laurieopal

Leaving in the morning. As always, bless my cat sitter.

I have 3 photos in the art show 2 of Bernadette Bosky from Women En Large (she's one of the guests of honor), and one of Samuel R. Delany from Familiar Men. His is the photo that was in the National Queer Arts Festival exhibition that closed recently.

I'm moderating the panel "Fat, Feminism and Fandom Revisited." How have things changed since fannish feminists and fat activists first started this panel series? What did it accomplish, within fandom and outside of it? Panelists are Rachael Acks, Arthur D. Hlavaty, Eva Whitley and Bernadette Bosky. It's pretty close to the 30th anniversary of the first panel that Debbie Notkin and I did in 1984 in Los Angeles.

Conversation will be about the history both in fandom and the larger world, and also very much about now.

I think I've mentioned that I'm going to be able to go to the Sojourner Truth Museum on Tuesday in Battle Creek and see the archive of her photographs. This started with this blog on Body Impolitic "Sojourner Truth: I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance" Geri Sullivan wrote that she might be able to have me see the archives and that's what happened!!


"Sojourner Truth, according to the Willis/Krauthamer book Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans And the End of Slavery, understood the power of photography, and actively distributed photographs of herself:

“Those pictures were meant to affirm her status as a sophisticated and respectable “free woman and as a woman in control of her image.” The public’s fascination with small and collectible card-mounted photographs, allowed her to advance her abolitionist cause to a huge audience and earn a living through their sale. “ I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance,” proclaimed the famous slogan for these pictures."

I'll write about seeing the archive when I get back.

Still have boxes to rope and tape. Really looking forward to seeing folks in Detroit.

I'm getting my photographs ready for the Detroit art show. I'm bringing 2 photographs of Berndatte Bosky (who is one of the guests of honor) from Women En Large and the photo of Samuel R Delany from Familiar Men that was just in the National Queer Art Festival exhibition.

I'm polishing some earrings and small pendants right now and hopefully will be finished with them by tomorrow.

The group includes my mythic Japanese tiger pendant. There was long period of time when there were no tigers to see in Japan and the artist's prints of them are imagined in some excellent and somewhat alien ways. Geri Sullivan went to an exhibition of these prints a long time ago and gave me the catalog. It was the inspiration for this design. Coincidentally I bought a small figure of a tiger today that I think will end up as part of a photograph one of these days.

I'm thinking about a honeycomb black opal and starting to imagine designs.

I'm now totally back and working hard for Detcon1 in July. Very much back at my wax bench.

Just received 3 beautiful watermelon tourmalines that are blue and pink - very special.

I wrote earlier about having commissions for very different interpretations of the forest from Tanya Huff's "The Wild Ways".

The one below is silver and clear rutilated quartz. in addition to the outside trees in the design, I also carved a forest grove behind the stone. I'd never done this kind of carving on a pendant. It worked even more beautifully then I hoped. The photo is pretty good and I think it gives a fine sense of the back carving. I'm definitely going to do another
carving behind a rutilated quartz - it's a concept I want to develop.