Upcoming Classes

I've finally worked out the details for some new classes with Ellsworth Adult Ed.  I'm very excited to be teaching these.  The first will be a Beginner's PMC Class which will be on Mondays from October 4 through the 25th from 5:30 to 8:30.  The second class, on Mondays for three weeks, beginning November 1, is called "PMC Experimentation" and will be a bit more informal.  It will cover some of the subjects that the students in the first class would like to go into in more depth.  If no one has anything in particular, I will cover things like adding color to your PMC work and perhaps hollow forms if time permits.

If you are interested in taking either or both of these classes, you can register with Ellsworth Adult Ed here:  http://ellsworth.maineadulted.org/courses/course/precious_metal_clay_pmc_for_beginners
http://ellsworth.maineadulted.org/courses/course/precious_metal_clay_pmc_experimentation

The dates and times on the listings are sort of messed up right now, but I have been in touch with the Adult Ed schedulers and they assure me that the classes will be held on Mondays and are as I have listed above.

Haystack

I just recently spent a week at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine.  It was an absolutely magical week!  I took a week-long workshop in Precious Metal Clay called Holding Dear and Breaking Free: Dynamic Hollow Forms in PMC with Donna Penoyer, an extremely talented PMC artist.

Haystack is built on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea.  I needed only to look out the window I sat beside to have beautiful views.  I am really bad about taking pictures, but there are plenty on Haystack's website and I encourage you to visit it as well as Donna Penoyer's site.

The atmosphere at Haystack is one that promotes creativity.  There's a special energy running through the place.  With many workshops running concurrently, there are students exploring many art disciplines.  During this particular session there were workshops in clay sculpture, glass, blacksmithing, writing, book making and basket weaving.  I felt immediately comfortable there, arriving in time for dinner and orientation on Sunday evening.  

The food is phenomenal and all meals are provided so that all you have to do is think about creating.  Our studio started right off after the orientation with introductions.  There was a good mix of experienced PMC artists (extremely talented artists) and newbies.  All of the people in the PMC workshop were artists in some discipline and several were silversmiths.    

We were encouraged right from the beginning to push our creativity and technical skills and to try new things.  As I have said before here, I have never really considered myself an artist, never having had formal artistic or design training, but through some discussions, Donna helped inspire me to think differently about what I was working on and to make it more than just a piece of clay, but something with meaning.  We focused on containers, hollowforms and hidden objects, but were not by any means limited to those.  

During the week, I was able to get to know many of the others taking the workshop.  Due to the closeness of our workbenches, there were some I got to know a bit better than others, but everyone I met was wonderful.  Donna is an outstanding teacher, giving plenty of demonstrations and instruction, but also allowing us time to explore on our own.  She was always available to answer questions I had, technical or otherwise.  Donna has worked with PMC just a bit longer than I have and I am so impressed by her work, which is very intricate and detailed.  Her specialty is PMC whistles and we had a chance to make a small one. 

It was so wonderful just to be able to create without worrying about interruptions or whether or not I would be able to sell a piece.  To create for the sake of creating is a luxury I haven't had very often.  The array of tools Donna had available for us to use, as well as the metalsmithing tools in the studio allowed me stretch a bit.  The creative atmosphere of the people in my group made it a magical time for me.  My life is rooted firmly in the reality of a stay-at-home mother and all that entails, so being able to put all of that aside to focus on something as enjoyable to me was a gift.

My only regret is that I did not stay there.  I registered as a day student and commuted an hour each way every day.  I think I missed out on a lot that way as I didn't get to socialize with the others in my group as much as I would have liked.  There were nightly lectures by the teachers, but I only stayed that late one night.  Apparently there were also several late nights in the studio, the stories of which I would listen to with envy the next day.  I regret not being able to get to know some of the people better.  To be with others who love working with PMC as much as I do was another gift, one that I don't often experience.

I hope to be able to take more workshops at Haystack and I also hope I will be able to take another class with Donna Penoyer.  She definitely has a talent for teaching and for working with PMC.  I told her I wanted to be her when I grow up and I truly mean that.  I admire her work and what a wonderful, happy, encouraging person she is.  (Thank you, Donna, for inspiring me!)

The ring at the beginning of this blog post was made at Haystack, with my own texture sheet (we learned several techniques for making your own textures) and the piece below is entitled Look What I Have and was inspired by one of our discussions about hidden objects and containers.  Other pieces I made at Haystack can be seen here.

Wegener's Update

It occured to me recently that after all I wrote about my Wegener's Granulomatosis last April, I haven't said a thing about it since.  Usually I don't like to bore people with my aches and pains and whatnot, but since you all were so wonderful sitting through my whining that month, I thought I'd let you know what's been going on since.

I have found a local rheumatologist who is awesome and is working with my Boston doctor well.  My first local rheumatologist was a strange chick indeed and didn't play well with others.

I have been trying for months to get off of prednisone with no success.  Everytime I'd get down to a low dose, the arthritisy pains, especially in my hands and wrists, would come back.  Then I went on vacation to Prince Edward Island and ran out of meds.  I don't know if it was the relaxation or what but I didn't hurt.  So I just kept not taking the prednisone.  Now, about five weeks later, I have some morning stiffness, especially in the wrists and elbows, but generally I'm feeling pretty good.  Naprosen seems to take care of the occasional little flair.  I've also stopped doing my inhalers and, knock on wood, I can still breathe okay.  My new rheumatologist has suggested that I can try to go without the singulair and see how I feel.  That would be another pill down.

I recently went to Boston to see my doctor down there and as long as I'm still feeling okay come December, I can start tapering off the methotrexate too.  Yay!  That one is what keeps the immune system from attacking me but it also causes me to get some really lovely infections.  Or rather it stops my body from fighting off infections, so I get everything going.

So all in all things are going well.  I hope now that I'm off prednisone I can lose some weight.  My ultimate goal is to get to a point where I've only got to take a multivitamin, some vitamin D and maybe my antidepressant.  That's the one pill I don't think I'll ever be rid of.  Or at least I don't want to.  Every time I've tried over the years has been a very bad scene so in the interest of my sanity and that of those who have to live with me, I'll continue on that.

So that's my update.  For the moment, the Wegener's is being kept at bay.  If all goes well when I taper off the methotrexate, we may be looking at the R word (remission), but I don't like to say it too loud yet, just in case.  Don't want to jinx anything.  I know I'll have some bad days, but hopefully they will be few and far between.