Last month I had a wonderful time teaching in Rochester, NY. Unfortunately, I travelled there the day after a major snowstorm and ended up spending about 10 hours in lovely Washington, DC airport. I ended up missing a talk/demo I was supposed to do for the Rochester Woodworking Society that evening and did not actually get into Rochester until about 1:00 am. The next day an all-day talk and demo on the basics of woodcarving was also scheduled. I guess I was riding on adrenaline or sheer will-power, because I made it through that day with only losing my voice, not my mind!
For the next 4 days I taught a class for the Society of American Period Furnituremakers (SAPFM). Their request was to carve drapery linenfold (like on the cover of the Samuel McIntire book), scrolls and volutes, a basic acanthus leaf for a cabriole leg and an advanced acanthus leaf design. We really covered an amazing amount of carving- and several of the projects were new topics that I had not taught in classes often – at least not these specific projects. So it was new for all of us! (They were very cooperative guinea pigs) There was some great carving accomplished!
My hosts, Mike and Irene Brawley, were wonderful to me and completely spoiled me the entire time I was there. It has been about 15 years since I really saw that kind of deep snow (growing up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, I knew snow!) I felt like a kid again trudging through nearly 20 inches of snow and coming inside when your eyes feel like they will freeze open.
Glad to be back to the warm 🙂 I am SOOO spoiled.