So far I have been playing catch up from the ZNE Convenzione which was amazing....Quick (or not so quick, really) recap on that:
Friday luncheon was so sweet... we got to meet so many of these people that we email with but never see... the look of surprise and joy on people's face as they realized who they were standing next to was priceless and had me all weepy just witnessing it. We met our hostess, Chelise Stroud Hery - whom I already know and love because I'm lucky enough to live nearby. We also met Jon Troast whose music entertained us throughout the weekend. I loved him so much that I bought all three of his CD's - by the way ALL of my friends also LOVE his music since I played the CD's during our recent beach get away. Hopefully they will all be getting one or two of his CD's - nothing like supporting other artists, y'know! If you join his mailing list you can download some of his tunes AND you can even sample some of his music on the site. He's from WI, you know how I love the people from the mid-west! :) We also met our emcee, the Lovely and Talented, Michele Beschen from Courage to Create and her sidekick/production asst and all around great guy "Chad". We cruised around downtown Pleasanton and got to see our member show on display at the Worthington Gallery West... if you scroll down you'll see a photo of me with my shoes... what a funny face i'm making! LOL Anyways, talk about cool place! Wow... I was so thrilled that Claudia (the gallery's owner) put my little altered shoes on display there... they have long been my icon on the ZNE network so people could recognize me by my shoes! FUN FUN FUN!!!
Friday night we presented the Queen of ZNE with so many lovely gifts we made her cry tears of joy! That was fun... and then we screened the amazing documentary 1000 Journals by Andrea Kreuzhage... this was so amazingly done.... inspiring and interesting on several different fronts. Ms. Kreuzhage was present and we were able to ask her questions and actually see/touch/hold some of the journals... really cool!
Saturday was breakfast with SARK with opening remarks by McNair Wilson "Professional 3rd Grader" the pair were inspiring and the talk was brief but uplifting. He's 100% hilarious and she's 100% inspiring. A great start to our day of Creativity... I took the class by Chrysti Hydek and came back with some cool backgrounds! I was exhausted but excited to go have dinner at the Blue Agave Club... this happens to be where my husband and I had our first date so its already special to me! However, I won a few things from the silent auction - one was a prized "chunky book" including 30 pages of art the other was a tiny painting by my friend and fellow artist Gina Gabrielle. A few margaritas later and we were all old pals at this dinner... I got to sit with McNair, Michele and Chad plus the charming and gifted Donna and Jill. I went home all smiles.
Sunday was the vendor fair... Arts, Paper and Pleasantries... I saw lots of friends from the weekend so this was a cool way to stand still and socialize with some of these great fellow ZNErs, get to know some of my fellow vendors like HannahGrey's Shoshana and Mike, Charming Sam's Amy Steinberg as well as Gina Gabrielle, Iva Wilcox, Lani Kent and Kris Hubick... everyone of them were really darling, dear, UBER Talented folks...
At the end of all of that I feel so lucky to be a part of such a great family of artists. I can't wait until April 2009 when the 2nd Annual ZNE Convenzione will be kicking off... get your tickets now people!!!
Wow, sounds like an awesome time, Jul! And Miss Lexee is growing up fast! Been missing you so I thought I'd drop in and read about what you've been up to.
ReplyDeleteHUGS,
Marilyn