I was offered the opportunity to donate some of my work to the Swag Bag giveaway for the Etsy Rain 2010 Winter Show. The first 50 shoppers each day of the show get a free swag back to highlight some of the artists at the show as well as other artists who belong to EtsyRain. I applied to be in this year’s winter show but did not make the cut this year. It’s a very competitive show and a limited amount of booth space. I hope to be able to exhibit my work at future shows.
The good news is that they encourage any and all artists to donate to the swag bag to allow the shoppers an opportunity to see your work. When the call to artists went out I didn’t have 100 pieces completed and most of my pieces are much larger and not exactly ideal to be lugging around in a swag bag all day. I made the decision to make 100 Tetris piece sun-catchers for this year’s show. Now comes the hard part; grinding 400 pieces of glass, foiling, soldering, applying patina and waxing each piece. It took a lot of dedication and quite a few days of super sore fingertips from grinding tiny pieces of glass over and over again and don’t get me started on my black thumbs and index fingers. I still don’t know if they will ever go back to their normal color but it was a great experience and I am so happy that I was able to get all 100 pieces done in time for the deadline and can’t wait for the shoppers to enjoy my pieces. If you are curious to see what else will be given away in the swag bags; here is a link to the EtsyRain Facebook album (Do you see my piece in the middle?)