ArtFest

I kinda suck in that I did not take many pictures at ArtFest even though I hauled my big Canon with me. I did snap a few pix here and there but I am sadly remiss in any pictures of me with any of my friends or teachers. LOL

Anyway, I was fortunate to share a house with my good pal Martha and our friend Ruth Rae. We had a wonderful surprise when we learned that Nancy Nelson (pictured here) would in fact be joining us in our house. I met Nancy at ArtFiberFest and was disappointed to learn she would not be attending ArtFest because her husband was fighting cancer. We were so excited that he is doing well and she got to come! In addition we roomed with 3 other women and were delighted to really bond with a gal named Kathy who was attending her first ArtFest all the way from North Carolina.

I am totally rambling but my thoughts aren't exactly sorted out. We arrived to freezing rainy weather and got up to the fort after waiting for Martha whose flights had been screwed up all the way from Canada. Thankfully we got there in time to take part in the big trading frenzy and see who was there.

Thursday morning began our classes and Martha and I landed in Misty Mawn's class to play with paint. I don't have any pix from this class as I did not finish a project but we learned lots of fun ways to add paint and texture to paper. Misty largely uses her hands for painting so it was kind of fun to dig in and be messy. I will look forward to using my pages from this class in upcoming journals and projects.

Friday morning we were off to Nina Bagley's class. I have been in awe of Nina's talent for many years and I covet her jewelry pieces so much but do not own any. I was so hoping that I would leave class with something wearable. I am afraid most of the class failed miserably at that task bringing home only some techniques to try to master. It was SO technique heavy that we never really got down to assembling anything but we made some cool clasps and I learned some tips on wire wrapping and wrapping fibers. I hope I can remember enough to finish up something at home when I get her handout via email. I'll keep you posted!! Friday, we also decided to celebrate Ruth's birthday with a yummy cake and some friends over. Her birthday was the previous weekend but we prolonged her celebration! It was a fun and silly night and the cake was YUMMY.

The final day of classes I trotted off to my favorite class of the weekend which was a mosaics class with Laurie Mika. I have been itching to take a class with Laurie ever since winning a collaboration piece she did with Michelle Ward a couple of years ago. I was not dissappointed. After a nervous start ( I was literally shaking) I was the first to finish and I am really pleased with the resulting artwork that I made. I have even made more batches of tiles since I have been home and look forward to making some more pieces in this style.

So I guess that is a long enough post for this round. I will be back with more pictures in the coming days..