APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) – Artists, dealers and enthusiasts from around the world are gathering in downtown Appleton to celebrate the captivating art of the paperweight.
“Give lectures, swap stories, buy and sell paperweights, and just all around appreciate the art,” said Paperweight Collectors Association Dealer Representative Eric Jump. “It was, at one time, a utilitarian object. But it was also something that’s just nice to have, nice to collect…They’re just a beautiful object, right?”
Some might think – ‘How on Earth is a paperweight considered art?’
But here’s a reminder: These aren’t your grandfather’s paperweights.
“If you went to the average antique shop, you’ll find paperweights. But that’s not what we have here. What we have here are the finest of the fine from 170 years of creating this art form,” Jump told WTAQ News. “It’s the technicality that goes into it, and the difficulty in achieving the art form. Because what it is, it’s essentially a sculpture that’s encapsulated in solid crystal.”
So what, exactly, goes into a paperweight with a price tag well over $1,000? For the artists – it’s passion, skill, and a whole lot of patience.
“The process of encapsulation in clear glass is extremely risky, and 20-30 percent of the time they they may lose that work. It’ll crack, it’ll get distorted, and there’s 2 or 3 weeks of their life that was just…POOF…gone,” Jump explained.
The Glass Paperweight Fair brings in top-tier creators. Ken Rosenfeld has been crafting the intricate glass orbs for decades. He says the art allows him to communicate, without saying a word.
“Making paperweights is a one-man operation, it’s something I could do on my own, and I really liked that idea,” Rosenfeld said. “The imagery is directly created by my hand, there’s no external things going on, and it’s a personal art form…The flowers are sort of universal. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, that kind of motif works really well in this art form.”
Right next to Rosenfeld, Jim Brown of Nashville, Tennessee was setting up. His story rang similar – yet his style was completely different.
“No two people, generally, make paperweights alike! After I bought the torch and started studying glass, I made my first millefiori [cane work] paperweight, which these are, and I got hooked,” Brown told WTAQ News. “Millefiori is an ancient technique started in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago, and was perfected by the Italians.”
It was also the Italians who inspired Christina Callahan. The Alberta, Canada native was first introduced to the art by glassblowers in the streets of Venice.
“So I fell in love with it and my parents allowed me to start working in the garage, and I didn’t burn it down, that was good. But yeah, it kind of slowly took over my life,” Callahan laughed. “I didn’t have enough space to make more and more cool things, and that’s kind of how I got more into paperweights. They can be bigger and bigger and bigger, and you can fit more and more cool things inside of them.”
While Callahan is a designer herself, she couldn’t help but to stare in awe at the pieces being set up around her.
“[It’s] all made out of glass, and you can’t believe that they’re made out of glass. There’s flowers that you swore you could’ve picked off the ground and they’re amazing,” Callahan said. “They’re like little worlds unto their own. So you can kind of make your own little galaxy, universe, whatever you want inside of just this little orb.”
The art of the paperweight dates back to the mid 1800s with makers in Europe and America refining the technique of encapsulating sculpted glass flowers and millefiori cane work in clear solid crystal.
While many current artists have elevated the craft, some collectors and dealers like Tad McKeon of Tennessee prefer the classics – the antiques.
“What caught my attention was the detail in something that was created almost 200 years ago. They’ve learned a lot over the past couple years, but for a very finite time in history this was a very popular art form,” McKeon said. “It’s an art form that I don’t think a lot of people appreciate, they tend to like the newer, glitzier stuff. Antique paperweights are not always made perfect, but it’d be hard to find an artist today that will release anything that’s not perfect.”
While the first few days of the convention will be exclusively for members, Saturday is open to the public. That’s a day everyone in the glass paperweight community is excited to see.
“Most people don’t really have the opportunity to see the art of the paperweight at this level. They’re used to what they see in the antique shop down the street,” Jump said. “To be able to sit with somebody who has never seen it and be able to explain the process and what exactly they’re looking at, it’s absolutely a pleasure to be able to watch those on those eyes light up.”
“It’s a whole lot easier to have something in front of you and being able to show it, instead of trying to talk about it in the third person,” McKeon said.
The Paperweight Collectors Association, Inc. (PCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to appreciating and collecting glass paperweights. For over a half century, PCA has championed the study and collecting of antique, vintage, and contemporary glass paperweights. The mission of the PCA is to promote education: to increase knowledge about paperweights, their creators, and the astounding glass medium from which they are created.
In conjunction with the Convention the PCA has partnered with the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass and the Paine Art Center who are hosting two temporary exhibitions. The BMMOG will be showcasing a collection of paperweights and related glass art from PCA registered artists (Feb. 1 – May 21). The Paine is hosting an exhibition of antique and contemporary glass art paperweights on loan from the BMMOG and from the local private collection of Rosann Baum Milius.
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