How lucky am I to be able to spend a week travelling with my mom (Dixie).
We started off with a couple of days in the US capital of Washington DC. Neither of us know very much about US politics and history, so I was glad that we bought an audio walking tour to tell us what was what. In fact, at one point we had a rather hilarious debate with me thinking that the Lincoln memorial was the White House and Dixie thinking that it wasn’t because the White House has a dome on the top (it doesn’t).
Audio tour nerds
Washington Monument
Lincoln Memorial and the reflecting pool
Jefferson Memorial
The Secret Service were in high gear right beside the White House with a whole street blocked off. Someone special must have been in town.
Capital building
We knew there was a chance that the cherry blossoms would be in bloom, but we really lucked out by being there on the day the media announced it to be ‘peak bloom’.
The tulip trees were magnificent
Tidal Basin
We popped in to the Renwick Gallery, one of the Smithsonian Museums and enjoyed some art that foreshadowed some of the artists whose work we would see again later in the trip.
Day 2 we started out with a great free tour of the JFK Performing Arts Centre.
There are tons of incredible art donated from different countries, including this chandelier in the opera house.
We meandered around the historic Georgetown neighbourhood and stopped at a coffee shop to taste the ‘limited time’ Cherry Blossom Latte!
Church at Georgetown University
I’d never seen a Weeping Cherry Blossom before
We capped off our DC adventure with Southern food at the Union market. Étoufeé is a spicy shrimp and rice dish that was delicious!
After a train ride to Richmond, Virginia we started the main event! We spent the next 4 days at the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, which is the largest clay conference in the world! At the opening ceremonies they said that over 6000 people were registered. We listened to clay talks, watched demos, visited galleries, and got lots of free glaze samples from the huge Resource Hall. Our heads are exploding with inspiration!
The resource fair where we could see and buy everything clay!
Last year I had done a workshop at our local pottery studio about body mechanics and injury prevention/management during pottery. A great pottery friend had encouraged me to bring it to a larger audience, so I applied to do it at NCECA. Never in a million years did I think I would be accepted, but in August I found out that I was! Friday morning I did my session, called ‘Can My Body Do This Forever?’. There were at least 500 people in attendance and so many questions at the end that the sound tech had to get the hook to get me off the stage! I am very proud of this experience.
Some of my favourite parts of the conference were the little things:
- There was a gum-ball machine filled with tiny clay toys made by 50 different artists.
- There was a fundraiser cup sale where all registrants of the conference were encouraged to bring a cup to sell. There were 1550 cups, which resulted in over $67,000 towards scholarships. I could have spent hours looking at all of the different submissions.
Can you spot the Dawn and Dixie cups?
- Having dinner with a pottery friend who used to work at Medalta and has now moved to Calgary.
We didn’t have much time for tourist stuff outside of the conference, but enjoyed learning the *free* Richmond bus system and eating good food.
I’m wishing I had some days to get muddy at the studio with my new ideas and glaze samples, but next weekend Rob and I are jumping on another plane, this time to Fiji. I guess my ideas will have the chance to percolate while I enjoy some sun and beach time.