I wish you a very warm welcome to Glass Tales and to my website.  My 'home page' will be an amalgam of information, including what I've been up to recently, with thoughts and wishes for the future.

Everything you will see during your travels around this site has been designed and made by me, Joanne Rohrer.  Where I have used another artist's materials (e.g. handmade lampwork beads in some of my jewellery), acknowledgement is given.  I have the huge pleasure of knowing some wonderful people in this world and wish to spread the word about their fantastic skills and products whenever I can!

I have a short break from bead fairs, at least until the end of May and my next focus is Surrey Artists Open Studios (SAOS), which will be upon us before we know it!  (I'm setting up a separate page about this, so will include all details there.)  The Beadwork Fair on 13th April in Malvern was, once again, a great event and another chance to meet friends and new customers.  If these events sound like one huge party, then I'm putting across the right atmosphere.  My favourite lampworker was there under the guise of Sharon Reynolds - smiling as always and displaying some absolutely beautiful pieces.  Being close to Wales, I met quite a lot of people who had been taught by one of my other dearest lampwork friends, Ray Skene.  It was such a pleasure to chat to them and share my own experiences at the torch.  This lampwork lark really is an obsession.  I think that the highlight of the day was meeting a most gorgeous lady called George, along with her equally adorable daughter.  George has bought beads from my ebay shop in the past and we wrote the odd email to one another.  It's funny, but when you meet some people, things just fall into perfect place and this was one of those moments for me...

Of course, we made time to visit some of the other stands there.  My mum, who is my right-hand lady at all of my bead fairs, is a fantastic knitter and crocheter (is that a proper word?).  She's caught some sort of a new bug, which means that she's endeavouring to turn her creative hand to wire knitting and crocheting.  So, we've been buying seed beads, wire and threads in order for her to practise.  This could be a perfect setting for some of my lampwork beads!  My dream would be to sell jewellery which has been a joint enterprise of our two skills - wouldn't that be cute?

I've got my work cut out for me over the next few weeks, getting my studio ready for SAOS and hopefully an abundance of visitors keen to experience the craft of lampworking.   I can't wait!  If you have any questions at all in the meantime, please do not hesitate to drop me a line by email - I'd love to hear from you :-)

Last updated: Wednesday 30th April 2008