Crawling Forward

The Crawl is now a week away. The energy at the Williams Street Studios is at an all time high. The activity and social interaction is everywhere. People are buzzing with effort and adhesives which were so strong that I could even smell it.

My studio was full of activity today. Jay has filled the place with beautiful shibori shawls and hand made silver lace jewelry. My area is crammed with projects and remnants of the last months activities. Tina's machine is throwing sparks'

I looked again at my CSI challenge pieces which are supposed to have something to do with the plaques of Egypt. Not as bad as I remember. Little pictures were loaded into frames because they sold well at last year's crawl. New globes got started.

Gut globes and baskets are also covering my dining room table. I didn't bring them into my studio today when I met with Lyn Fabio and her partner Norman. Because I forgot them.
Lyn was so sharing and told me so much more about working with gut. She uses up to twenty layers and builds supports. She introduced me to new preservation techniques. She encouraged me to talk about my own process and inspired me all over again. the gut world needs to know two words...paste wax!

Lyn functions at a very high level in her thinking about art and textiles. She is often isolated in a world of Quilty people. She takes the time to educate herself and attends the Surface Design conferences in Kansas. She knew about the Korean shows and compared some information.
I am so excited when I speak with her. It is more so in the meetings we have had.

Lyn may have an opportunity to travel to Russia and workshop with people in Siberia. They don't have access to hog or sheep gut. They have offered her reindeer gut. Wow. She has already been invited to use gut from musk Ox, walrus and seal in Alaska. The Yukon people let her try some whale gut which is highly prized as food. It didn't work very well. She has also tried caribou and is using fish skins.

I really need to make an effort to stay in touch because we have so much to share.

Her wonderful partner Norman made contact this time and let me know that Lyn was going for surgery. She is so healthy in other ways that I know it will go well tomorrow.

Lyn is a choclatier and a chef, just to put icing on her cake . She left me with beyond delicious handmade chocolates which I ate and used as bargaining chips with Jay, LaDonna and Tina today. Oh good God!

Good Luck tomorrow Lyn.