July 12, 2003
The meeting: The guild met Saturday, July 12, at the usual place & time.
Edie, Maggie, Kay, Gail, Irene, Suzanne, Pat Smith, Marion, Nancy, Lynda,
and Kelli were present.
Old Business: The Grovewood Show was a success! Our dollar sales were down
somewhat from 2002, but we sold a larger number of smaller-ticket items this
year. Also, more importantly, several people expressed an interest in
attending our guild meetings. We had a chance to chat with the public about
our medium and demonstrate some techniques. It was agreed that it's worth
our participating in this show every year in order to maintain/enhance our
visibility and image in the arts community. (The sales are nice too!)
Julia Sober's workshops were a success, too! Everyone who attended learned a
lot and had a great time. We're very grateful to Julia and to Irene, who put
so much work into making arrangements.
New Business: Gail and Irene are putting together a display of our work
which will be on exhibit at Asheville's main public library throughout the
month of August (and maybe September too). If you have work you'd like to
display and haven't given it to Gail, please contact her and make
arrangements to get it to her in the next week or so. I (Suzanne) will be
making signage for the exhibit, including the guild name, logo, and a brief
description of the guild, and the names of the artist who created each piece
in the exhibit. This is a great opportunity to have our work seen by the
public!
BRPCG is pleased to be hosting a workshop by Leigh Ross, one of the forces
behind Polymer Clay Central, and a well-known polymer clay artist and
teacher. She's offering a two-day workshop in which she shares the
techniques she uses to create her magnificent Millenium Garden beads. You
can see a sample in the album entitled "Leigh Ross Bead" on my Picture Trail
site: http://www.picturetrail.com/HEDGEAPPLECRAFT
Leigh will be providing some more links to her work and a supply list very
soon.
Here's her description of the workshop:
The Millenium Garden Workshop is a two-day technique oriented class on a
number of different procedures which teaches the student to make a flawless,
shiny, deep-layered translucent bead! It covers some bead shapes, basic flower-cane making, basic leaf-cane
making, reducing without waste, slicing thin layers, layering canes for
depth, baking, sanding, and polishing. Everyone will share a piece of their flower canes so that each bead will
appear to have a beautiful English garden floating in it.
The techniques learned in this workshop are geared to improving all your
caning and bead making, as well as to giving you a better understanding of
working with translucent clays. I hope to see you at the workshop. I love to help people to get the best
results they can from working with their clay!!!
The guild agreed that the cost of the workshop for members will be $120 and
for non-members $140. This will not include lunch or materials. Leigh will
make a supply kit available for $10-15 (she'll give us an exact price soon).
But you don't have to buy the kit--you can assemble your own supplies from a
list she'll provide to us.
There is an 8-student minimum for the two-day workshop. The deadline for
registration is August 22. You'll get more information before the August
meeting!
Demo: Lynda, assisted by Kelli, demonstrated the creation of her PC
Journals. This was a really fun and challenging project! Nobody finished a
journal at the meeting, but we look forward to seeing finished projects in
"Show & Tell" next month! Lynda posted the instructions for the whole group
to print out and keep.
July Challenge: The July challenge was "texture." Marion showed a beautiful
rug she hooked, which was embellished with textured polymer clay beads.
Nancy showed a very cool raku dragon. See photos here.
August Challenge: The August challenge is to make something that combines
polymer clay with a "non-polymer-clay thing." Pretty wide open-- use your
imaginations!
Upcoming Demos: In August, Marilyn will demo a double-Skinner-blend leaf
cane. In September Maggie & Nancy will share their tricks for creating raku
finishes. In October, we'll all bring in examples of "Other" crafts we
enjoy--not polymer clay. We can share ideas about these crafts and how
polymer clay might be incorporated into them. In November, we'll have a
tool-making session: we can cover or create handles for existing tools or
make our own clay-working tools.
All-in-all, it was a great meeting. See you all next month!
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