SOFA and Ellen

Friday morning I went to two wonderful textile themed lectures at SOFA. The first one Fiber Art: Expressions & Aesthetics, Part I: fiber artists Marcia Docter, C. Pazia Mannella, Carol B. Shinn and Barbara Lee Smith share their ideas and inspirations.

Barbara Lee Smith

Carol Shinn

The second was Fiber Art: Expressions and Aesthetics, Part II: Fiber artists Jon Eric Riis, Geoffrey Gorman, Marilyn Pappas and Kate Cusack share their ideas and inspirations.

Both Lectures were wonderful, seeing each artist's work, hearing about their process and inspirations was fascinating.

Here's Geoffrey Gorman in Jane Sauer's booth with his fabulous found object sculptures. I love how animated his animals seem, I feel like they could get up and run away.

There is always so much to see, I wish I could list all the amazing art and artists to see at this show. A few pieces that caught my eye were the stitched sculptures by Anne Lemanski and these glass orbs with stitched filaments and glass tendrils by Cathy Strokowsky. I only had my iphone with me which does not take great pictures in low light, so I didn't take many photos.

After coming home from SOFA I took Abby out for a walk.  Being a nice day,  I was anxious to get her out to enjoy it before the cold sets in and it is too cold for her to go out on walks. As I turned the corner I saw a crowd on the sidewalk across from an SUV that said the Ellen Degeneres Show on the side hooked up to a trailer with a magazine stand on top. I hung out a few minutes to see what was going on and started up a conversation with a production designer named Larry who told me he built the magazine stand and gave me the low down on what was supposed to happen.

This is Ellen driving away with the magazine stand full of the latest O magazine that she is featured in.

Abby started to get cold standing outside as the wind kicked up in the shade, so I popped her in my coat to keep her warm. Luckily she stayed quiet and didn't start barking at anything.

Here's Ellen getting out of the SUV after going around the block.

Nina called me on the phone, so I looked up and she was looking over the balcony. The photo on the right is her view of me standing on the street below, while Abby gets some attention from a bystander.

Nina got this shot of Ellen from up on the balcony.