Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Diana Speaks to Fiber Artists

2/28/12
Diana and I just got back from Kerrville, TX where Diana gave a lecture on "Creativity" to the Texas Federation of Fiber Artists http://texasfederationoffiberartists.org/ for their Biannual Conference. This is the second time that the fiber artists have invited her to lecture. Unfortunately for me, but lucky for Diana, her lecture was scheduled on the last day of the event after the vendors had packed up and gone home: I missed the sales of hand-made textiles!

Diana's talk was well received and the hosts displayed real Texas hospitality. The event was held at the Inn of the Hills http://innofthehills-px.trvlclick.com/index.htm in Kerrville and those folks were very attentive and helpful to the organizers:  it’s a great place to host an artist conference.
Fiber artists, like potters, are lots of fun and super friendly. They were afraid that participants would get lost on the grounds of the large hotel, so they mapped out the way to the conference room with tie-dyed scarves from the front desk to the conference room.  In the “hospitality room” the participants traded hand- made stamp and fiber cards, which I did collect for my stash of ephemera which you can see here.

I was so excited to be there that I could not sleep, I perused the fiber websites till midnight and found that great knitting installation with the giant knitters and accidentally shared that link to Facebook from Diana’s computer- I forgot to sign in to my Facebook-so lest you think Diana has vacillated from mud to fiber, never fear- that was my happy accident, not hers. Here is the link again, in case you missed it- those women are over the top-what a work-out that must have been!


The keynote speaker for the Fiber Conference was Kathyanne White http://www.kathyannewhite.com/about.html. She spoke about her muses: the artists who inspire her and about her techniques of working with recycled objects. Her lecture melded concepts which Diana spoke to about creativity. Both talks were very inspirational.  One participant commented that at first she wondered what on earth she could possibly learn from a ceramic artist. She was surprised to hear and see the detail of surface design that Diana is so known for and commented that concepts Diana spoke on of “flow” and “structure” certainly are incorporated into all works of art and not just fiber.

Diana is an engaging speaker as well as an artist (so said the congregation, and I do agree).  We wish to thank the Federation of Fiber Artists and especially Pat Schulz for hosting us this past weekend.  Check their new website for photos of the work they displayed.

The street sign in front of the new studio at 112 Broadway is certainly drawing in the crowd now!




Today we had a “walk-in” who walked away happily with one of Diana’s extra large bowls. Here are a few photos of the matriarch, Margaret Palafox, giving her approval of our new studio.






Diana is doing the sprigging on a new sculpture for Darryl Mix today. He is a local gallery owner and art afficionado. Here is the link to his facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Art-SA-Gallery/208169372384

Happy Leap Day’s Eve!
Christina