State of Bliss

On Friday, last week, I headed off to the much-anticipated ArtBliss retreat in Sterling, Virginia. I was there to take Melissa Manley's 'Hard Candy' class and soak up as much metals knowledge and skill as I could manage in one day. I was also there to finally, finally, FINALLY meet Kerry Bogert, who I have been friends online with for like TWO years!

The weekend was capped off with my first-ever juried show (on Sunday). It was a hell of a great weekend, that's for sure! I am going to take a while to recover from this level of activity, definitely.

But first....after the busy week of making things for the show, getting irritated at my torch, and packing, packing, packing.....FINALLLY it was 3:00 and I could drop my little kids off with my girlfriend, kiss my oldest goodbye, and get down (or up) the road!

In this post on my Adventures in Living! blog, I talked about leaving/traveling and my thoughts about it. Really, though, it was pretty awesome to get in my car knowing I had a two-hour, radio-blasting drive in which I had nobody who would be yelling at me from the backseat.

I turned up the XM radio and the first song was an old George Michael song, Freedom, from about 1990, I think. Heheheheheh.

So I was set for music....LOVE my XM radio! And off I went, rolling up I-95, just singing along:
Northern VA is notorious for terrible, terrible traffic, particularly on Fridays in the rush-hour period (which can start around 3pm!). I was worried I'd end up sitting for an hour someplace and missing all the fun at the Meet & Greet Reception, but in reality, I made some smart route choices and got to the hotel in record time (two hours, no stops!).

I was so glad, too, because when I checked into the hotel and walked up to the registration desk for the event, Cindy said something to Kerry, who was sitting on a couch behind her, and the next thing I knew, Kerry jumped up and hugged me!

She is very tall. Just sayin' :)

(Actually, everyone is tall, to me. I'm only 5' 3")

I ended up chatting with Kerry almost all evening. It was fantastic! I felt like we had known each other forever.....have you ever had that experience? Meeting someone in person and hitting it off so well that it's like you've always been friends?

So, the reception. I have to admit, others with much better cameras probably got better pictures.
We ate some of the best brownies I have ever had in my life! Oh. My. God!


Kerry signed copies of her book, and sold kits for some of the book projects.


I got to have a wonderful conversation with Melissa Manley about going to art school and about whether or not it would really be worth it for me. (hint: I can totally make my art without a Fine Arts degree)

And I snagged a picture of one of the fantastic organizers of this blissful weekend, Cindy Wimmer, of Sweet Bead Studio!

Kerry and Cindy and I went around and took some video of the reception, using Kerry's amazing camera. Kerry did a bunch of editing and put it up on her blog later that night. Go here to see it!

I won a beautiful pair of Melissa Manley's earrings in the drawing (a good bit of serendipity!), and had a glass of wine and just reveled in being there. Later, I retreated to my lovely hotel room, and slept like the dead all night long.

Up next: Metals and enamels, oh boy!