New Artisans for 2007- The verdict is in, and the Weston Craft Show jury has selected ten outstanding Vermont artisans to join 38 returning exhibitors at the 24^th annual show to be held October 12, 13, and 14 at the Weston Playhouse.

 

Lucy Bergamini is familiar to Weston residents who recall when her studio and retail business, Vitriesse Glass was located here. Now a resident of West Pawlett, Bergamini brings a broad influence from world travel throughout her childhood to her latticino glass vessels and fire-polished jewelry. Her work is included in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution and she has exhibited in shows throughout the United States, Canada and Japan.  

 

Dorothy V. Riley has been creating her multi-layered felt landscapes for over 15 years. Her Flower Mountain Studio is located in Chester. Each of Riley’s feltscapes takes about three months to complete. She is a signature member of the Vermont Watercolor Society and paints with the Andover Watercolor Group.

 

Erin Kaukas says each of the handbags she makes evolves slowly and builds its own character beginning when she chooses a fabric that is the right texture and weight to the last step of adding its handbraided leather straps. She chooses fabrics ranging from sturdy handprint silkscreen, to Chinese floral silks and a vintage tapestry and carefully selects linings that work with them. Erin Kaukas Designs is located in Manchester. 

 

Joe Wilk retired in 2000 and wanted to fill his newfound spare time. 

“Since I was going in circles my whole life, I thought I should keep with the pattern and decided to make hand-crafted wooden bowls,” he said. Out of some pieces of machinery he had on hand Wilk created a machine to make bowls and cut the first one in 2003. Ideas for new designs and more stable bowls “just kept coming,” he said, adding that he had no training in the art of bowl making. He recently opened his bowl shop, Vermont Country Bowls, in North Clarendon.

 

Marion Philipsen Seasholtz, of Johnson, hand crafts her quilts, pillows, throws, wall hangings and table runners in her studio in Hyde Park. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Design from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is a Niche Award winner and has been featured in several publications including The Guild; Profiles; and American Art Collector. Her husband, Matt Seasholtz will also exhibit at the Weston show this year.

 

Trained at Lehigh University as a mechanical engineer, Matt Seasholtz said a random series of events led him to a glassblowing studio in Pennsylvania, where he began blowing glass in 1984. Over 20 years, he refined his own style of glassblowing using multiple layers of jewel tone transparent glass. Seasholtz moved to Vermont in 2004. 

 

Ellie Roden is a recently retired primary school teacher. Over many years as a self-taught  pressed flower artist, she has used flowers from her gardens, woodlands, roadsides and the gardens of generous neighbors to create framed original pictures, cards and bookmarks. Her studio, Green Mountain Pressed Flowers is in Wilmington.

 

At their woodshop in Guilford, David and Leah Gessner transform pieces of wood into wood pens, each of which is handcrafted to preserve the wood’s natural patterns.The Gessners admit to “snooping” around lumberyards, loggers, other craftsmen and neighbors to find special pieces of highly figured maples which they painstakingly cut to pen size and then shape, sand, burnish and fit with brass.

 

Weaver Barbara Perry began her career at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, N.Y., where she graduated from the University of Rochester. Travel is woven into her work as she gathers silks, rayon and wool from a wide variety of countries, although for several years she used wool shorn from her own sheep. She has taught at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen in Hanover and has taught textile design at the University of Vermont. She lives in Burlington.

 

Debra Ann Miller uses a wide variety of yarns to knit the wearable art she designs. The Arlington resident’s yarns range from silks and angora to textured cottons and wools. Many are hand spun and hand dyed or made especially for her in the United States or Europe. Buttons she uses are often hand made from glass, ceramic, abalone and other interesting materials. Miller says that creating patterns is related to her skills as a former math and science teacher.

 

Proceeds from the Craft Show benefit Weston's Historic Preservation. For more information, visit www.westoncraftshow.com