Dennis & Robyn Bivona started collecting glass about 21 years ago.
"We met Randi at an art show in New Jersey called Peter’s Valley, the very first piece we bought was Sahara Flat. We rode up to the show that day on our motorcycle and we took the piece home in the saddlebag, all wrapped up.
Then she invited us to the Architectural Digest shows at the pier in New York City, and we bought a few more pieces.
We also got to visit her studio in Vermont, on a day when she was making repairs to the furnace.
She’s making us another piece called Dancer, which will bring our collection up to twelve pieces.
We have two of her perfume bottles from when she used to make them, and a hanging plant holder that’s similar to Red Lacquer that’s a smaller piece of hers that she doesn't make anymore.
I just knew her work was for me, it's kind of like, if you’re a home buyer and you walk into a few houses and you go, “eh” and then you finally walk into a house and go “I can see myself here” its like that, you just know its for you when you see her pieces.
We also really like Randi and supporting her work.
Its hard to pick a favorite piece, they’re like children, you just love them all. When we found Sahara Flat, there was no debate, we were like, this is ours, let’s get it.
One of Robyn’s favorites if she had to choose is Mykonos. We’re originally from New Jersey and we moved to Sarasota five years ago. The pieces that we have work so well with the decor in our home, we love displaying them and enjoy having them in our space.
Our house back in NJ was a tudor style house and every day that you drove back to the property, you’d look at these pieces and say wow, this is really pretty. It makes you feel good.
We like to support artists like Randi, hers is the first piece of art glass that we’ve collected, we have three pieces that aren’t hers but we really prefer her work.
We’re already thinking about adding a Lapis to our collection after Dancer since we’re still working on decorating our townhouse. When we re-do our fourth floor and get it to where we need to be, there will be space for one of the other pieces we had our eye on.
We also really love supporting women artists and think its really special that her work is found in nine US Embassies, the White House, and the MET in NYC."