Xpo Press Show Profile

Colors of the Stone with To Bead True Blue is the only major Tucson Show that primarily promotes artisan handcrafted gemstones, jewelry, and bead design. It is hosted twice a year, in the months of February & September, at Casino Del Sol Resort & Convention Center. The eight-day Winter event hosts attendees who come from across the U.S. and over 38 countries and include designers, art curators, jewelry artists, tradespeople, and a growing artisan community.

 

The show schedule includes Tucson Artisan Workshops -- handcraft and design classes, which give anyone so inclined an exceptional opportunity to learn from artisans-in-residence, who are people who actually cut and polish gems, make beads, design jewelry, and art clothing. These handcraft workshops focus attention back on the artisan tools and hands-on skills that have been overlooked in favor of mass production. Workshops are offered at all skill levels in subjects like bead making, jewelry design, wirework, art metal clay, hand-knotting, enameling, crystal-setting, mixed media, stone-setting, chain maille, bronze clay, photography, macramé, micro chasing, leatherwork, kumihimo, and marbled glass necklace.

 

The exhibitor list is an assemblage of selected artists, artisans, and tradespeople who work out of independent studios, ateliers, and workshops. Each exhibitor is carefully juried for their outstanding artistic ability, exceptional design, and singularity of work, and asked to exhibit as the result of this creative review. Exhibitors must be loyal to traditional techniques, handcraft skills, natural colors, and sustainable materials.

The products offered at Colors of the Stone with To Bead True Blue must reflect this loyalty to authenticity, and getting the most out of materials, while exuding innovative, brilliant, artisan design and originality. Each individual work in this vast range, from bold eclectic stone pieces to classic handmade gold earrings, artisan beads to antique trade beads, silk painting to fine art canvas painting, fused glass jewelry to found object jewelry --is an original work of art.

 

Casino Del Sol is Tucson’s premier luxury resort, with the largest Convention Center in Tucson, over 75,000 ft² of showroom space --enough for 1,000 exhibits, galleries, and workshops. It is an architectural gem, modeled after a late 19th-century Tuscan village, and nestled in the beautiful Sonoran Desert, minutes from downtown Tucson and Tucson International Airport.