Well, here I am, snowed in at a KOA in Cedar City, Utah. I shoveled a foot or more away from my doorstep this morning. The snow I have here and the snow at home in Montrose is what’s keeping me from coming home. I’m pulling our new travel trailer and just don’t want to deal with the snowy roads, etc. I think there’s supposed to be a break in the weather tomorrow (Tuesday) so I may make a run for it. Speaking of our new trailer, it is a 27 foot 4 season Arctic Fox bumper pull travel railer with a slide out. I am very comfortable hanging out in it. No problem.

So what am I doing out and about? Here, get a cup and sit down. As you may know I do some gold lettering on glass. That’s 23kt gold leaf laid by hand on the reverse (back) of glass. If you are of age you might remember back in the day when the professionals and banks had their names gilded in gold on their office doors and windows, as well as decorative bar mirrors, etc. Every year there is a gathering of glass gilders, who by invitation, get together in California to share tricks, special techniques and tips and…socialize, you know, tip a few to each others health and that sort of thing. We each get a project panel to do, a glass panel with a commemorative design on it for that year. Everybody finishes it differently. Much of the three days of the event is spent seeing what each other is doing. If you see something that a gilder is doing on part of his panel and you are curious, just ask. Everybody is happy to share the information they have learned or picked up from someone else. That’s the whole purpose of the event. This, as well as the last couple of years, the Conclave was held in Bakersfield, California. It is likely this will be the home for future Conclaves as well. Dean Ross and John Studden were the hosts. The shop where the Conclave is held is Dean’s place and the home of the Esoteric Gold Company.

This is last years panel. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend last year. I thought this was a really great colorful one, patterned after an orange crate label. I can’t show you this years panel because there wasn’t a finished one when I left. I’ll post mine when I get it done.

There were something like 30 or 40 guys and gals there, although the guys fairly outnumbered the women. All experience levels were represented, from newbies to masters. The walls of the shop where this is held is adorned with past projects and samples of various designs and techniques, some old and some new. Many were done by early masters in the craft. Many of the current day masters were in attendance.

This years Conclave was held in honor of Rick Glawson who held the first one in 1985 in his shop in Southern California. Rick has been herald as the modern day father of the craft. He devoted his life to learning about gilding gold on glass and the various embellishments used to decorate it. There was little in the way of printed material available at the time and certainly no internet. Rick got the idea to hold a meeting to share this information with those who were interested and that’s how it all started. Unfortunately Rick died at an early age but his legacy has carried forward.

In this year’s Conclave, we were treated to a presentation by the grandson of the founder of the W&B Gold Company in Chicago who gave us the low down on how gold leaf is made. Since that’s who I get my gold from I found it to be very informative, and pertinent. If you’d like to know more, stop by, send me a note, or comment here and I’ll fill you in the best I can. If I can’t answer the question, I know others who can and I’ll point you in the right direction.. In the meantime, I guess I’ll go out and shovel a little in preparation for my escape tomorrow.