April Meeting is Saturday, April 6
The next meeting of the Guild will be Saturday, April 6 from 1-4 PM at Lafayette Arts & Crafts Center. Currently the day is set to be an ‘open’ clay day. Bring projects to work on, bring items for show & tell, and if you like, a snack or cold drink to share with the group. If you want to learn something specific – email your demo request and we’ll try to fulfill your wishes.
As with all meetings, please bring your basic tool kit and clay. We do have some pasta machines to loan for the day, but we need to know in advance.
Synergy3 Conference
Barbara and Ellen attended the International Polymer Clay Association Synergy3 Conference in Atlanta. The week was jam-packed with thought-provoking general sessions, engaging and educational breakout sessions and a lot of time to shop, socialize and network.
Part of the conference events included fundraising for the Samunnat Project in Nepal. The project supports Nepali women seeking refuge from domestic abuse. The women learn to make polymer beads and jewelry, which are then sold and provide a living wage for the women. The current effort is to raise $10,000 to build a permanent workshop and housing space for the program participants.
In keeping with previous efforts to fund polymer-related programs, the Tallahassee Guild has donated $100 to the Samunnat Project. We received this lovely note today:
Namaste to all the lovely polymer artists at the Tallahassee Guild and thank you.
Synergy must have been amazing experience! We can only dream of what having so many polymer artists together would have been like. (We think that so far, we may nearly be the only polymer artists in Nepal.) Ron, Cynthia and other friends were keeping us up to date with everything and we were there with you in spirit!
It nearly goes without saying that we’ve been totally overwhelmed by Ron’s generosity, Cynthia’s ongoing love and commitment to us, and subsequently, by the generosity of you and so many other polymer artists. We hope that listening to Ron and Cynthia, you know what an impact your generous donation will make!
When a local person told us that he wanted to donate land we were very happy, but a little afraid of how long it would take us to earn enough money to build anything on it. We were determined to stick to our priority of providing income generation training and legal assistance to women who were victims of violence and not put the building before our primary goal of supporting women who are vulnerable. But we knew what a difference having our own building would make. (You can read about some of the problems we have had with buildings here: http://acolourfuljourney.com/2013/02/11/happy-valentines-day-an-office-romance/) We calculated how much we’d need to build a small building with a tin roof, a kitchen, a larger work room (at the moment we are tripping over each other a bit), and a room where Kopila could talk to new ladies seeking advice, counselling or assistance in privacy. We thought it would be good to have a room where we could run our training so we don’t have to pay rent for that, and a little bathroom with reliable running water. And we worked out how many necklaces we’d need to sell to try to do that and felt a bit overwhelmed. We will still make those necklaces, but now, because of your generosity, our dream will become a reality far far sooner than we’d have thought. We can dream a little bigger and plan a building that will suit our needs better and have a cement roof which is a huge improvement!!! And we will have better storage so we are more organised and efficient.
If you follow this link http://acolourfuljourney.com/2013/03/03/this-is-it/ you can see pictures of the land and in our blog we will keep people updated with progress. And if you ever visit us in Nepal like Cynthia did, you will be welcomed with great love and gratitude.
From Nepal and Australia, dherai dherai dhanyabad
(Thank you SO MUCH!!!)
Kopila Basnet, the Board and ladies of Samunnat, Wendy Moore
www.acolourfuljourney.com
April and May Classes at Lafayette
Big thanks to Paige, Lizette and Nell for volunteering to teach a family-friendly class in April. We are working out the details with Center staff and will have an announcement soon.
Start thinking ahead to a project-based class for May – it can be family friendly or 16+ up age groups.
