a good day

I had a great time teaching yesterday at RAM’s Wustum Museum in Racine, Wisconsin. I would like to thank you Jan, Susan, Joellen, Marcia, Maureen, Vickie, Karen, and Laurie for being so wonderful and for giving me the opportunity to teach you.

I apologize for not getting photos of everyone in the class (although, if you’re like me, you’d just as soon be left out of the photos!) as it’s hard to take photos and teach at the same time.  Also, my photography skills leave a lot to be desired. One photo was too blurry to use.

I am humbled by my students. I look forward to hearing from all of you and seeing more of your great polymer creations!

teaching

I realize that I’ve been gone for a long time. Sorry. Life intrudes.

Above is an image of the project sample for a class I’ll be teaching at the Racine Art Museum this February 18th called “Charmed With Polymer.” I’m excited about it because a) I’m teaching a class!, and b) it’s combining polymer with other media, which I love to do. It’s a class about making jewelry components of polymer. We’ll talk about basic bead making and different bead shapes and go on from there. Bead caps, spacer beads, even head pins(!) can all be made from polymer clay. And with a stash of components to work with, you can combine them with each other and also with beads of different media. If you live in the Chicago/Milwaukee area and want to take the class, I’d love to see you there. Or contact me about coming to your group or guild to teach.

I hope you all had a great holiday season, and my sincere wish is for all of us to have a wonderful 2012!

food for the mind

Second day at the conference and they’re still feeding us! You can’t turn around anywhere without seeing more food. And it’s all really, really delicious food.

But we’re also feeding our brains at the same pace. The panel discussions are very enlightening and provoking — charting the path of polymer from the very beginning to where it is now (a whole museum exhibit devoted to the material!), to where it could/should/might be going in the future; how to possibly implement that course… My head will probably explode before I go home tomorrow (not to mention my waistband!).

This morning’s panel, from left to right: Pier Voulkos, Bruce Pepich, Lena Vigna, Rachel Carren, Kathleen Dustin, and Tory Hughes.

An attentive and participatory audience:

Followed by a wonderful lunch and a leisurely walk back to the room to post this (and decompress!). Another panel discussion starts in about half an hour.