Joining Your Local Guild is a Good Thing!

Well, yes, you knew that!

There are lots of benefits to joining your local guild in whatever craft you do. There's a lot of interesting people who want to talk about the same thing you do, and are less likely to have glazed over eyes after the first minute on the topic. You make good contacts, and usually there are resources available more easily.

But you also make the most important thing--friends. And sometimes just getting together and having an artistic play date can really help in ways you would never have imagined. Recently Renee Taylor (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5216872) and I got together just to play. Not only was it fun just because, but it was also a fantastic learning opportunity. Renee does lovely florals, whereas I am reasonably dot- and flower-challenged. I, however, am pretty good with presses, whereas Renee is press-challenged. So we swapped. I showed Renee how to roll (not press) a thin tube of glass into the press first, so that the ends are roughly 1mm from each side of the press. Then add glass, slowly--you always use less than you think! Renee showed me her dot technique, and under her good eyes I realized that I had had more problems because I was heating up too much of each rod's end, and making it much harder to place dots precisely.

We finished up with pho at my favorite local Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall, Pho Truc, and need not to wait so long before doing this again. It was just flat FUN.