Today I received pictures from my daughter, Gretchen, of the State Fair of Texas ribbons we all won. What a joy for me to see my family involved in creating art and getting recognition by the Judges in the Creative Arts division.
Avery, who is 5, won a ribbon for her sculpture of a ballerina. Her Pre-K class at her school did a whole series of studying art by the Masters. The ballerina was part of deGaus The Little Ballerina.

Her teacher did a remarkable job of presenting the artists and the kids loved making the statues out of polymer clay on the armature I set up for them. Yes, believe it or not.... the kids did the majority of the art. One little boy's ballerina wore a batman cape when he finished. That's art!

Zachary, age 9, created this little polymer clay guy one day while fooling around in my studio. Then before I know it, he made a skateboard for him.

He had fun and now he has a ribbon too. For 9 years old, he's got a lot of creativity running through those fingers! He is always drawing something. When he's waiting for something, he draws - when he's anxious about things - he draws. Now he's making up his own comic book characters. I'm anxious to see what he comes up with next.

Gretchen, their mom, has been taking great photographs for a long time. She has always had an interest in photography for as long as I can remember. She said she thought her pictures were as good as some she had seen at the State Fair so she sent in this picture and won a ribbon as well. I'm delighted! I wish you could see the picture up close. The art in this picture is how she captured Avery's eyes as she was measuring herself to see if she was tall enough to ride that ride! When Gretchen gets her picture back from the Fair, I'll take a close up shot of why that picture is too cool!

And last - my ribbon for polymer clay work I did. Hope you like seeing the pictures. I'm happy that I've got such a creative family!

Thought I’d show you a little of what I’ve been up to lately. I've just finished a 6 week glass fusing class at the Creative Arts Center here in Dallas. I had so much fun I can’t stand it. My teachers were super! I've diddled around with small jewelry pieces, but never any plates, bowls or platters. I realize I've got a long way to go, but I'm vey happy with my first pieces.

One of the things I liked best was the time we did a Vitrigraph pull. That's Becky Johnson on the left there showing us what to do. A kiln with a hole in the bottom is set up on cinder blocks with a huge metal tub beneath it. Glass was put in a flower pot that also has a hole in the bottom inside the kiln – in this case the glass was a mixture of greens and clear. Anyway after a few hours when the kiln reaches over 1,700° F, the glass wants to fall down through the hole in the bottom. So we took strong tweezers and began slowly pulling it down. We’d stop a second or two and add some decorative bends to the glass and then using Dollar Store scissors, we’d just cut it near the top hole and then gently lay that ‘thread’ down in the metal bucket below. Next we’d go up and grab the next blob of glass with heavy tweezers and begin another pull. This goes on for an hour or so.

We also learned how to make curls on a very long rod that has a hole drilled in one end. You take the glass stringer that is coming down and by “hook or crook” you put the stringer in the hole. After that is in the hole you start turning the rod. This really takes 2 people as the rod is heavy and unwieldy so you really need someone on the other side to steady the rod and support the weight. You slowly move the rod forward as the molten glass curls around the rod. After you are finished, you simply lay the rod down and wait for it to cool so you can break the part through the hole and slip it off of the rod. Very cool stuff. I didn’t get any of the curls, but perhaps next time I will. I’m not very forceful and guess I should be sometimes!










Here is my artistic endeavor with the Vitrigraph pull pieces that I took out of the bucket. There were 6 of us that had to share the pulls.

Here some of my other pieces. I have a couple more that I'll be showing you in a few weeks. They are at the Center being fired.

This is my first platter. It is 10" long. First you build your glass pieces that you cut on a clear fusable glass which you cut to the size of the platter you are going to slump into. The piece needs to be fired. So you wait a week for that to happen, and then put the fired piece on the platter slump mold. Next week you are able to take it home. That waiting is HARD! I have a glass kiln at home, but nothing beats letting somebody else do it for you!







I got a little fun streak going on with this little 6" bowl. I just gathered up all the glass pieces I could find in the "Class Glass" boxes and put them in this piece. It's a little silly looking, but I really like it. I think I will sand the edges flatter and put it back in the kiln to fire polish the edges.

This is a fun little piece that we just tack fused for fun. I did another which I will make into a business card holder.



I still love my metal clay and bronze clays, but boy this glass is a whole lot of fun. . . . er . . . and it can get expensive too. No wonder artists have to charge so much for their platters! I'm learning - I'm learning!!

Today I have good news and bad news to share with you. I always wonder which one should go first, don't you? So I'll share the bad news first so that the sting won't feel so bad afterwards. My favorite Aunt Dotise passed away last week in Missouri. My father's family consisted of one mother and one dad and they had 15 children, 12 of which lived to be adults. Oh and my Grandma lived to be 101 years old. Guess having 15 children doesn't do much to shorten your life span, huh? Anyway, My Aunt Dorothy (we called her Aunt Dotsie) was very beautiful. She and her siblings were raised in St. Louis, and then in her early 20's she went to New York as a fashion designer. She was quite the artist and designer and loved nice things. She decorated her home in an Asian theme. She enjoyed playing classical music on her grand piano in the foyer.

Doug and I now have the gorgeous angels and cherubs that she hand made to replicate the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Christmas tree.


When my sister and I were youngsters, and our mother was in the hospital having one of our brothers or sisters, we got to stay with Aunt Dotsie and her husband, Andy Anderson, for several days at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth. Oh my, could we call Room Service and order up hot rolls and cookies. It was great! Then Dotsie and Andy moved to Dallas where he managed the Adolphus Hotel. Dotsie loved to give parties and socalize.


Anyway, she taught us many things about being a lady - made sure we went to classes so we could learn how to hold our hands and what our feet were supposed to do when we sat down and so forth. We were groomed well!


Complications from smoking caused her to pass away after a couple weeks of medical problems. She was 82. I sure will miss her terribly, but I'll remember her with huge tears in my eyes this Christmas that's for sure when we set up the very special angel tree. I'll post pictures in December so you will know what I'm talking about. What an incredible, artistic, talented lady!


Avery, my granddaughter asked me on the way to the graveside service - if she would be able to see the "Ear-Lies" at the cemetary. When I asked her to explain what she meant by that, she said, "You know the place where they say Here Lies Our Good Friend". I had to stop myself from laughing - Restland Cemetary has no standing headstones, so we walked over to where she could see one laying down in the grass. So she got to see her Ear-Lies after all.


She did very well at the gathering - so maybe a little bit of the real world of life and death was learned in a gentle way by her that day.


...... NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS ........


I got a letter today letting me know that I won two ribbons at The State Fair of Texas! A First Place Ribbon was won for my polymer clay bracelet and pin and a Fourth Place Ribbon for my metal clay necklace. Fourth Place is really good news for sure as there is no "Metal Clay" category at The State Fair. So my work was put with all the metalsmiths in Texas. I fused the dichroic glass and constructed the metal clay base. This piece is also published in the book "Exceptional Works in Metal Clay & Glass" by Mary Ann Devos.

I'm right proud of these new awards. My Aunt Dotsie would be pleased as punch!


NOTE: Apparently I did not take a picture of the polymer clay bracelet and pin, but I'll add them later when I get a picture of them with the ribbon.


Thanks for reading my post today!

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Big sighs of happiness here as I unveil my first bronze pieces. I'm tickled pink (er, uh - - - should I say tickled bronze?) that they turned out well. I had asked my Yahoo List Metal Clay friends what seemed like a gazillion times if the little stainless steel container that I had would work. You see it is small - about 4" tall x 3" in diameter with a VERY TIGHT fitting lid. So after so long, I realized - hey, bronze clay is inexpensive, you WILL get some more soon - just go for it. So I did.



So after all the anticipation I was afraid something bad might happen if I used that little container with no holes or nuttin' on the lid . . . thingofitis . . . nothing bad happened. As a matter of fact I'm happy with the results. Rio Grande somehow lost my order from the convention. I was so upset as I had wanted to wait to play so badly. I was put on back order for the bronze clay, but had my little freebie pack of 30 grams from the convention to play with. Rio did send the coal based carbon which I'm told you can get pretty colors after a few firings of the coal. I did get some colors but they weren't striking - that's ok.

When I opened my package, I felt of it and could see cracking on the edges immediately. So I took the advice of Hadar and put it on a mat that I put olive oil on, then covered it with a plastic bag (that YouTube is great, isn't it?) and then spritzed it with water and glycerine, then rolled it under the plastic bag. Immediately the clay became putty in my hands. It was wonderful to work with. I didn't have any cracks at all. I am not fond of the natural cracked look, but lots of artists love them. Guess I haven't grown up enough to like cracks in my jewelry pieces yet.

I fired my 2 smallish pieces in the little bitty stainless steel container with plenty of coal on the bottom, sides and top. My firing schedule was 300° per hour to 1525°, hold for 3 hours. I set my kiln 25° lower than 1550° because after using Tonya Davidson's (Whole Lotta Whimsey) cone testing kit, I found that my kiln was running hot. Whole process took 7 hours, 50 minutes. Of course, as I drifted off to sleep that night, I wondered if my husband and I would be burned up in our beds as we slept. It's kind of unnerving leaving an appliance on for 3 hours upstairs in my Studio at 1,525°. Yikes!

When I awoke the next morning (couldn't sleep - it was like Christmas morning) much to my surprise and relief, we didn't burn up in the night after all. I got out of bed, crept up the stairs (well this is definitely NOT like Christmas 'cause kids generally go DOWN the stairs on Christmas morning, but you get the idea). The temperature readout on the kiln said 325° inside. I opened the kiln door so it would cool faster, got the BBQ pinchers and put that hot baby container on a kiln shelf to cool down some more. In about 20 minutes, it was cool enough to touch, so I grabbed a brown grocery bag and dumped the contents out, then went on a fishing expidition. Now that I think of it, I guess paper wasn't the best thing to pour it out on ... ugh. OK, well no harm done. Next time I'll get a pan.

I did not tumble my pieces, nor scratch brush them, but I did use the burnisher on both of them. For the fern pendant I painted on some thinned out Black Max and then wiped it dry. After drying I sanded it a bit with wet/dry 400 grit sandpaper.

All in all, I'm pleased as punch. Hopefully the rest of my order will be here soon! I sure wish you could see the sparkle on this piece.

Any comments you have would be appreciated. Good or helpful. Thanks for looking.

I entered the conference 'diary' just as it happened chronoicaly. However after it was published here, it got a bit mixed up. I do not know how to rearrange the postings, so to read it start at the bottom. ;D

My family birthday party was great in that I share a celebration with my granddaughter, Jacinda. Her step-mom (our daughter, Ginger) and her dad, Rick held the party for the birthday ladies at their home.

Jacinda turned 11 one day after I turned ... er, well suffice to say I have 6 grandchildren. !!! I've inherited 4 so I'm not THAT old!!

When our family gets together to celebrate holidays or birthdays - there are 15 of us. What fun as everybody chips in with a dish of some kind of good food and the children have a blast playing with their cousins. This always warms my heart. I'm in love with my family, can you tell?

I asked if one of my presents could be a picture of the grandchildren. And as my friend, Cindylynne gave me the mermaid at the conference in Lafayette Indiana, I knew the little mermaid *had* to come to THIS birthday party too. So you see her in the picture below.

With M representing parents Joe & Caryn M and

with R representing parents Rick & Ginger R

with A representing parents Bill & Gretchen A

- here are the names that go with the picture.

Back Row: Sara M holding the starfish to her cheek, Rachel M with the mermaid, Jacinda R and Zachary A.

Front Row: Avery A sitting cross-legged and Anthony M with knee up.

We ate hot dogs, hamburgers on the grill, cucumber salad and chips and hamburger/Rotel/ Velveeta dip with mac 'n cheese and baked beans. The guys sat around the grill drinking a beer making sure the grill worked ok - took all 5 of them to do it. Doug, my husband, Greg our son, and the 3 dads, Joe, Rick and Bill. I love it!

I handed my digital camera to Avery (5 yrs) and told her to go take some pictures ... well, unbeknownst (is that a word?) to me - she started out with a picture of my rear end. Little bugger! Notice I didn't post that picture to the blog.

Then she took a picture of her dad's face up his nostrils while he was holding her and on she went. I saw a picture of a pink icing cookie on the camera card when I got home too. What a photographer! Zachary (11 yrs) took a picture of Avery eating the infamous pink cookie and his Dad with a beer. Silly kids.

Fun birthday. Wish all of my friends had been there too!

Ya'll come next time, ya hear?

* * * * * THREE - THE END * * * * *

The saga continutes . . . .

SATURDAY (7/19/08)
7:00 – 8:00 Breakfast, Earhart Hall
I already told you I wasn’t doing THAT again… ate a scrumptious breakfast ($10, it ought to be, right?) at the Holiday Inn. Cindylynne asked to PLEASE let her sleep as she wanted to sleep on…. It was ok by me, this is a fun trip after all. I took the free Trolly from hotel to Purdue – arrived in time for last half of Tim McCreight’s Session. Trolly takes a bit longer to arrive then if we had driven over and parked in the school’s garage.

9:00 – 10:00 Tim McCreight Session - He gave a great talk about design and how it has been used through the ages.

10:00 – 11:00 Jabbered away in the hallway and went to talk to the Vendors again

11:00 – 12:00 Seminars, we had our choice of:
Vera Lightstone, “Expressive Faces & Hands”
Ed & Martha Biggers, “Techniques for Glass”
Hattie Sanderson, “Developing the Artist Within”

I picked Hattie’s as I had seen the others and also wanted to be sure to keep one of the best for last. Kinda like eating the desserts after your meal… Oh boy was I ever thrilled. I guess Hattie is now one of my favorite teachers in the Whole Wide World. She is a born speaker, teacher and leader. Her art is exciting. For the first time -ever- I understood more about mental exercises to jump start creativity. Golly. She gave ideas on how to do this as a group as well. From how to use your sketch book to the steps to really making a piece right step-by-step from idea to finished piece, she told it all to us. Alas, again no stinkin’ handout. I can’t write that fast, people…. So disappointing. But I got a lot written down, and she did offer for us to come up and run through the slides again, but I had no time as I needed to be somewhere else at 12:30…. Sharp!


12:30 – 12:50 My special 1-2-1 Interview with Don Fredlich.
At registration we were given the opportunity to sign up for 20 minutes with a Guru. Since I had a booth selling my Personalized Name Stamps from 1:30 – 3:30, I needed an early time if could even do this at all. I was happy to get Don Fredlich, our featured speaker for the convention. He is former President of SNAG and has done fantastic art pieces as well. http://web.mac.com/friedlich/iWeb/www.dfriedlich.com/Welcome.html

OK, I’m a woos I know it now. I love to make art – people are buying my pieces so others must like what I do - yet I can’t seem to get the intestinal fortitude I need to get my Portfolio together and approach a real life Gallery. Yes, I have some fused glass pieces at a new gallery in a small town here in Texas and I’ve had my things in Cindylynne’s store, Blue Coyote Jewelry, but that’s not what I’m talking about. After talking to me and looking at some of my pieces, Don told me, some artists either do one or the other - - - “Ready, Aim, Fire” and others - “Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim - - - - - “ get the picture? He said it was time for me to “Fire”. He also advised that I get some help with the Name Stamps as it is taking up WAAAAY too much time giving everyone so many selections. No wonder nobody was offering these name stamps for sale before now. :-D They are a lot of work.

1:30 – 3:30 Show ‘ Sell on 3rd Floor of the Stewart Building
Yes, you’re right, I wasn’t able to eat lunch. Aaarugh, should have brought some peanut butter crackers, but just didn’t know where to get them.

This was probably the most fun I’ve had in a very long while. I have always loved the part of my former life which included working a booth. I am a Certified Professional Demonstrator (CPD) and Certified Professional Teacher (CPT) with CHA, Craft and Hobby Association when I was a rubber stamp artist. I loved the travel and the teaching of ink and paper arts. I felt like I was at a wholesale convention once again…. It was also delightful to meet many of the people that I’ve sold a name stamp to – putting a name with a face was great! AND I met many, many, many more who were interested in having one of my little bitty stamps. Downside: the lighting where I was located was so bad nobody could see much. We moved the table, but it didn’t help much. Also I never got to see anyone else’s things. Bummer. I had wanted to see too. Oh well, I’ll plan better next time somehow. Maybe I’ll get someone to relieve me for 20 minutes or so. I printed up 150 flyers and didn’t have enough for everyone – how cool is that? I put away my booth and made it back in time for the Charms For Charity drawings at 4:00.

4:00 – 4:50 Charms For Charity
What a great outpouring of love, compassion and coming together! Holly Gage, Carol Hamilton, Sarah Triton and many, many others really gave it their all. This all started with an idea that Sarah had to honor our deceased friend, Robin Whittemore who passed away. Robin wasn’t able to go to a conference because she was headed for more chemo treatments – she really wanted to go so badly. The picture on your left is of Robin. http://www.fightforherlife.org/ so I told her I’d exchange with her – she agreed and said she could do a few more. I asked her who, she told me 5 more names and then everyone sent to me and I sent them all out. I had some of my jewelry published in “Bead Trends” magazine in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue, so I asked the publisher http://beadtrendsmag.com/beadtrends.html if they’d like this story. They did and it is now published in there. I know many of you have more stories of Robin, but the drawing of the hand-made with love bracelets with the funds going to The Morrow Foundation and The American Cancer Society is extra special to me and now you know why.

The picture of the lady in the funny hat is of Sarah Triton. Since she lives in Florida I guess the lobster hat really suits her!! LOL


4:50 – 5:05 LAST Vendor Shopping – not much time at all!!
I went like wildfire to finish up my shopping for the BronzClay with Rio Grande as well as get some leaded enamels from Schlaifer Enamels.
Some Vendor new things I saw and LOVED - - - PMC Supply has a great new item. “Hatties maglettes” A great way to make your own silver magnetic catches. No, really – I’m not kidding! Go see what I mean: http://www.pmcsupply.com/maglettes


And I bought one of the Ring Makers from Earl Roberts at the PMC Connection. This is a Japanese way to make a ring with their system. I can’t explain it, but go to http://www.pmcconnection.com/ . They will have them available to sell after August 11.

5:30 – 6:30 Cocktail Party
Very cool – very nice. You could purchase a cocktail or get a free Coca-Cola or 7-Up type drink. I ate cheese and carrots and food never tasted so good. Yum. I talked a lot with so many great people, one of which was Vera Kaminski of West Grove, Pennsylvania. Her charm fascinated me. She took U.S. Mint shredded paper currency and copper, gold plated copper and metal clay nuggets and formed the charm. But wait! She also crocheted the bead with shredded bills using only ten dollar bills from the 60’s and 70’s. Her “cash pearl” beads used 20 strips from the same area of the bill. Good grief! What a brilliant, lovely lady – I loved talking to her. And I love having one of her fabulous beads.

We took a minute to grab a picture with the famous Tim McCreight. What a great guy!

5:30 – 8:00 Dinner, Earhart Hall
Not for me, thank you. I ate cheese, celery and grapes and enjoyed talking and talking until it was time to leave at 7:00.

9:00 pm – Cindylynne and I ordered room service and had a delicious meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and fresh snapped green beans. Unfortunately it was too late to eat that much so I really wished I could take the other half home – but I could not. I just enjoyed myself anyway. Cindylynne and I talked about our family when we were growing up and had a most excellent time really getting to know each other. We have a lot-lot-lot of similarities unbeknownst to us before.

SUNDAY (7/20/08)
7:00 – 8:30 Breakfast, Earhart Hall
I had a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich and coffee – Cindylynne opted for Chi Latte at Starbucks.

9:00 – 10:30 Closing Observations / Critique
A very good time for people to share their feelings (if they were brave enough to do so) and many positive thoughts and feelings were said. Tim had a panel of gurus to share their feelings about how the conference went, then opened it up for the rest of us. I tell you, some people really wax eloquent. I am simply unable to do that. However, I enjoyed hearing all of what was said. There were some great ideas for 2010 shared.

10:30 kisses and hugs all around.

BUT WAIT!!! There’s more …

11:00 to about 2:00 we saw many of the attendees at Von’s Beads and Comics Shop. I learned how to use a long hook to get beads down from way, way up high on the wall. I bought some rectangular lava beads and some pink coral as well as some souvenirs for my 6 grandchildren. I like that store a lot.

CL and I had dinner at Steak ‘n Shake then spent the rest of the day packing up in the hotel room and enjoying the peace and quiet. If I remember right, she took a nap and I caught up on my e-mails. What a lot of you don’t know (hopefully I can share this) is that just a few weeks ago Cindylynne suffered a series of strokes and really NEEDS to take frequent naps to regain her strength. She is fine as long as she takes care of herself and when her body says rest, she does.


MONDAY (7/21/08)
Ate breakfast at IHOP, and then drove to the airport which was a 1-1/2 hour drive or so. Cindylynne rented a little red convertible, but for the life of us we couldn’t figure out how to get the dang top down. Oh well, she flipped her eyelids at the Budget Rent A Car guy and he upgraded her rental to this car so she didn’t have to pay extra for it being a convertible. And –yes- we did read the book on how to do it, but we just couldn’t. Bummer.

At the Indianapolis Airport, we checked baggage, and then sat around and people watched. Bought t-shirts that say PURDUE and I’ll embroider BFA on the sleeve. Remember? “Best Friends Always”. I do digitizing of corporate embroidery logos for my real job so I can do this easily.

Her trip started at 2:30ish and she was home at D/FW airport by 4:00ish - non-stop. Not me. I took the red-eye, around the world route for a less expensive ticket. I went to Minneapolis (hey, wrong way!!!) and then 3 hour layover there, then on to D/FW. I arrived at D/FW at 10:00 pm. Ugh… well, I would do it all over again I loved my trip to much!

Thank you Tim McCreight, Jeannette Landenwitch, Cindylynne Brazzel and all the others who made this possible for me. You all rock!!

Time to end this saga. Good day and, good night to all.

* * * * * TWO * * * * *

Here’s the next chapter of my great Purdue PMC Conference experience.

THURS (7/17/08)
I forgot to mention – how could I forget this? - - - - but Cindylynne and Cherry Delaney got together and got me a very special birthday cake that I had fun passing out on Thursday night too. Chocolate cake with vanilla icing and “Happy Birthday, Babette” in pink icing. Pam East told me that she couldn’t eat the cake, but if I had a rose – she’d love it. I knew she was just kidding, but I cut a rose off of the top of the cake and put it on a plate – I never really knew if she ate it or not. No matter, we were all just having a whole lot of fun. Pictures will be in the Metal Clay Gallery soon. I’ll put a link to them later on today.

FRIDAY (7/18/08)
Sadly, the two foot tall mermaid had to stay home. She was great to help me celebrate, but the birthday was over. However, fun at the convention just kept going and going and going.
7:00 - 8:30am Breakfast at Earhart Hall ß I didn’t go, but opted for breakfast at our Holiday Inn. I was famished!

9:00 – 10:00 Chris Darway and Barbara Becker Simon Session – they talked about design, the good, bad and the ugly…. It was hilarious!

11:00 – 12:00 Seminars – we had our choice of:
Tonya Davidson, “Art of Marketing”
Bill & Lacey Struve, “Intro to Bronze Clay”
Petra Slinkard, “History of Accessories”

They repeated a lot of these Seminars in order to give everyone a choice as well as the ability to see/hear them all. I chose Bill Struve’s “Intro to Bronze Clay”. What can I say? His wife, Lacy, warned us he’d be talking a lot about Chemistry as that is his profession (along with a multitude of other doctorate type things)… and she was right. Anyhoo, it was fascinating to learn so much about this new ‘mystery clay’. I have a 30 oz sample from Rio Grande (thank you Rio!!) and will be playing soon. I know I’m going to absolutely – positively – adore this new medium. HOWEVER, I’m not a “that crack is okay” kind of artist so I’ll be best to withhold my judgment. If you like smooth like I do, then I’d better learn how to smooth this clay. :D My North Texas area friends are all chomping at the bit to find out about this new BronzClay so I’d better get with it and make something quick!

To work with the bronze clay, you form your item (quickly - as this clay dries out much faster than the fine silver clay) sinter the clay in your jewelry kiln - takes as long as ceramic to fire - up to nine hours. It must be covered on the bottom - sides - and top with carbon. There are two types of carbon to use: acid-washed, coal based carbon which gives great colors and patinas - the other is a coconut shell based carbon that after firing leaves gives you the rich natural bronze clay that is so gorgeous. I've included a picture of a firing container (can you say restaurant supply?) with some carbon.



Ajike Doherty from England made these colored bronze pieces on her first try in a pre-conference class.





12:00 – 1:30 Lunch, Earhart Hall

They had shuttle buses that would pick you up and take you across campus to the Student’s Cafeteria. I wasn’t fond of this shuttle ride and didn’t care for the food (everybody else I talked to loved it … I think I was just tired or something) ……. So I usually went without food. I only ate there once. Waste of money I know… but I’m giving you my actual experience at the convention. I’m odd man out on this I’m sure. I’m ok with that.

2:00 – 3:00 Seminars – we had our choice of:
Robert Dancik, “Those Who Can Do More, Teach”
Ed & Martha Biggers, “Techniques For Glass”
Hattie Sanderson, “Developing The Artist Within”

I chose the glass Seminar so that I could see if I might find out something more about inclusions. They actually didn’t cover this too much, but I did see examples of Freeze ‘n Fuse glass pieces and also how to use the CMC (carboxy methyl cellulose) with glass. I watched as Ed used the power vibe from http://www.bearfootart.com/ really cool to make lines on the glass with powder. Martha explained the Dichro Slide for us as well as Faux Opal and much, much more. It was great! They make a wonderful team. Plus they had a great handout for us unlike the other Seminars I went to previously. I loved that part. Surprise! Surprise! A handout. BIG THANKS.

3:00 – 4:00 – a quick rush to “The Union” building to look at Vendor things and bought stuff.

4:00 – 5:00 Seminars – we had our choice of:
Vera Lightstone, “Expressive Faces & Hands”
Bill & Lacy Struve, “Into Intro Bronze Clay”
Petra Slinkard, “History of Accessories”

I loved the Seminar by Vera Lightstone. She is quite a talented artist and has sculpting down pat. She threw a huge russet piece of clay down hard on the worksurface, wadded up some newspaper, slipped it under the clay and began gouging out eyes and poking out the embouchure for the lips. It was fascinating to watch. I’ve done lots of sculpting with polymer clay and so I enjoyed this immensely. Later she rolled coils (or snakes as we say it) and sculpted a hand. There was lots of laughter as she played with different ideas of how you could shape the hand and what it would say to you. I’ll let your imagination take hold here! She’s a hoot and kept us in stitches almost the entire time. I just love her so much!

5:30 – 7:00 Picnic Dinner outside of Stewart Center
The white tents were set up and food was being put on plates fast as anything. I ate a pulled pork sandwich as well as … uh, I forgot. Reason? I spent most of my time talking to Jeanette Landenwitch, Terry Kovalcik, Kelly Russell, Barbara Becker Simon and Celie Fago getting autographs in books I brought along. I could kick myself for not getting Jennifer Kahn’s when she was right there. Well, double duh.

It was time to go help put charms on bracelets back at “The Union” so several of us left – didn’t see the spoon torch relay. That’s ok, I think our help was really needed more elsewhere.

8:00 pm or so, we gave up and went back to the room tired and happy once again. Good friends are a real treasure in life, and I’m glad I made so many. Gosh it’s good therapy for ails ya!

* * * * * ONE - BEGIN HERE * * * * *

The PMC Connection held a great gathering of gurus at Perdue University in July this year. I'm just now adding my diary of sorts with pictures to my blog. The Conference was so busy and yet full of good times with new friends and re-visiting with 'old' friends. I am such a people person - guess I never really realized it that much but I sure am. No wonder I can never get any shopping done at gem shows or other conventions - I talk too much! It's all good. Maybe you'd enjoy re-living my experience.

WEDNESDAY (7/16/08)
Awoke at 3:00am to be able to leave our house at 4:00am to drive to Dallas/Ft Worth airport. Plane left at 6:20am. Had a 45 minute layover in Memphis, Tennessee. Arrived at Indianapolis Indiana airport at 11:00am. Time change added an hour. Took the Lafayette Limo ($27.00) to West Lafayette, Indiana (62 miles) arrived at Holiday Inn Downtown somewhere a round 1:00pm. Went to the room Cindylynne Brazzel had reserved since the Saturday before. Rested, etc … then took a free Trolly into the great unknown to Purdue University. Had absolutely no idea where I was, but knew –at least in Texas- that friendly people would help me find “The Union”. Wha??? Time now 4:45pm.

Met with LOTS of nice students as well as metal clay artists everywhere! Whew … I was no longer in outer space. Found CindyLynne in Linda Kline’s Bezel setting class … immediately wished I was in that pre-conference class … alas, not enough bucks for that this year. Thanks to Cindylynne’s generosity I was able to attend as I didn’t have to pay for a room or use of a rental car. I’m ever so grateful to have been able to go at all!!

In Linda’s Bezel class I walked in the door and was immediately welcomed with lots of people wanting to talk to me … because I had called CL on my cell phone (couldn’t find the class at first) and CL told them I sold the name stamps she was using. I had quite a fun time talking to everyone… (note to self: next time bring flyers about stamps). Went to dinner at La Scala with Jane Shaffer, Kitsy Carnes, Cherry Delaney, Cindylynne. We immediately bonded (and ate) and formed the Purdue University graduates group with a BFA degree “Best Friends Forever”. Loved every second and felt like I had known everyone for years. What great fun is that? Back at the hotel, fell into bed at who knows when.

THURSDAY (7/17/08) mY 63rd bIrThDaY!!!
Cindylynne woke me up with a huge birthday present – btw, CL lives in Sherman, Texas – over 70 miles away from where I live in Dallas. I met her online and we immediately knew we’d be best friends forever ……….. what a wonderful gal!!

Her present is a two foot tall ceramic mermaid statue that is holding a shell overflowing with pearls and colored starfish…. Ohmygosh! As my Yahoo online name has been Mystic Mermaid for over 10 years and of course I love beautiful mermaids, I was over whelmed with CL hand carrying this on the airplane and painted the colors on her so beautifully. I loved her!! I thought I’d just have some fun with this little lady and took her everywhere I went on Thursday – and believe me it was fun. Before the day was over people were putting money in the shell. :D






My mermaid even got to stand on the stage with Tim McCreight and Angela’s little gnome from France. What a thrill… now she’s famous to boot!







I yakked it up with so many wonderful new friends up and down the hall in the Stewart Building… we registered for the week-end, received a VERY GENEROUS goodie bag from the Vendors (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!) and at 2:00am went to hear the Keynote Address by our speaker, Don Friedlich. Don very graciously stepped in for Linda Darty who’s son was very seriously ill – rumor has it that it was his appendix, but I never heard for sure. I sure hope he is better now.




At the 3:30-4:30 time slot we had a choice of speakers:
Tonya Davidson, “Art of Marketing”
Bill Struve, “Intro to Bronze Clay”
Robert Dancik, “Those Who Can Do More, Teach”

I choose Tonya’s seminar and I was certainly not sorry. She spoke 100 miles a minute as she had 80 slides for us to see and each one was jam packed with very valuable information. My finger’s flew on the note pad. She generously gave every person there (and there were almost 400 of us) a really sweet Whole Lotta Whimsey note pad - - - for free, mind you. AND a handmade button that had a quote that she used in her siminar from Ben Franklin which you can see on the right. The meaning of this should be obvious. On Tonya’s blog: http://www.tonyadavidson.com/ she has some fantastic information and pictures of the conference. The Bad News? There was no handout – at all – none – nada. But she mentioned that she just *might* put it up on her blog – so let’s keep after her to do this ok? Like she has time to put this up – maybe she can ask someone to do it for her. I sure hope so.

4:30 – 5:30 I took a Rings class in the Tech Expo Area in the Stewart Bldg from Metal Clay Findings http://www.metalclayfindings.com/


Chris Darway taught us an easy-sneezy class on working with their fine silver ring bases. How easy and great to know that it will come out exactly the right size EVERY TIME. Good golly, why didn’t I think of this? We later added a bezel that was simple to poke in the wet clay – they fired it for us - and I finished I finished it up by adding the hematite stone at home.


6:00 – 7:00 Second Rings Class at Metal Clay Findings.
This ring was done on a flat fine silver ring base (in size we specified again), but this time we added strips of paper clay. They fired it for us and we picked both up the next day. Fun and easy to do. Everyone will love making rings with these ring bases. They also have many, many other fine silver pieces we NEED too! Like ear wires, curved tubes for bails or even bracelets, and those little eye-pins that you simply stick into your wet clay for a loop to stick out to attach wired gemstone. Very cool – I’m glad I was able to get in those inexpensive classes – $25.00 – you can hardly beat that!

5:30 – 7:00 Dinner, but as you can see I missed that so I could be in the Rings classes.

7:30 – 10:00 Dessert Reception and Charm Swap. I got oodles and oodles of wonderful hand-made charms from people all over the world. I treasure each and every one!




11:00 – fall into bed exhausted. I’ve talked so much my little brain is pooped!!

- END OF FIRST NOTE, TWO MORE TO GO -