Talent
Photos by VickyTH.
It went well. It went really well. Really, really well would not even be an exaggeration. The drive out was yucky, but shorter than I remember. Lavrock is at the top of the Salmonier Line and so virtually on the highway. It’s a nice spot, actually. Tucked away in the woods near a pond. The retreat for the quilters had started the night before and extended through to Sunday afternoon. Saturday was day one of workshops.

I had done a presentation for this group about a year and a half ago and it went pretty well. I remembered some of them, although my memory with names is highly variable. I got there, set things up and found out that I had not one, but two students more than had been initially registered. Luckily I had lots of extra paint and plenty of bottles! Everyone pitched in and helped and we were ready to go quite quickly.

I started by showing them a basic ocean or water and a few variations on the theme. Gave them my, “no fabric is wasted – don’t worry if something doesn’t work for you – sprinkle salt on it and see if it helps” lecture. Before we knew it, it was coffeebreak time and each person had already painted two or three pieces. After a quick coffee and a muffin, we were back at it with summer skies and sponge techniques. When lunchtime came around, they were having so much fun that they asked if we could have a shortened lunch so that they could keep painting. Not a problem by me! We went back to it with sunrises, sunsets, rocks, grass and sunpainting. By the time three o’clock rolled around, most people had completely lost track of time and were still painting away.

There were so many pieces drying on the floor along the walls that we spilled out into the other room. Even after lifting up pieces that had dried, the room was still festooned and looked like a fabric store in which a cotton mill and dyepots had exploded. It was very cool. One of the women told me that she hadn’t had that much fun in years, which kinda made my day.

So it went well!