BAGI Auction Raises the Bar

Last night April 18th, the Bay Area Glass Institute in San Jose, California, proudly presented the works of over 100 glass artists in their annual dinner/live auction. Many of the works there went for over the listed "fair market value". A few fetched in excess of $4,000.
Micheal Nourot and Ann Corcoran were the featured speakers just after the silent auction at 6 PM. The Nourots presented a power point on the formative years of the Nourot Glass Studio of Benicia. Afterwards they took questions from the 90 collectors who attended.
Quite a few San Francisco Bay Area glass artists attended as well. In the crowd were Mary B. White and Randy Strong.
The silent portion of the auction offered eight pieces of early Nourot Glass donated by Judy and Jerry Rose. The nicest one was the vertical stripe square cane murrini cylinder by Micheal Nourot.
The BAGI auction was held at 88 Fourth Street in the seventh floor ball room. The dinner was catered by the Fairmont Hotel. Event chair Steven Aldrich said, "I'm really plesed with what we've raised. It's been a good evening." Among the auctioned items were dinner with a visiting artist, lessons in the hot shop or outright donation to the electric furnace fund. The BAGI hot shop wants to go more eco-friendly by going electrical and over $11,500 was raised towards the cost of a new electric furnace. At BAGI they have classes, workshops, studio rentals a gallery and a gift shop. See their site at ww.bagi.org