show and tell and sharing with friends

What a great day of inspiration and sharing I had with good friend, Pat Williams, today! Pat's a fantastic tapestry artist and all around fabulous person...I've really learned so much from her through the years. And had a lot of fun with her and her antics, as well!

We try to get together at either her studio or mine every couple of months or so. We live only about 40 minutes apart but not as easy as either of us would like to turn loose and have a day or half-day together.

But when we make it, we always have show & tell, mini-critiques, sharing of ideas, books, thoughts--anything and everything just whirl around when we get together...so inspiring! Pat presented me with a portrait today...I'm holding it in the photo. In it, she's shown me sitting on a sunflower, stretching forward to work on a weaving (and it's literally a weaving that she's inserted into the watercolor by threading warps and weaving strips into it, combining a photo of me with one of the large sunflower tapestry I wove a few years back). I was so touched by the thought--and the beautiful example of her wonderful figurative works. Special friend she is, indeed.

Next month, we're going to the ATA workshop together in Florida, as car- and room-mates. I hope to run in to many old friends there--and make new ones, too!

So here's a photo of Pat and me at the studio--I used the timer on my camera, ran to the swing and plopped down beside Pat; doing so set the swing to swaying a bit and when the timer went off we were "on the move!" I manipulated the digital shot with Photoshot, thought I'd try removing the color to see the effect...liked that pretty well and then used a cutout filter on it.

More fun stuff! I've also worked more with the fiddlehead wildness tonight...is it to weave or just play with, I'm not sure yet but have needed some playtime...I take myself too darn seriously way too often so today's play date was a welcome respite!