SNAG, Pt.1
I caught my flight out of Erie with no problems, made the mad dash across the Detroit Airport without incident (with its amazingly atmospheric & weird connecting concourse that I really enjoy going through), & landed in Memphis, this year with the added advantage of my luggage arriving with me. T landed the same time I did, but on a different plane. E had just arrived, too, as her flight had been changed. The three of us caught the shuttle to the hotel with a bunch of other SNAG folks. I was surprised at how *flat* Memphis is. There's very few tall buildings & no real skyscrapers- quite a contrast with Chicago.
The hotel is the very historic& beautiful Peabody Hotel, where we were greeted by 5 ducks in the fountain of the hotel lobby. Seriously. Apparently, it's something the hotel is known for & the ducks are marched to & from the fountain at specific times each day, with a red carpet & much pomp, circumstance, fanfare & hoopla. I'd discovered this on the hotel website about 2 days before I left & Mom said, "You *have* to get pictures of that!" Which I did, but the computer's being pissy, so I can't post them just yet.
We got to the conference in time to see most of the professional development seminar, which included a rather terrifying section on insurance. Terrifying because it showed that most artists with home studios don't actually have coverage on their studios at all because their insurance agents have told them they don't need anything beyond their homeowners insurance. (Homeowners insurance actually does *not* cover anything used for business purposes- one of the people they talked to was a local potter who found this out the hard way when his studio burned down) Something to think about once I actually get to selling things.
After that, they had a "blessing of the tools" ceremony. I'd misread the description & thought the booklet had said it was a German tradition & was being presided over by an Anglican Priest, which I thought was rather funny but on rereading it was a European tradition, so the Church of England being involved made more sense. We opted to skip the ceremony & instead enjoyed the downy softness of the pillow top beds in the room until the reception. The food was lovely! Make-your-own soft tacos with options of shrimp or steak, something like seafood neuburg that was delicious, carved ham with a pineapple sauce & something called a Bar-B-Q Sunday that I was the only one of us brave enough to try. It was pulled pork with BBQ sauce with a layer of baked beans, cole slaw & sour cream(?) on top, served in a mason jar cup. It was *really* good. The downside was the drink prices- $3 for water! Yikes. We got to hangout with Catherine, the former Metals adjunct from EUP & say hello to the always gracious Marilyn DeSilva. I also realized that I have a bit of a crush going on David Huang, who visited Edinboro a couple months ago & said such nice things about my chasing & repoussé work.
The reception was up on the rooftop of the hotel, which was lovely. The Peabody is one of the taller buildings so we had a great view. I could even see the Mississippi River for the very first time in my life. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera up with me so I didn't get any pictures. The Duck Palace was up there- where the ducks live when they aren't hanging out in the fountain in the lobby. There was also what looked like small a 2-story plantation house. There were all these cardboard cut-outs of Victorian-era children staring out from the windows which I thought was vaguely creepy. I kept imagining that they were real kids who'd gotten trapped inside somehow.
We headed back to our room fairly early (at about midnight, when they closed down the patio on the roof) as it had been a rather long day. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to fall asleep so I ended up sleeping late on Thursday & missed the speaker on gold mining. T went, though, & told me I should be glad I missed it. Turns out the guy spent all his time explaining the chemistry involved in processing gold ore & never got to the main point of his discussion, which was how it could be done responsibly & whether it actually is or not. He did state that he thought they were, which had Christina from Ethical Metalsmiths jumping out of her chair & yelling at him-- justifiably, as the negative environmental impact of mercury & cyanide has been *very* well documented. (Neat trick, really- talking about technical details for so long that you don't have to present a solid argument for your main point- just figure that everyone's so impressed with how much you know that they'll assume you're right.)
The afternoon brought an expensive sandwich in the hotel deli, which I ended up saving half of for dinner, & some cool demos. The one on damascene was particularly interesting- especially since it turns out you can do it on bronze. I thought it only worked on iron or steel.(Damascene is a method of onlaying soft thin sheets of metal onto a hard metal base- a cool way to work for metal book pages, I think.)
OK, this post is quite long enough. I'll write more later. :-)
The hotel is the very historic& beautiful Peabody Hotel, where we were greeted by 5 ducks in the fountain of the hotel lobby. Seriously. Apparently, it's something the hotel is known for & the ducks are marched to & from the fountain at specific times each day, with a red carpet & much pomp, circumstance, fanfare & hoopla. I'd discovered this on the hotel website about 2 days before I left & Mom said, "You *have* to get pictures of that!" Which I did, but the computer's being pissy, so I can't post them just yet.
We got to the conference in time to see most of the professional development seminar, which included a rather terrifying section on insurance. Terrifying because it showed that most artists with home studios don't actually have coverage on their studios at all because their insurance agents have told them they don't need anything beyond their homeowners insurance. (Homeowners insurance actually does *not* cover anything used for business purposes- one of the people they talked to was a local potter who found this out the hard way when his studio burned down) Something to think about once I actually get to selling things.
After that, they had a "blessing of the tools" ceremony. I'd misread the description & thought the booklet had said it was a German tradition & was being presided over by an Anglican Priest, which I thought was rather funny but on rereading it was a European tradition, so the Church of England being involved made more sense. We opted to skip the ceremony & instead enjoyed the downy softness of the pillow top beds in the room until the reception. The food was lovely! Make-your-own soft tacos with options of shrimp or steak, something like seafood neuburg that was delicious, carved ham with a pineapple sauce & something called a Bar-B-Q Sunday that I was the only one of us brave enough to try. It was pulled pork with BBQ sauce with a layer of baked beans, cole slaw & sour cream(?) on top, served in a mason jar cup. It was *really* good. The downside was the drink prices- $3 for water! Yikes. We got to hangout with Catherine, the former Metals adjunct from EUP & say hello to the always gracious Marilyn DeSilva. I also realized that I have a bit of a crush going on David Huang, who visited Edinboro a couple months ago & said such nice things about my chasing & repoussé work.
The reception was up on the rooftop of the hotel, which was lovely. The Peabody is one of the taller buildings so we had a great view. I could even see the Mississippi River for the very first time in my life. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera up with me so I didn't get any pictures. The Duck Palace was up there- where the ducks live when they aren't hanging out in the fountain in the lobby. There was also what looked like small a 2-story plantation house. There were all these cardboard cut-outs of Victorian-era children staring out from the windows which I thought was vaguely creepy. I kept imagining that they were real kids who'd gotten trapped inside somehow.
We headed back to our room fairly early (at about midnight, when they closed down the patio on the roof) as it had been a rather long day. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to fall asleep so I ended up sleeping late on Thursday & missed the speaker on gold mining. T went, though, & told me I should be glad I missed it. Turns out the guy spent all his time explaining the chemistry involved in processing gold ore & never got to the main point of his discussion, which was how it could be done responsibly & whether it actually is or not. He did state that he thought they were, which had Christina from Ethical Metalsmiths jumping out of her chair & yelling at him-- justifiably, as the negative environmental impact of mercury & cyanide has been *very* well documented. (Neat trick, really- talking about technical details for so long that you don't have to present a solid argument for your main point- just figure that everyone's so impressed with how much you know that they'll assume you're right.)
The afternoon brought an expensive sandwich in the hotel deli, which I ended up saving half of for dinner, & some cool demos. The one on damascene was particularly interesting- especially since it turns out you can do it on bronze. I thought it only worked on iron or steel.(Damascene is a method of onlaying soft thin sheets of metal onto a hard metal base- a cool way to work for metal book pages, I think.)
OK, this post is quite long enough. I'll write more later. :-)