New Terrain Park Manager at Sunday River Ski Resort

Welcome back to the east coast Morgan!

You may notice a few changes to Sunday River's terrain parks: the jump line in Starlight, the whoop-dee-doos in Who-Ville, the smooth layout of Jib Park.  That's all thanks to Morgan Rudd, Sunday River's new Terrain Park Manager.

Morgan grew up just down the road in Lovell Maine, and learned how to snowboard at age 10 here at Sunday River where he was a natural from the start.  After graduating from Gould Academy, where he competed in snowboarding, he spent four years at Sierra Nevada College studying environmental science and working at Northstar at Tahoe on their terrain parks crew.  That's where he found his niche.

At Northstar, Morgan spent seven years doing all things terrain park, from hand staff (setting up rails by hand) to night shift foreman to building and grooming to snowmaking- a lengthy list of resume builders perfectly suited for any future terrain park manager.  Luckily for us, when Sunday River started looking for a new park manager we were able to snag this Jack-of-all Trades and bring him back east.  Why did he choose Sunday River after being offered several jobs at other resorts around the US?

"I came back because I know the area and it's my home," Morgan says.  "It's My Happy Place."

Morgan certainly brings a fresh perspective to sunday River.  His vision fro Sunday River's future is to bring more progressive builds to the resort's current park scene and to make the parks more family friendly, "but still be fun for the top 10 percent of skiers and riders out there," he states.

For Morgan, it's not just about the features. it's all about the snow quality, which starts with snowmaking .  His past experience as a snowmaker gives him the knowledge to process the snow before building anything in order to make the best product possible.  then it's just maintaining the product with groomers.

"Any day you ride in the park, it will be the best snow out there," he says.  "In parks, we don't have the whole mountain to groom so we get to spend that extra time slowly grooming and putting forward solid quality."

So whether you're hitting Who-Ville for the first time, jibbing your way through Jib Park, or flying through the air in Starlight, be sure to thank Morgan and his Park Crew for all the hard work they put into it.

We love that Morgan will have time in the off season to continue his work in pottery.

Pottery by Morgan Rudd,  painting by Carol Novotne, bronze deer by Michael Tatom all available at Harvest Gold Gallery on route 5 in Center Lovell over looking Kezar Lake and the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Mount Washington.

Jacob Stout Fine art glass and the Winter Sun

The winter sun and Jacob's American made hand blown vessels are a wonderful combination.

Using techniques perfected in Venice 500 years ago,  he enjoys applying these skills to modern glass design. All of his work begins  from the raw ingredients, silica, soda and lime, melted at 2500 degrees  into a hot, gooey liquid we know as glass. With a steel blowpipe he is  able to gather the hot glass on the tip and blow a bubble into it. As his assistant blows into the pipe, Jacob sits at a bench and uses steel hand tools to manipulate the bubble of glass into a desired shape. A punty  (solid steel rod) with a small gather of glass on the tip is then stuck on  the bottom of the vessel, and the piece is cracked off the blowpipe.  Once transferred, the top of the piece is finished and tapped off into  an annealing oven to be cooled slowly.

His uses watermelon colors when creating the pair of opposite colored pitchers.  The match of size and color saturation is near perfect. 

Now add his matching bowl.  The variety of textures and color bend the light to dance on the table.

This process of glassblowing is very quick and requires much concentration, practiced technique, and good assistant communication. The study of these techniques inspires his forms and design choices. Smooth curves and transition of lines combine to create the figure of these vessels. Because no molds are used in his work, each piece displays a one-of-a-kind, hand-made appearance.

These are on display at the Harvest Gold Gallery in beautiful downtown Center Lovell, Maine on Kezar Lake overlooking the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Mount Washington.

Museum Quality Master Hot Glass Artists At Harvest Gold Gallery

 Stephen Lundberg was one of the first Hot glass artists we began to collect.  This was years before we ever thought we'd have a Gallery.  Of course, his work looks lovely in the natural light with so many layers of color and clear the vase becomes almost 3-dimensional.

 Charles Lotton.  Yes, that's right The Charles Lotton was one of our first Hot glass artists.  We had such good taste!  His work paved the way for the American Hot glass artists of today.  Shattering the myth that the Europeans were the best glass artists.  Now we carry the next generation in Charles' family.  Several of his family members have become involved in the business Scott Bayless perfumes are beautiful and Jim Heer has the Caliliy perfect in the vase and perfume.

 Orient and Flume's artists use amazing detail in their work.  Each is signed and numbered, highly collectable.  This company is based out of Southern California and has been producing fine quality work for over 20 years.

Watch for more on our Hot Glass Masters.  We have only just begun!

Good Morning moon over Center Lovell Maine setting over Kezar Lake and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Mount Washington is a sliver of reflected sunrise light.