Muse Polyzine 2001

A DAY AT THE MUSE
BY DEIRDRE F WOODWARD

Spending a day at the Courting the Muse conference was a great deal of fun. Of course, it was expensive, also, since we spent all of our time in the store!

Let me show you what greeted us when we arrived:

Is that not the most beautiful building? The campus took our breath away, as I am sure it did the many Muse participants.

To make sure everyone knew where they were supposed to go, the Muse committee thoughtfully posted signs around the campus, directing the conference participants:

As you can see, the signs did not point us toward the conference store, but we, clever people that we are, managed to find our way nonetheless.

As we walked along, we ran into a Muse participant with the most gorgeous name tag hanging around her neck. She allowed me to photograph it, which I did very poorly; this picture does not do the name tag justice at all.

The woman, who asked that her name be deleted (but thank you very much, and you know who you are!) said that every Muse participant received a name tag.

We later found out that the Denver Guild made them all. Wow! They are so beautiful. Way to go, Denver people!

We made it to the store, and promptly fell into ohhing and ahhing over all the wonderful items. Here is a series of pictures:

Different writings available for purchase

Wonderful polymer clay items.

I especially love the magician in the middle.

These dolls on wire are very very cool!

What polymer clay conference would be complete without every supply imaginable? I found so many tools, videos, and colors of clay I couldn't live without!

Just when I'd thought I'd seen everything, I bumped into some old friends! Tory Hughes is a terrific artist and a perceptive thinker; I understand the speech she gave at the end of the conference was tremendously inspiring.

Sheila is a member of the Baltimore Polymer Clay Guild, like me, so it was wonderful to see how things were going with her. I also met some people who knew me through Polyzine, so it was really great to meet face-to-face.

I can imagine the many people who only know each other through various chatrooms and e-mail lists were similarly delighted to make face-to-face contact!

The entire store was staffed by volunteers, so I want to thank them publically for making the store possible. It was so terrific being able to see work by people whose Photopoint site or website I've visited but whose work I've never been able to see in real life.

We left when the store had to close, and made our way back to the car, so we could go to Philadelphia and shop for beads. On the way out, I had to stop and shoot this doorway. I think the gothic nature of the campus made a perfect setting for calling for the creative muses the conference was invoking.

I hope everyone had a great time at the Muse, and for those of us who couldn't attend, I hope this short tour has given you a taste of the wonderful conference.