I've been away from the studio now for almost two weeks - spending my days in a room without windows, vending at the Quilt/Surface Design Symposium in Columbus, Ohio. Here's a little view of my area. We're in a classroom at the Columbus College of Art & Design. My sales area is shown in the left part of the picture. I think I should have focused on that rather than my rather messy work area, but I think you get the picture. I've brought as much stuff as I could fit on three 8' tables plus two small book shelves. There are three more vendors in the room with me--Judy Robertson of Just Imagination with her hand-dyed fabrics, Bob Davis who has Helene's hand-dyed fabrics and shirts, and Becky Hancock of St. Teresa's Textile Trove. We have all vended for QSDS for many years, so this is sort of like old home week for us.
Between customers I try to keep busy with some type of handwork, just to keep the creative juices going at least a bit. This year I brought a bunch of small swatches of "leftovers" from various projects. I have been adding a bit of embroidery to each one as a sort of finishing touch. My plan is to fuse them to blank cards. I don't know if I'll then try to sell them or just use them myself. I guess I'll see how they all come out. Here's a look at the first ones I've done. Some are more successful than others--as is always the case--but they're keeping me busy and that's the most important part.We are also managing to get in a bit of sight-seeing while we're here. One morning we walked over to a topiary garden that's only a couple of blocks from the college. It was delightful. It was started in 1989 to not all the figures are complete but that does not take away from its charm. The garden was planned to reproduce Seurat's Walk in the Park in 3D. Here are a couple of views.
Here it is sort of as if you were looking at the painting.
And here is the pond at the back with the boats.
