Oregon beach shells, Fine Silver, necklace
Friday, March 16, 2018
Surreal in Woodstock 1994
Forest and Surreal, Woodstock 1994, "imprinting." USA Today photo...nose flower!
Had a booth selling our jewelry (more photos as I find them.)
Arrowheads, Traintrack Penny, Fused Glass Jewelry
Traintrack Penny, Fine Silver& Sterling Necklace
Fused Glass, Sterling Silver ring
Arrowhead and Fine Silver Necklace
Surreal's Silver Spiral, Portland Saturday Market
Surreal's Sterling Spiral was a jewelry and fine arts business established in 1993 in Portland, Oregon, operating a weekend booth at the Portland Saturday Market, the nation's largest and best established all handcrafted/juried venue for cottage industry artists.
Forest Bloodgood and Rebecca Bashara named the booth after their daughter, born in Portland the year they began their business, and renamed Surreal's Silver Spiral subsequent to Forest assuming sole proprietorship of the PSM business and his switch to using fine silver (.999) as the metal for his S-shaped spiral necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earring designs.
The booth also featured the paintings, prints, and artwork of Natalie Foster, who joined Forest as a partner in 1998, and operated the booth along with their two infant daughters for several years, commuting from their home in the Dalles, Oregon, where they also operated a gallery, Fort Anomaly, out of their historic home formerly known as Captain Grey's Guest House.
Forest curtailed his PSM booth in 2014, having returned after a few years of absence, amounting to nearly 18 years of experience selling directly to customers from all over the world, at Oregon's second most visited tourist site, with over a million attendees annually.
This blog features photos, and perhaps stories of our pioneering work in the world of "cottage industry," "mom and pop," "handcrafted," "recycled/sustainable material,"
and most importantly pre-internet, pre-Etsy, American folk art. Having sold thousands of small pieces of artwork to thousands of people, local to Oregon and Portland, photos remind how the work goes off into the world, worn or collected in boxes on dressers, and loses context.
As jewelry is perhaps among the earliest of human arts, and form of commerce, as well as religious and cultural tool, now is the time to document, celebrate, and espouse the inherent value of handmade artwork and goods, and acknowledge the ancient human ways that community exists and interacts with the greater world at large.
Let's begin.
Surreal, and her father, Festival of the Sails, San Francisco, 2007 or 2008. (Time to clear the fog.)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)