Thursday, March 12, 2009

30th Annual Yuma Symposium Overview

Two weeks ago I attended the 30th Annual Yuma Art Symposium, in Yuma, AZ. Here is where it all starts...at Lutes Casino (not a casino at all, actually more like a bar/restraunt), in historic downtown Yuma. At Lutes we spend many hours socializing and swapping trade pins with other Symposium go-ers. The pin swap will be a whole post of its' own because I have too many awesome trade pins to show you!Anyway, here you see us all decked out in our pins. I know I look scary in this picture, but it illustrates how much fun the pin swap is, and this wasn't even all the pins I traded for! After the pin swap, we all head over to the old theater to hear the presenters give their sales pitches as to why we should attend their lectures or demos for the rest of the weekend.
This year I attended the lectures/demos of...Elliot Pujol
James VisteAnd (my asu professor) Tedd McDonah. I also saw James Thurman, Dana Moore, and Michael Hosaluk.
I will be doing another post that shows the work of the presenters this year because they were all so awesome, it needs a post of its own!
After all the presentations, we have the National Saw File and Solder Sprints! Its a relay race to make a band ring. The first person has to saw out the ring blank, the second person has to file and form it, and the third person has to solder it. Our team was named "Two grads and a spaz."
It is super fun and really competitive and the three winning teams take home some killer trophies. Unfortunatley ASU didnt bring home any trophies this year, but we are already gearing up for next years competition!
There is also an exhibition of student work, and the work of presenters (which I totally forgot to take pictures of this year!). Oops.
Also, Betsy Douglas brought her pin collections from all 30 years of yuma symposiums for the show. She has been going since year 1 and makes sure she trades with every single person at Yuma every single year. That woman is amazing! Check out my flickr for more photos of some of the old pins. She has a wall panel covered in pins for each year.There is also a pin auction the last night, which benefits the Yuma Symposium. It gets a bit crazy, but it is always fun and I like to come home with something every year. This year I bought a bracelet (a lot like this one) made by James Thurman. (This photo is from his flickr). It is made of mokume kami (laminated paper made to look like wood grain).
And you probably remember me showing you this already, but this is the wall vase that I made with the other ASU Metals grads as our contribution to the auction.
After the auction and show, there is a great barbque/dance party. These ladies come every year and make the best tortillas (over a trash can fire) that you have ever had in your life!
The yuma symposium is SO much fun. Every year I meet people that change my life and I am so grateful to be able to have those experiences! I hope someday I will be one of the crazy oldtimers at Yuma...wearing my crazy silver pants and dancing the night away...laughing at all the silly young kids:)
Check back soon for my posts on the presenters and the pin swap!

1 comments:

Lora Hart said...

So glad that you had such a great time. Hope Boston was fun too!