Viva Las Vegas!!

I just returned from the ARMA conference in Las Vegas. I am totally fried mentally. It was a great conference but these things are so exhausting. The schedule ran from daylight to dark and I did not have time to catch my breath much less go to a hobby store. Apparently there is a hobby store in Vegas which has some miniatures. I'm sure it was all one inch scale but still I wanted to look because you never know what you will find.



Speaking of never knowing what you will find, when the exhibit hall opened, I found the King of Rock and Roll himself. Of course, I had to have my picture made with him! The group there really played up the Vegas theme with impersonators, magicians, roulette and craps tables and of course Elvis and showgirls!








Pictured here are The Rat Pack --Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin. They were all really good especially Dean Martin. I had to do a double-take with him!

















While I was in Vegas, I toured a lot of the casinos and like Disney World they have perfected the art of miniatures but on a much larger scale. Where else would you find New York City and the Statute of Liberty across from the Eiffel Tower and down the street from a Pyramid? I loved the faux painting at The Venetian Casino and Hotel. The paintings were amazing and the walls looked like marble. Below is a picture of the waterfall in the atrium surrounded by a villa. Now, I certainly don't have the room for the scale the casinos work in, but I can appreciate the architectural details and learn from their styling and staging techniques.





All in all it was a productive trip business-wise, but I am so glad to be home!

The Thursday Evening Workshop & Observations on Life

I am always amazed the variety and difficulty of the Round Tables offerings at Houseparties. Here are a few people searching through and shopping beforehand. Personally, I make it easy on myself and pretty much buy one of everything or in the case of Debbie Young's Washer and Dryer set, two of everything. I bought waaay to many kits but they were all lovely and I couldn't resist as usual. If only I actually finished the kits it would be okay but I just seem to collect them for projects I intend to do someday but someday doesn't seem to arrive. One of the funniest things was the Presidential Executive Washroom by Luci Hanson complete with a urinal with Presidential seal. I have no idea what to do with it, but I had to buy one!

For the Thursday Evening Workshop Set-up Donna Brewington presented Jane Payne with the special award of empty spray paint cans from the dozens of boxes she painted much to Jane's surprise and/or dismay! As we prepared for the onslaught of participants we enjoyed one last moment of laughter as a group that had counted, painted, cut and packaged tiny pieces for months.

The workshop was a full house and I think everyone had a great time in spite of the ballroom lighting. I had a great time having many of the participants who didn't finish come into Hospitality and finish up there. It's always exciting to me to see how people take the same container, the same instructions, the same components and come up with entirely different visions for their project.

To me, that is the best part of miniatures -- the ability to express ourselves in ways that we never could in real life. I might not build a replica of the Oval Office in my house but I don't think twice about creating it in miniature and then decorating it to my own tastes and preferences or re-creating an actual office from a specific period of time.

Maybe I'm crazy (I've been called worse!) but I think a lot of what is wrong with society today is the lack of personal expression. People spend all their time earning money to spend on pre-created items in pre-created packages and they never touch their inner creativity to develop something themselves.

They never discover for themselves what it is to develop something and be unhappy with it and tear it apart and start over again and again until they get it right. To problem solve how to make the trim look to scale or make the draperies hang properly. They never discover the joy of "doing" and in so discovering find the joy of being. Creating something of beauty or interest from something that is normally considered garbage and looking at things with an entirely different eye is the greatest stress reliever of all!

The exception to that being , of course, when I am desperately trying to clean my Workroom and find myself debating over whether or not to throw out a minuscule piece of wood, fabric, etc.

I should have worked on my work room this weekend more than I did. I cleaned out a few boxes, but still have so much more to go through. This weekend, instead of being trapped in my windowless room, my family and I went to North Carolina to an apple orchard - SkyTop - and picked apples. The day was absolutely glorious and the sky the most brilliant blue. The apples, red, yellow and green and all mixtures and shades in between, were so heavy on the branches it was a miracle that they did not break under their weight. We walked along and picked and talked and taste-tested the apples until finally I just had to sit down and enjoy the view. Take in the scents and sights and sounds of the moment. The crunch and juiciness of a crisp red skin with white apple flesh

while the heat of the sun shown down and the shouts of children in the distance as they ran through the orchard.

I find the older I get the more time I take to observe the minute details of the ordinary things that make life so precious. It is the juice of the apple as it drips down your chin, the stickiness on your hand, the sun on your skin, the light in a loved ones eye and the squeak of the wheel on a wagon that makes a memory.

We picked apples as we went. Talking, taking our time. And each day, as I have taken my apple to snack on at work and I eat my apple inside my office with it's air conditioning and tight windows, I can smell the outside air and feel the hard ground underneath with me each crispy bite. Anyone want an apple?

Tales from the E3 2008 Small Scales Houseparty in Greenville, SC "Hail to the Chief."

On September 17, 2008, we all convened at the Hyatt Hotel in Greenville South Carolina to begin our final push for setting up the Houseparty. Thanks to Shannon and Roy Moore, Operations was set up and it didn't take long until we were all packing totebags and stuffing final items into registration packets.

Our fearless leader, Rhonda Keef, insisted on looking at the Houseparty through her rose-colored glasses and pushed us onward to the completion of set-up before our first registration time.

Donna Brewington and I set up the patriotic arches that moved me way beyond my comfort zone of decor and squarely into the land of gaudy over the top decor! And yet, Donna kept insisting I add more flags, more lights and more fluffy red, white and blue streamers. Rhonda also seemed equally pleased with the arches and columns I created but it could have been the rose-colored glasses.

The registration went extremely smooth and the majority of it took place during the first couple of registration times. Well done, ladies, for a great job welcoming our guests.
I often wonder why we volunteer to put ourselves through such headaches to prepare for a Houseparty. I was talking to a friend and we agreed that we began miniatures because of our love of all things small, but we stayed in miniatures because of our wonderful friendships we develop through the years.

So three years ago when I received an email with a newsletter attached to it stating I was the Hospitality chair and that email came from a dear friend, Rhonda, I never considered saying no even though I knew how much work it would be. The things we do for love of a friend!

All work set aside though I would not trade anything for the time spent with friends counting packages, measuring rooms, creating checklists, giving reports, attending meetings, staying up late for a drink after the banquet and spreading all our mini-swaps on the table and sharing with the "oohs" and "ahhs" with some of the people I value most.

The minis are a bonus but the friends are a treasure.

Next time: Workshop Pictures

This is the beginning of the story...

So here we are. "In the beginning." At the beginning of my Mini Thoughts of Many Things. My other option was Clarity in a Cluttered Mind but I am not entirely sure that I have clarity. Clutter, yes. Clarity I suppose occurs occasionally but a nano second passes and it drifts away like smoke on the wind. You can vaguely see it but never capture it.

Primarily I will talk about my miniatures and artistic endeavors but with my cluttered faculties I am sure I will drift from here to there. It is September 29th so I must write about new beginnings. I love the idea of a new year as the Jewish people celebrate Rosh Hoshana. The new year should begin now. New school year (even though it has been a very long time since I was in school), new season, new beginnings.

In the spirit of new beginnings, I decided yesterday to clean my workroom and that led to re-arranging the furniture, which led to painting the wall and a shiny new surface for my 4' x 8' worktable. Suffice it to say on the second day my room is a wreck and half of the belongings of the workroom are strewn across the game room next door or piled in the center of the floor. I am looking for clarity and only finding more clutter. And I haven't even begun going through the baskets and drawers or finished painting the walls. As I progress, I will post pictures of the transformation of my workroom.

Today I made a list (because I love checklists!) of all my ongoing projects that involved structures such as houses, roomboxes or scrubby containers, etc. and discovered I have 45 projects ongoing. Of these 34 are quarter scale, 2 are half scale, 6 are one inch scale and 2 are 1/144 inch scale. Yikes! How did those get in there? And how did I get so many started and so few finished? So, my new year's resolution (even though I am not Jewish) is to finish some projects. I have several that are oh so close to being done so I will concentrate on those first and hopefully the thrill of checking them off my list will keep me focused enough to finish more projects! I will post pictures of my projects as well and discuss my triumphs and what ended up in the trash.

As a part of my "real scale" job, I travel frequently, and I always try to find a miniature shop so I will play "secret shopper" and let you know my thoughts on those as well. I would make a list of my unfinished furniture and accessory kits but I lack the math skills to count that high. If it is true that you can't die as long as you have unfinished kits, then I have eternal life before me. I will review these kits as I work on them and post pictures too.

Next time: Tales from the E3 2008 Small Scales Houseparty in Greenville, SC "Hail to the Chief."