laramie

I accomplished everything on my pre-Marscon to-do list, except 'take a nap.' Amazingly, I still kept going until after midnight.

I got my stuff set up in the art show and ran into an old friend, LindaE from the Children's Book Illustrators Guild, and Walter who posed for the wizard in one of my drawings and displays his own fairy fossils, and ErinM and Beth H. During the Artist's Reception I met a few new artists, including Eileen Julianna (?), which was especially pleasant because I thought the work she's doing with Photoshopped images is really exceptional. (Very convincing scenes with ghosts and fairies and angels.) I wished I could afford some of her work; I'm sure it will only increase in value. I spoke to her about a new (for me) artistic approach that's been incubating on the back-burners of my mind lately:

There are some things I do in my drawings, (putting patterns and subtle imagery into the background,) and some things I've done with encaustic painting (to show dynamics of energy in relation to a bold foreground image,) and some things I can do in Carrara 3-D Studio (making sculptural figures that can be rotated and shifted and brought into new environments and lighting conditions)... I want to bring all these features together somehow to show some of the things I've been seeing in my mind's eye during meditations. I've been mulling it over, and want to start doing more little doodles and tests.

I attended the Opening Ceremonies, peeked into the Dealer's rooms, and went back and forth to the Con Suite a few times. I'm not enchanted with the layout of the hotel, which has everything laid out in a very large square surrounding an outdoor (snowy & cold) atrium, and entails a long walk anytime one wants a soda or something from the Con Suite. The Con Suite itself doesn't have enough seating for very many people to hang out there.

The filking didn't start until ten, but we got in ahead of time and set up the room. Thorin was absent at a chess tournament, but Rich and Richard were both there, and we were joined by Jessy (enthusiastic filker who lives too far away to attend the monthly filks) and a number of other people over the course of the singing: some good singers, a good drummer, and good fun. The distance to the Con Suite and lack of liquid refreshment was a problem, so tonight I plan to bring out some beers and sodas I have at home. I requested that Rich inform the ConCom that the filkers require Tullamore Dew.