Nicole Rogalski is my next guest blogger! She’s a good friend and a wonderful lampworker. Plus, she’s really good company and saved me two years ago at the Meet the Teachers event at Bead&Button. Take a look – she talks here both about lampworking and also the Beads of Courage event she just participated in!
It’s like Christmas Every Day!
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius
I never really understood what that saying meant until I started making glass beads. From day one… I have enjoyed sitting behind a torch, music playing and melting glass and completely loosing track of time, totally immersed in what I would call a mesmerizing state of bliss. And it didn’t end there…because the anticipation of waiting for my kiln to cool down so I could see the finished beads was like waiting to open presents on Christmas Day.
It was eleven years ago I started my lampwork adventure and I was having such a great time gifting my beads to friends and family and selling off the rest that before I knew it, my love of my craft turned into a small business. Granted, there are days when my creativity is as empty as my fuel tank but those are few and far between and I cant imagine doing anything else. It really is my bliss!
I recently read online that Artmosphere Studio (a cool glass studio in Anchorage AK) and Beads of Courage (the awesome organization that provides artisans lampwork beads to children dealing with life-threatening cancer) were collaborating once again on an event called “Beads on the Trail for Beads of Courage 2017” (http://www.artmospherestudio.com/announcements/beads-on-the-trail-2017). They asked for artists to donate their beads for the Iditarod Trail 2017, a 1000 mile long sled dog race. As someone who has donated beads before to the Beads of Courage program, I quickly signed up and promised to donate 3 sets of beads with an Alaskan theme.
There are 76 mushers who will be participating and each musher will carry an artist’s bead with the remaining 4 beads going for fundraising to give strength and courage to the children who are in a race for their lives, living with cancer.
For the Alaskan theme, I choose polar bear bead faces (photo right), salmon (photo above), and spiraled lentils in a grey and blue transparent glass representing the water and skies of Alaska in winter (photo top). I hope the children like them as much as I did making them.
To learn more about Beads of Courage, visit their website at http://www.beadsofcourage.org/pages/beadsofcourage.html .
xo –
Nicole Rogalski, KNR Lampwork
Like what you’ve seen of her work? If you are reading this the weekend of February 17-18 2017, then Nicole has an online trunk show she’s doing on Facebook. You can check it out by going to https://www.facebook.com/groups/GlassOpenMarket/. If you’ve missed it, don’t fret… she’s also got one on March 17 & 18, April 14 & 15, May 12 & 13!
Hannah Rosner Designs 
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