I'm on the Harlot's blog!

Squeee! I have been photographed by greatness! The Lizzard Queen is on the Harlot's Portland report.

Yesterday was an artist/crafter lollapalooza in Portland. Five guilds took over the convention center to showcase their wares and talents. Fine woodworking in one room, Jewelry and fine metalworking in another, beads in a third, pottery in a fourth, glass in a fifth, and the Handweaver's guild took a sixth room. I would have a glory of photos, but they forbade cameras. Crap, crap,crap!

The woodworkers love to tell you how they did it, and if you ask what kind of wood it is, the guy will tell you how to select the right tree, harvest it, cure the wood, and while you stand there needing to go pee, he will then proceed to tell you how he milled and built the table. Woodworkers are volubly smitten with their craft.

Potters seem, by and large, more solitary souls who would rather be home making mud pies on a grand scale, but have to sell things to be able to afford the power for the kiln. I am constantly astounded at the variety of inspirations for the potter's craft. Things are clunky to delicate, practical as a dishwasher/ microwave safe bowl, to as purely decorative as an 8 foot tall stack of clay boxes to go in the garden. Things go from clay color to ethereal pastels to jewel tone glazes. Matt and shiney and metalic finishes. Work that depends on the shape of the vessel for interest, work that is embellished all to hell, and even some really interesting paintings on flat clay slabs. Pottery is an arcane and magical thing to me.

I was not so taken with the beads and the glass things. It's probably a factor of my ignorance, but it seems that if you've seen one slumped glass plate, you have pretty much seeen them all.

Then we got to the weavers, and I was sucked in and swallowed whole. I came out with two skeins of bamboo/tencel painted yarn, and a plan to knit more samples for my friend the dyer in exchange for more yarn.

By the time I got to the jewelry, I was pretty much into sensory overload. Just as well. A lot of peole were showing pearls. I am SUCH a sucker for pearls! I would drift to a stop in front of some lovely necklace or pair of earrings, and sort of hang there like a goldfish in front of the aquarium glass with no conscious thought going on whatsoever. If the jewler came over and asked to help me I would come to myself, smile, say, "No thank you," and drift further down the aisle. The rooms were filling up by then, and I was becoming an impediment to traffic, so it obviously was time to go. My head is so full of ideas!