• Receive the annual PCA, Inc. Bulletin. It is a hardback publication with special paperweight articles and beautiful color illustrations of antique and modern paperweights and paperweight objects. It is one of the definitive publications in the field and is itself a collector's item.
  
  
• Receive four newsletters per year, each containing a calendar of events, and news about developments in paperweight making and collecting and news about regional paperweight collecting associations. There is also a classified ad section for both the purchase and sale of paperweights and publications by dealers and collectors.
  
  
• Being able to attend the bi-annual conventions. These conventions bring together the collectors, dealers, and experts who provide identification clinics, workshops, and tutorials on various aspects of the hobby. They are often held in proximity to a world-class collection or are the motivation to assemble a once in a lifetime world-class collection.
  
  
• But most of all, it can help you connect with others with similar interest in collecting antique, vintage, and contemporary glass paperweights.

PAPERWEIGHTS:

Paperweights evolved from the functional to the beautiful during the early part of the industrial revolution. As the economic engines of commerce began to generate bills, letters, and other business paper something had to be provided to hold them down during the breezes that were common when offices had windows and air was allowed to waft through the workplace. Early paperweights were simple, functional items of metal or glass. By the 1840s, a whole industry emerged in France that would transform the simple paperweight into a glorious work of art for every desktop.

The French glass factories of the 1840s stood on the shoulders of the Italian glass workers of Murano (Venice) who continued the artistic traditions of ancient Rome. While the Italians utilized and retained many of the ancient processes, the French were the first to capitalize on the optical characteristics of glass. They enclosed their decorations motifs within glass spheres and made the magnification part of the total effect. Their paperweights of the late 1840s stand as the artistic pinnacle of the classic period. The Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851 showcased the French and German/Bohemian paperweights and they were subsequently emulated and 'improved' by the glass houses in the United Kingdom and slightly later in the United States.

Paperweights of interest to current collectors can be divided three periods:

• The Classic Period
• The Folk Art and Advertising Period
• The Contemporary Period

The Classic period starts in the 1840s and runs through the 1880s and was centered in France (Clichy, St Louis, Baccarat, and Pantin), England (Walsh-Walsh, Bacchus, and others), and then America (Boston & Sandwich, New England Glass Company, and Pairpoint).

The Folk Art and Advertising period began in the 1880s and continued into World War II. Some of the most original American contributions to paperweights were made in Millville New Jersey, including the crimp rose and the frit weights (decoration made with powdered glass). This period saw the decline of the major glass factories (as mechanization changed how glass was made) but saw the advent of small, family-run glass factories that continued paperweight making.

The Contemporary period started after World War II when Charles Kaziun almost single-handedly reinvented the processes and mechanisms used to create the classic paperweights and introduced the "studio glass" artist - an artist effectively works alone in a studio to create glass paperweights and other glass objects using the techniques first popularized by the classic period.

ARTIST OF THE MONTH:
CRAIG DEACONS

click image for enlargement		click image for enlargement

Craig Deacons has lived around a glass studio since he was born. From a very early age, he used to enjoy helping his Dad (John Deacons) with tasks like pulling canes and passing punties. When he left school, Craig became a full time assistant in the glass studio and he made his first solo paperweight when he was 17. Craig described it as "a rubbishy wee thing, it really was; more embarrassing than anything. But you've got to start somewhere". In the thirteen years since those days, Craig's skills have come a long way.

Working in a small workshop gave Craig the opportunity to learn every aspect of making studio glass paperweights. If he had worked in a factory (Caithness Glass was not far away), Craig feels that he would have been far more limited in the skills he would have learned. "In the workshop, it's hard because I don't just do the one job, I have to do everything, from cutting canes to polishing the finished weights. It's hard to refine every skill because there's a big learning curve. If I went into a factory, I'd just be doing the one job. But I wouldn't be learning anything else but my one job — I wouldn't be learning how to make up the moulds, how to design a cane, and. . . That's one thing about a workshop where everything is on a small scale — you have to do a bit of everything."

The Deacons Glass workshop currently specializes in millefiori work, with a very wide range from concentric miniatures to elaborate carpet ground, and close pack designs with beautiful overlays — sometimes as many as five overlays in one paperweight. Within a day, they might be making two or three different kinds of paperweight — what Craig describes as "chopping and changing all week". This keeps the work interesting and they never get bored.

"People say we are too cheap", Craig confesses but he does not believe this. By keeping their prices low, there is always a ready market for their work, and their less expensive items encourage new entrants to the world of paperweight collecting while their top end items fit into the most fastidious collections.

The Deacons workshop does not keep stock. What they make is sold very quickly, and it is always made to the high standard which can be maintained with a small team. Craig feels confident that, when a person buys one of their paperweights and comes to sell it some ten years later, that they will get a good return on the money they paid.

The Deacons workshop is very much a team effort. Dave Moir (formerly Vasart and Strathearn) and Gordon Taylor (formerly Perthshire Paperweights) work part time at the workshop helping with a whole range of tasks. John's wife, Ann, helps when they are really busy. Craig is responsible for administration as well as his glass-working tasks. Every Friday, he mixes up the batch of ingredients for the next week's glass. John and Craig design and make up the canes, some of which are very complex, and they share the task of designing the paperweights. Craig usually sets up the designs, laying out the pattern of canes in a mold; John applies the hot glass and executes the paperweight; and Craig usually does the finishing (cutting facets and windows, grinding and polishing). This kind of teamwork is very efficient, enabling them to produce a good volume of work for such a small team. And although Craig does have his own CD signature cane, it is rare for him to make a paperweight on his own. He sees himself as one half of the Deacons team.

The paperweight shown here is one of Craig's favourites. Comprised of millefiori rose canes with a porthole and inside another layer of rose canes and another porthole with a flower inside. It took Craig more than two and a half hours to lay down the canes for each layer of this design, typical of the time taken for this kind of paperweight.

Currently the team is focusing solely on millefiori work, but things change all the time at the Deacons hot glass workshop. You can see more of their work on the Deacons Glass Facebook page, and Craig can be contacted at deaconsglass@googlemail.com.