Our trip out was smooth and uneventful and we arrived in Columbus on time. While in Columbus we stayed with Bill Fenner. The picture shows him relaxing in his newly decorated den. It's a truly comfortable room, and we found ourselves joining him in there on several ocasions when we returned late from a visit.
Our first weekend found us at the Buckeye Bash. This is the 3rd annual event of this name. It's a retreat for the Columbus and Dayton Polymer Clay Guilds. We get together at a hotel for 4 days of polymer clay - demos, sales, swaps, eating, drinking, talking and working on our own projects.
I spent my time working on some experiments in head sculpting - trying new types of clay - and in helping others who are working on their sculpting skills. This year there were several people who are miniaturists. It was interesting to see what wonderful things they can make and all at 1/12th scale. Marla Frankenberger put in a return appearance, and it was great to see her again and this year's main guest was Marie Segal. She has encouraged me to contact the British Polymer Clay Guild and get involved again. I've already looked at their site and guess what! They do a lot of miniatures too!!!!! The picture is of my picture frame. We all swap cane slices and "doo-dads" and put them on a frame for the group picture. There was a competition of frames - some of them were lovely. Hopefully, more pictures will appear at the Columbus Polymer Clay Guild Web site eventually.
John had a good time too! Apart from dining with 30 lovely ladies, he took off during the day and did some bird watching. It was cold, but sunny and I think he was quite successful. The results of this are posted elsewhere in this blog.
After a smashing weekend - so good to see all my old friends - we returned to Columbus for a couple of weeks of mad socializing. I'm not going to name everyone we saw on this trip as they are so numerous. However, I do want to apologize to all those we didn't manage to see or spend any time with. We needed more than two weeks to catch up with all the friends we've made in the past 35 years! They will get priority next time.
