gottawonder

Today I am grateful for:

Getting up early so we could get to our pottery "meet and greet" event on time.

I volunteered to buy snacks ($100 budget) and was a bit worried it wouldn't be enough, but it was fine. Not REMARKABLE, but a fruit tray, veggie tray, cheese, crackers, and a few kinds of those half cans of soda.

I thought the whole thing turned out very well. As good as could be expected, really. We had a decent turnout (I think it was close to 20 people), and we had a good mix of folks from all three branches of the craft center.

Another member of the Communications Committee put together a fun scavenger hunt. We divided into four groups, and made sure each group had at least one potter, one work worker, and one person from weaving so that that person would take over in their part of the craft center and find the items, as well as talk about what they do, and show off cool tools, or what have you.

It was the perfect way to draw people into conversations about each other's discipline.

Then we all returned to the multi-purpose room where we started, and sat down, and everyone took turns doing a "show and tell" of something they brought that they had made (we got everyone to bring things and put them on a table at the front when we arrived so everyone would have a chance to look at it all).

The stories people had about their items were really interesting, often personal, and they talked about the process as well as their feelings about it, and so on.

It was absolutely fascinating. We don't often get a chance to see the work that people from weaving or wood working make, and we don't really even get much chance to see the work of other potters, because these days the cart of finished items comes back just in time for say, Monday afternoon's class, and everyone takes their work home that day.

We have so little connection with even the potters who work in different classes that we don't see their work, get to ask them questions, or learn anything from them. We don't get the chance to get to know them.

That was the WHOLE POINT of this event today. To foster a sense of community, to maybe plant the seed of people who do pottery to try weaving, or woodworking, and vice versa since we're all in the same building, and to have a social opportunity.

The work itself was REALLY well done. There are many very talented people in our center.

One woman from Weaving also does sewing on a high level (quilts mostly), but she had on running shoes that she SEWED THE UPPERS HERSELF, and found a way to sew them onto the soles of, I guess regular shoes. She wove the laces, even!

There were people there who had been members of the Craft Center for forty years. FORTY YEARS!

This is probably the first event that we've had like this in the entire time I've been a member. We have meetings, but those aren't really that social. Imagine, all these years, and so little contact between the groups.

Well, we cleaned up, and I think a lot of us felt more connected as a whole than we ever have, and I sincerely hope that we can do this at least once a year.

I'm pretty proud of being the person who suggested this, though I think that has been lost in the shuffle. I don't care. I don't need credit, I'm just happy it happened.

I'm proud of our Communications Committee, who worked hard to make this happen, to my own optimism and insistence (I've had to convince the others to go ahead with this SEVERAL times, because everyone kept saying there wasn't enough interest, or that no one would care), and our ability to come up with a simple but effective event that hardly cost anything, but I feel had a big impact.

What a nice thing to have happen.

After, my Sweetie and I went for a walk around the man made lake in town. They keep the paths clear, though they were icy in places.

I feel like we just don't walk enough in the winter. It's so easy not to bother.

Then we came home and started quinoa, and went out to the pottery studio.

I did some trimming, decided to nix one item on the basis that it was wonky, and threw another form that might be a mug.

My husband put things away (though I wish we could have done that together, as now I'm going to wonder where the heck everything is) in the chest of drawers.

It's pretty amazing to finally be working in our own studio.

Then we came inside, ate, and watched one of those so bad they're good movies called "Shaolin Soccer". I don't love those movies as much as my Sweetie does, but it's okay sometimes.