Morrisburg, Day 2 and 3

Georgia Ferrell, aka Iggy, treated us to Fanciful Fabric and Other Stuff.
Georgia encouraged us to play with liquid clay and a variety of materials including yarns, thin fabrics, ribbons, sparkles and, essentially, anything we can think of.


Wendy Orlowski made a New Year's resolution to use up some of her stash before buying anything new, and as a result, came up with a class called Resolution Steampunk. We were told to raid our tool boxes and garages and to take apart obsolete items in order to find parts appropriate to the Steampunk trend. The results were spectacular.



In addition to workshops, there were a variety of swaps. Everyone was encouraged to clean out their studios and bring unwanted items for the "Table of Junque." It looked like Filene's Basement as we elbowed each other aside to find the good stuff. We also swapped canes and beads.






The queen of miniatures, Jacey Culham, showed us how to create a picnic of miniature hamburgers, hot dogs, fries and donuts. Yum. Then there is poutine - yuck - the Canadian dish consisting of fries, cheese curds and gravy.












Last year's mystery project was so much fun that we did it again. On the first day we were each given a small square of paper with a fragment of a photo on it. Our job was to duplicate the image in clay, matching colors and size. Then on Saturday night, we each stuck our square onto a larger canvas.



Margi Laurin supervised the project.


And we produced this masterpiece.

Rite of Spring

Once again I was lucky enough to attend "Morrisburg", the clay retreat held in Morrisburg, Ontario for members of the Quebec and Ontario clay guilds. Kudos to Margi Laurin and Violette Laporte for another well-organized, well-run, and FUN event. That's Vio having fun on the right.

As usual the workroom was a hubbub of creativity.



Gaby Orbach got us started with a workshop on interesting surface techniques including a silkscreen effect that doesn't use a silkscreen. We used the results to cover wooden picture frames or to make jewelry (jewellery for Brits and Canadians).



Next Sandy Willis showed us how to have fun with flakes, although at first we weren't sure if she was referring to us or the stuff from Grummer. It turns out we colored little iridescent flakes and used them to make sparkly surfaces which could be used in many applications.

Finally, Violette Laporte showed us how to create lovely books using covers made of clay. We tore or cut paper and then bound everything together using a needle and thread in a technique called Coptic stitching.



More on Day 2 tomorrow........

Budapest 2

While my friend was busy with official duties, I traveled around the city by bus, subway and streetcar to do some sightseeing. The public transportation system was wonderful and easy to use despite the language difference. In addition, the city is quite friendly to bicycle riders with lots of bike lanes and even special lights at some intersections.

Among the top sites are Heroes Square with its huge statues and large park beyond. It was too cold and breezy when I was there so I was happy to retreat to the subway and head for the fabulous opera house.

The Opera House is absolutely spectacular. Tours are given in 6 languages each afternoon and even though I was there at a low tourist season, the tours were full. You are allowed to use flash and a tripod, but the tour moves so quickly that good photography is very difficult. The grand staircase is shown at right.

Finally, one of the best things about Budapest is the wonderful view along the Danube. The Parliament building (first photo) dominates the river during the day as well as at night, and the view from Castle Hill is phenomenal. By law, no building can be higher than Parliament, except for St. Stephen (at left in second photo), which is the same height, thus making clear the importance of both the State and the Church.


(Click on photos for larger views)

Budapest

I had a great time visiting my friend, Her Excellency April H. Foley, the US Ambassador to Hungary. She's the tall one; I'm the short one in the blue suit. Her tour of duty is over now, but we had one last hurrah in March. One of the official events I got to attend was the flag raising ceremony for the anniversary of the 1848 Revolution. Because of the threat of violent protests, crowds were kept very far away from the Parliament building, so it was a bit odd to have such a big ceremony for about 50 observers, a group of diplomats and military representatives from a variety of countries. The Hussars on horseback were cool. (Clicking on the photos will take you to larger ones.)

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Taking a tour of the Parliament Building is an absolute must. The entry over the grand staircase is magnificent. Inside you will see the Holy Crown of Hungary, also called the Crown of Saint Stephen. There are a variety of stories about how the cross was knocked crooked.
Back when Parliament was for men only, they were allowed to smoke in the halls but not in the chamber. Cigars last a long time, so the men would place them in a numbered slot of a metal device conveniently located on a window sill, go in to hear a speech, and then return to finish smoking. Havanas were the longest lasting cigar, so a good speech, one that kept the men inside listening, was said to be "worth a Havana."

More later....

I'm a Mom!!!

My husband and I have always had the motto, "No Children, No Pets, No Indoor Plants", so it was with great surprise that I found myself contemplating motherhood and that my husband agreed. And so, at the advanced age of 60, I unexpectedly became a first-time mom. No, I'm not the recipient of some advanced medical techniques - I adopted. Her name is Megan and she's a beautiful little 5-year-old girl with a cheerful disposition and gorgeous brown eyes. She's energetic, loving, cuddly, and reasonably obedient, and my husband and I have fallen totally in love with her. Our hearts just melt when she jumps on our laps or gets wiggly all over with excitement.



As you can see, she's a Miniature Schnauzer and I inherited her when my dad and his wife went into assisted living. We fell in love with each other during the months I was in Arizona, so the stress of losing her original family and moving to a new location wasn't too hard for her. After spending her whole life in the hot desert, I was worried about her reaction to snow and cold, but she doesn't seem to mind a bit. She plunged right into the snow without any hesitation at all and isn't too eager to come in from the cold.













This new addition to our lives is proving to be lots of fun, but I promise not to tell too many stories or inundate you with cute photos.

I'm back.....sort of.

To make a 7-month story short...the doctors told me that my dad had only 2 to 3 months to live (they thought he had metastasized colon cancer even though all the tests were "inconclusive"), so in July, I flew home to Toronto, threw a bunch of stuff in my car and raced back to Arizona to see him through this final process. His wife, a lovely lady, has Alzheimer's, so they both needed assistance. I was a full-time caregiver for several months, but instead of passing away, my dad got better! Eventually I told him that we had to make some serious decisions regarding his future because I needed to go home and remind my husband that he's married. :-) After a lot of resistance, Dad and his wife Nikki finally agreed to move into an assisted living facility near Phoenix to be near Nikki's son. I got them moved, fixed up their little apartment beautifully, sold all of their possessions, fixed up their house and put it on the market. Amazingly, despite the devastated housing market in Arizona, it sold immediately.

I value the time I got to spend with my dad and Nikki, but it was exceedingly stressful. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease and it was painful to watch a lovely, loving lady gradually decline. And to make a stressful situation even worse, the economic collapse wreaked havoc on my dad's financial situation. When we first started looking at assisted living options, my detailed spreadsheet analysis (I am an M.B.A., after all) showed that he could afford it as long as he was careful with his money. By the time they moved, things were looking pretty grim. The chance of outliving their money is very real now. I have been having trouble sleeping because of the worry over his financial situation.

I apologize to all the people who kept checking this blog and finding nothing. I WILL be getting back to it, but it will take awhile to get back into polymer clay. After not touching the stuff for over 7 months, I treated myself to the Cabin Fever Clay Festival in Maryland. Good fun and a nice way to start thinking about clay again. But first, I'm off to Hungary to visit my good friend from business school who is the American Ambassador to Hungary. Her assignment is about to end so we will have a little fun before she comes home.

If I have internet access, I will report from Budapest.

I spoke too soon

Things are not going well with my dad's health, so I canceled my flight home and will remain here in Arizona for awhile. So far I've survived the heat, but the monsoons arrived and right now I'm enjoying an amazing sound and light show of thunder and lightning. As long as there are no tornadoes, I don't mind the storms at all. (Our farm was destroyed by a tornado while we huddled in a tiny storm cellar when I was a kid.)

I've been going nuts with nothing to do with my hands, so I went to Home Depot, bought some electrical cable, sliced off the plastic covering, unraveled the copper wires inside, and now I'm practicing my wire wrapping skills on some very low-cost wire. I also found some Angelina fiber at a local store, so as soon as I can get to Tucson, I'll find a Michaels store and buy some translucent clay to play with.

So long for awhile.....