Mark your calendars!  Treg Silkwood and Candace Martin will be BAGI's featured 2nd Sunday Demo artists for March!  The event will occur on Sunday, March 14th from 2pm - 4:30pm-ish.  As always, admission is FREE! 

Micaela Gallery is proud to present new work by Silvia Levenson. Silvia's new work will be on exhibit from March 2, 2010 through May 1, 2010. The exhibition opening is on Thursday, March 4th at 5:00pm





Micaela Gallery
49 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94108-5725
(415) 551-8118
www.micaela.com

We are changing our monthly "3rd Thursday Demos"!  For February, our 3rd Thursday Demo will occur on Sunday, February 21st from 3pm -5:30 featuring local glass artist Jon Scally.  Starting in March, our 3rd Thurday Demos will be renamed and move to the 2nd Sunday of every month.  Please check back for details about our featured artist in March.

We had over 110 people attend the Great Glass Auction on Saturday evening in downtown San Jose.  Between at-auction sales, fund-an-item donations, and pre-auction ticket sales and donations BAGI raised over $110,000.  This is about 85% of last year's total and one we're happy with given the state of the economy and donations to arts organizations.

There are still several pieces available ... please call Chris Moore at 408 993-2244 to inquire about them.

Thank you to all of the artists, patrons and volunteers who made the event a success.

We just finished a terrific opening evening for the 2010 Great Glass Auction at the 4th Street Summit Center.  The Glass and Goblet Grab saw 140 (!!!) glasses and goblets made by students sold to patrons with all of the proceeds benefiting SJSU, CCA, Palo Alto High, and BAGI's art programs.

The Auction received a great write-up today in Glass Quarterly with the catalog being called "high-tech online publishing marvel". 

And multiple absentee bids were placed ... Saturday will be a terrific event and we look forward to seeing you there.

If you've completed Glass Blowing 1A or 1B within the last three months, then you really ought to consider getting some time on the bench via BAGI's practice sessions. These are only $50, and are typically held weekly. You can now book online here. If you lose that link, then just go to the Classes page and scroll down. Spending some time in the shop after taking a class will help you reinforce what you took away from the class. Use it or lose it!

This may be old news to some of you, but BAGI now has online hot-shop rental booking. Artists can book online at their convenience, using a credit card, debit card or PayPal account. Click here to check it out. A wonderful side benefit is an up-to-the-second accurate online rental calendar for all to view.


Online booking will help to streamline operations at BAGI, as well as making booking more convenient for the artists. Look for online class booking in the near future!

Check out our latest press! Seasoned collector: Upcoming shows include St. Christopher, Glass Auction, Hillsborough

If you're on the BAGI email list, you have started to receive emails that explain a auction artist's background and show the work that is in this year's event. We've sent out emails about Michael Janis and Ethan Stern so far with more to come.  We also announce upcoming events, provide updates (like the Auction Catalog being available on-line), and classes.

If you're not on the email list please visit the homepage and sign-up in the upper right corner.  We don't sell or rent our list to anyone.

On Friday night there was a buzz at the Community School of Music and Art.  Nearly 100 people came to enjoy wine, appetizers, conversation and a talk by Micaela Van Zwoll.  Collectors, artists and students spent the hour before the talk in the lobby with art-related discussions ranging from how they became interested in art to what they are working on now.  (Click here to see photos from the event.)

The audience moved into the auditorium just after 7:00 and were greeted by a slide show highlighting Bay Area art collections that include glass sculpture as well a range of artists that Micaela choose to highlight.  There were many artists, ranging from emerging to mid-career to established, and collections included in the talk.  I was excited to see images of works from the Saxe Collection and the Hess Collection as well as Stig Persson, a wonderfully clean thinking Danish artist; San Francisco Bay Area pioneer Marvin Lipofsky, who was shown by Micaela at Art Basel Miami Beach; educators and artists Susan Longini and Carol Lawton (who were also in the audience). 

An insightful observation that Micaela made about buying art was that all of us have collected something (in her case it started with Matchbox cars many years ago) and that we should use that same sense of wonder and excitement when deciding what art to collect.  Another takeaway from Micaela was that the difference between an established artist and all others on the path to becoming an established is the ability for a piece to be sold in the secondary market.  Why is that important?  Becuase it means there is enough understanding and representation of an artist to be able to set a price for a work in the open market.

The evening wrapped up shortly after 8:00 with an appeal to attend the BAGI Great Glass Auction on February 6th.  We plan on putting an interview of Micaela with slides on the BAGI website soon.