bugs from glass, learn bead weaving, create colourful mosaics and blow glass beads. sculptures and baubles. All the details are on the Festival web site.

 

Most of the workshops are face-to-face, so the number of participants will be limited, to meet Covid-19 safety rules. So if you'd like to attend one, make sure that you book in now to ensure a place - one workshop is booked-out already.

 

Thanks!

Thanks to all our sponsors - especially the City of Greater Geelong (Arts & Culture) and the Bendigo Bank - for their support through what has been a difficult year for all of us. Thanks especially to Regional Arts Victoria (RAV) for assisting glass artists from regional Victoria to participate in the 2021 Festival.

 

For full details of Festival of Glass events: https://www.sites.google.com/site/afestivalofglass