Meeting Report: April 10, 2010

The ever fearless Bridget has once again dared the torture of the pen and blank paper and conquered them both.  In a stunning submission the factual account of BRPCG Clay Day is presented in all its naked honesty with the occasional sprinkling of humour and good will.   But let me not delay your literary adventure any longer...

April 10, 2010: Clay Day!
Greetings from the house without a kitchen. Your schedule-challenged secretary has been mucking about in the land of never-ending construction, instead of focusing on more fun and useful endeavors like polymer clay. Fear not !– The remnants of the April 10 Clay Day are still rumbling around in this tortured brain somewhere . . .



Oh, yes, how could I forget? Lots and lots of fun people came from far and wide: Pete from VA, Ernie from Atlanta, and even lots of folks with girl names from in-between. We did miss a few of you: Barb V off taking care of family, Sandra taking care of business, and Jim taking care of excess chocolate, as he was pampered through his recovery. Plus too many more to name.


In addition to all the great folks and fun, did we ever have food. One visitor was overheard (after at least 4 slices of Sharon Solly's yummy cake) she would be at every clay day from now on. We do take good care of ourselves. Nobody goes home hungry!


Lots of great show and tell. Barb D brought in her entry into the Polymer Café Fall Leaves Challenge. Julie brought samples she's been working on for her book. Pete brought the work she did at Clay Fandango. Rhonda and Christina had gone into full-scale production mode and out-clayed everyone. Several folks brought their pieces from the Kathleen Dustin class. Amerie brought some plums from Canton so gorgeous, they hopped over from the food descriptions and demanded to be included with the art.


Pat won the best-dressed award, appearing in a swanky black and white ensemble with piles of coordinated polymer accents.


We had so many demos, we had to postpone one for next month. Remember our May Meeting is the 3rd Saturday. Update your calendars now or you'll have to go downstairs and flirt with the firemen, `cause we won't be there until a week later than usual.


Barb D's Basic Beads will be taught in May. After all the other demos, our brains were close to exploding, so Barb graciously agreed to haul all the demo gear back for the May 15th meeting. I'm so glad. I was looking forward to hers, and it wouldn't be fair to rush through it when some folks had already started packing up.

Amy did get to present her demo: Backfilled Beads. She even demo'd the way she creates a simple base bead. Her samples were gorgeous, and the teaching so effective, we could all do it, too. If you didn't make it, be sure to catch Amy so she can show you what you missed.


Maggie brought exotic imported techniques to us from the Queen City Clayers in faraway Charlotte, NC. The guild had challenged themselves to make polymer clay look like watercolor silk, and succeeded beautifully. Their method used alcohol inks and produced some surprising results that were lots of fun to play with. If they don't quit coming up with such great ideas, they may find themselves looking for a larger meeting space. I'm tempted to rent a bus and haul us all over to see what all the excitement is about.


Julie showed us the Rorsarch Slab, Crazy Sheet, Oh, whatever - Name that Technique! Then, just to show off, she gave us a simple way to make signature canes. Pat had the shortest name, and she did have the black and white motif going anyway, so she now has a lifetime supply of Pat canes. That, of course, gave us yet another demo: Julie's table-slamming reduction secrets. Is it any wonder we didn't get through all the planned demos?

Amerie brought her mold-making suplies. Let's get this straight for once. Those are little blobs of squishy stuff that you use to shape clay, not the fungal variety. We were all left with our brains looking at things differently – wondering what shapes all around us would be fun to be able to cast in a mold for clay.


Do you guys realize that there are guilds out there that just have meetings? –You know, those dull-as-a-dirt-sandwich events where people fall in love with the sound of their own voices? They don't have food. They don't have clay. Whatever is the point? Aren't you glad to be part of the BRPCG? Me, too.


- Bridget

me too..although I only ate 3 pieces of cake.  Until next time, fare thee well.
-blog fairy