Off to North Carolina

It's always hard to sum up a weekend into one word.  People always ask "How was your weekend?" and I always say something that is easy like "good," "okay," or "fine." I'm not implying that my weekend was "bad" or "good," but I may need to think about how this past weekend was for a moment to come up with an accurate term.

Since the "Nellie Allen Smith Juried Pottery Competition" (which will be known from now on as NASC) was in Fayetteville, NC, and I have extended family there, I decided to grab my mom and sister and take a road trip.  Let me interject this here, and I won't really rant or describe why this is, but my family is crazy.  If you combine my immediate family with my extended family, the madness is slightly overwhelming.  With that said, I went to NC to see the show and to see family that I haven't visited in almost 5 years.  For some reason, I also had the anticipation of winning a prize at the NASC.  What really built the excitement was before I left, I checked the Cape Fear website to see if there were any new announcements about the show, and saw that they used the image of my teapot for the NASC.  I interpreted that as someone thinks your teapot is great and you are going to win something!!!  But I didn't.  It was a disappointment, but (here is where the family comes into play) when there is so much craziness around you, it provides enough of distraction for a few days, that you really don't remember the feeling of disappointment after everything settles down.

The show looked really great, and the functional pieces that won awards were truly deserving of them.  There were works from all over the US in the NASC.  I had some qualms about how my dinnerware set was displayed, but I'm sure that happens to everyone.  I was snapping some images of everything when I was instructed that I couldn't, so I only got images of my works to show off.  Another thing, the Cape Fear Gallery is in a really good location in downtown Fayetteville, but there was no one there at 12pm on a Saturday.  I guess it is one of those downtown areas that doesn't see much action.  It was really a foreign concept, considering downtown Savannah is ALWAYS bustling.

So to sum up, I didn't win a prize, but the show looked great.  When you have a crazy family that gets into Facebook photo wars and introduces you to interesting Indian food, there isn't much time for contemplating disappointment.  Also, I was reminded of how good my Aunt's chicken and dumplins are and they pretty much put us all in a sleepy state of comfort.

In essence, I think that this weekend was very "reminding." I was reminded not to count my chickens before they hatch.  I was reminded that not all crazy is bad. I was also reminded that I still have a lot more exploring to do on my body of work.