About

Randi F. Solin, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director

Founder, sole owner and president of Solinglass, Solin has twenty years of glassblowing experience, and twelve years experience owning and operating her glassblowing studio. Her work is featured among the permanent collections of the White House; the United States Embassies in Algeria and Guinea, The St. Petersburg Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, and has been exhibited in solo and group shows in museums and galleries across the country. She has won several arts festival awards in the United States, including two Best in Show awards and two Best of Glass awards.

Solin holds a minor in Education and taught at San Jose Sate University for 18 months. Later she worked at Cedarpoint, Ohio, a large-scale amusement park where she blew glass for the public to large crowds. She educated audiences about the entire process of glassblowing, and sold what she made during those demonstrations at an adjacent gallery.

Solin was one of the first artist tenants at the Cotton Mill in Brattleboro, Vermont. She has been both a pioneer as well as a model for the vision of the incubator space, using the favorable rent and overhead costs as a springboard to expand her business and create livable wage jobs. In 1999, she founded the Cotton Mill Open Studio Tour, which has grown into a hugely successful winter event for Cotton Mill tenants, as well as a much anticipated shopping and learning event for local families, tourists, and the greater Brattleboro community.

Natalie Blake, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director

Founder and sole owner of Natalie Blake Studios, Blake has worked in clay for 20 years and owned her business for thirteen years. Her work is in the permanent collections of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art and the Wheaton Museum, as well as several private collections. She has won several awards from national arts competitions and fine craft shows including Best In Show, Best in Ceramics, and Purchase Awards.

Her work is exhibited in galleries across the country, as well as in New Zealand, London and the Caribbean. Her work is continually growing and evolving: currently she is creating a new line of wall sculpture that will be featured at the Architectural Design Show in New York City and marketed to a growing list of collectors, clients and galleries who follow her work.

Natalie has led workshops and conducted private tutoring sessions for ceramics students of all ages and experience. Selected as Artist of the Year by the St Louis Board of Education, she created a commissioned work, recorded a biographical video, and authored a lesson plan for a tile project to be implemented by teachers in the St Louis area.