Freaky Friday

Freaky Friday started with one of those scary showers. I do think that the bathrooms here are quite gross most of the time. There are just too many people sharing and too many people who don't clean up after themselves. Bkfst was a toasted peanut butter and jelly and coffee. We are right across the street from the first Starbucks and the coffee here is sad cuz of the powdered creamer. Right next to the hostel is a homegrown coffee shop and the coffee is wonderful and cheap. For the same thing I get for close to 5 bucks at Starbucks I can get there for $2.65. It was raining again.

I started in the morning with a lecture by a cute young college student about her quest for pink glazes using rare earth materials. The gal was blonde and soft spoken and what came out of her research was complicated and maybe not quite what she was after, but she used her brains and was able to communicate the finite points of her research with slides (Power POINT damnit).

I went to several other lectures... Tip Tolan and Patty Warishina spoke about their work. Richard Notkin was supposed to be there but had hurt his back. Tip Tolan was one of the demonstrators also for NCECA. She made a HUGE head out of clay. I do look forward to seeing her work again. I didn't take too much time in the demos. I usually want more head stuff like the lectures have. I also know that they video tape all of it, and you can buy it the next year. I should also not feel so compelled to go to the lectures over the demos because all of that is published too. I think there is more to say about the lectures I went to but I am brain dead and overloaded now.

I stayed close to the convention center most of the day except for one short run out for a delicious roasted red pepper soup.

Right before I left my boyfriend said something about a comic book convention that was going on at the same time in as NCECA. I didn't pay attention to him until I started seeing people dressed as super heroes riding the escalators. The first one I saw was a 250lb Alice in Wonderland. Ya know that blue dress ain't so cute anymore when it is made of 10 yards of sky blue fabric and your cankles hang over your bobby sock anklets. I also saw Clark Kent.. man how did that guy get his hair to look like gelled back black JB Weld? The cool thing about all the comic book fanatics/nerds is they make the clay people look totally normal. I must say though, never under any circumstances wear the electric blue SUPERGIRL fleece that Brenda B. gave you, to a town that is having a comic book convention. The drunk beggar at the bottom of the stairs in the hostel here yells SUPERGIRL! everytime I walk by and perfect strangers have discussed SUPERGIRLS virtures with me. I feel like an Comic-con fraud, I don't even know what she looks like.

Back to NCECA...
At 4pm there was a cup exchange with Clayarters. I stood in line next to a nice lady from Vancouver who had a beautiful carved porcelain/thrown cup, GIO(glazed inside only). We all dropped our cups off and picked up a ticket and left the room. The cups were put into brown paper bags, and we all returned and picked a bag. We weren't aloud to touch the bags we just had to pick one bag and take it. IN my bag was a beautiful wood fired shino cup by Liz Willoghby. She had been right behind me in line. Mind you there were probably 60+ cups. As I was thanking Liz, she was opening her cup, and it was Leila's! I don't remember the lady that got mine but she seemed happy.

After the cup exchange I went up to Catherine and Leila's place and hung out for a bit. I left my load of stuff there and went to a party over at the Sheraton. That was a party that may be better to say "what happens in Seattle stays in Seattle" and I took the photos?!?! (at least I was behind the camera).. and maybe you will see what I took in a poster at the next NCECA.

I got lost on my way home, again. I am thankful for my SMARTPHONE "Sweetness Two", who is much smarter than me when it comes to figuring out where I am. I am remembering my stay in PHX in the hotel what was 8 blocks from the convention center, where I didn't get lost, but found I was not in such a great area. I think that there are some interesting characters down here(5 blocks downhill from the convention), but I haven't felt unsafe.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE,
Jada