This past Friday I took a field trip to Philadelphia where I attended The Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show. This was my first time actually visiting the city of Philadelphia and my first experience at a huge craft show.

When I first walked into the craft show I was overwhelmed there were so many artists showcasing their crafts I just didn’t know where to begin! I first started looking at this ceramic artist because I was so fascinated by what she had done. Her name is Jennifer McCurdy. She throws the porcelain and then adjusts the form once it is hard enough to carve into the form to create these beautiful dynamic pieces. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture a good picture of her craft work. But I encourage you to take a look at her website (www.jennifermccurdy.com) to see her amazing work!

As I was walking around I saw so many different crafts it was incredible. They ranged from ceramics to wood work to jewelry to furniture—anything and everything you can think of was there!

Two more artists that caught my attention was a glass artist and a photographer. The glass artist is Nick Leonoff and the photographer is Nancy Reid Carr. Nick Leonoff does amazing work in glass and I was so interested in listening to how he creates his artwork. He creates this circle pieces that are so colorful and absolutely beautiful to look at. Here is his website to check out his work http://www.nickleonoff.com.

The next artist that I fell in love with her work was Nancy Reid Carr. She takes stunning photographs of the beach, trees, the sky, the human figure, nature, and mandalas and she transfers them onto aluminum. The reason it caught my eye was because of the bright colors and how she transfers them onto to aluminum in different sizes to hang on walls and to wear as jewelry. It also caught my eyes because of how much her beach pictures reminded me of home and how much I love the beach. Below is a picture of her card that she had at the booth. To look at more of her work visit her website http://nancyreidcarr.com/index.php.

At all of the booths the artists had business cards where you could visit their website to look at more of their work. And as a graphic design major I took a lot of the business cards not only to go and visit their website but to also look at the different designs/styles of business cards. Many of these artists like to use the double sided business card where they have a picture of the art work on one side and their information on the other side. I think this is one of the best ways to advertise yourself because you are showing people your work on a card that they can keep.

Not only did we go to the craft show but I also went to the Fabric Workshop and Museum as well as The Clay Studio. Both of which I will share my experience in next weeks post!