Visit to New Territory Art Association in Benton Harbor!

The Friday after Thanksgiving I went on a little field trip with my elderly parents and my brother Tom, who was in town from DC for the holiday. I took them to the Art Hop in the Benton Harbor Arts District, and that turned out to be a very good choice of things to do.

We visited the Water Street Glassworks, a public access school for the study of glass arts owned by Kathy and Jerry Catania, and it is just amazing. Not only do they have a really wonderful shop in the front, and the attached Vesuvius Gallery, but they have a catwalk where you can actually stand and watch glass artists blow and work with glass in the four or five furnaces. My father said "What are we doing here again"?

There were so many things I wanted to buy! They sell work that their students have done, and have vases, bowls, paperweights and all kinds of other things for sale. I think I'm going back for this stunning clear glass bowl with yellow ribbons of color throughout. The Krasl is in cohoots with the Water Street Glassworks and offers a discount to all Krasl members.

We visited the Benton Harbor Gallery of Fine Art owned by Carl Brecht, and that is a really wonderful place, too. I did not make it to the Richard Vance Gallery, nor the Richard Hunt Studio Center, which displays the work of famous sculptor Richard Hunt. Next time! And then I may hit "the Livery" too, a popular microbrewery-restaurant nearby.

Tomorrow I visit the Detroit Institute of Arts—very exciting!