My Fabulous trip to Florida: Part one


As I sit here contemplating what I might have forgotten to pack for my trip to Omaha, I reflect on what a wonderful time I had in Florida and because I have so many photos I want to share, I’m going to break this blog post up into two parts. The first post will cover my trip on the west coast of Florida in St Petersburg and the second post will be about my time on the east coast at the Focus on Fiber retreat in New Smyrna Beach.

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I arrived in St Pete’s just after midnight and spent the next 4 days staying with my ol Chicago friend Pat.

During that time I had 2 days to acclimate to the 3 hour time change, tear 40 yards of fabric into ½ yard, 1 yard and 2 yard pieces, and organize and prepare supplies for my classes with the Tampa Surface Design guild as well as my 3 day workshop at the Focus on Fiber Florida retreat in New Smyrna Beach and see a few local sights.

dali museumOne of the highlights of my time in St. Petersburg was a trip to the Dali Museum, I can not recommend it highly enough, if you are ever in the area, don’t miss it!

I especially enjoyed the special exhibit on the friendship and collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvadore Dali over the 10 years Dali lived in the United States during the war. It was fascinating to learn all about the history, symbolism and inspiration behind the animated film Destino, that Dali began in 1946, but Disney dropped mid production. The film was finally finished in 2003 and was nominated for Best Animated Short.

A really cool part of the special exhibit was at the end, you could virtually go inside Dali’s world in Dreams of Dali using a 360° 3-D headset and headphones for a 3 minute tour, very cool!

 

My first class with the Tampa Surface Design guild was Tea and Ephemera,

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always a fun one to explore mixed-media techniques and a bonus was getting to meet a long time online friend Calamity Kim.

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Don’t you love scenes of creative chaos?!
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My second class was Blessings in the Wind: mixed-media prayer flags.

1 prayer flag string

This was my first time teaching this class and it went very well,

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except, besides Marlene Glickman, who’s in process flags are shown above, many people didn’t get to the point of cropping their flags before the end of the day.

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Next time, I’ll need to crack the whip a bit more in the afternoon, lol, I often find after lunch people are less productive, and tend to really slow down around 2:30, when unfortunately there’s another hour and a half to go.

On Monday Marlene gave me a ride over to New Smyrna Beach and we had a delightful non-stop 3 hour conversation. I think we’ve passed each other many times in the teacher room at Quilt Festival in Houston over the years, but had never met until now and I can’t believe I don’t have a photo on my phone, I could swear we took a picture together.

My parting shot from St Pete’s will be this jaunty Laughing Gull on the mud flat. IMG_4206
Stay tuned for part two of my trip to Florida at the Focus on Fiber retreat.

ABOUT JUDY
IMG_5538Judy is an artist, explorer, image wrangler, knowledge seeker, instructor, speaker, creative alchemist, and purveyor of inspiration, helping others channel creativity on a daily basis.


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