These images are from the tableaux I created in the glass display case in my recent exhibition "Transition" in Kansas City. The interplay between the journals, the maquettes and the work was very inspiring and allowed people a glimpse into my working process, especially how integral journaling and visual journals are to how I work. Solo exhibitions are a wonderful opportunity to step back and review one's own evolution of their work. Generally work is boxed up in the studio and so I do not have the opportunity to see the evolution and progression of the work. In this case, it is a new body of new ideas and materials that have been percolating in the journals for years. There have been many tangents and backslides as I exlore different avenues, the show validated I am headed in the right direction. It was also very validating as a teacher of Creative Visual Journaling to step back and see how what I practice echoes what I teach.

Recently back from the Surface Design Association biennial conference in Kansas City,MO where I had a solo show "Transition." It marked my 'coming out' so to speak with a very new body of work that embraces the many different media I work in. The work displayed included whole cloth textiles and woven recycled cloth rag weaving both painted with surface design techniques, low and high fire ceramics, drypoint monoprints, collographs, and wall sculptures of bull kelp, bamboo and steel.The images above pan the exhibition moving from the left to the right. The intimacy of the space fitted the body of work well. I spent 2 days installing it. I love it when I have the opportunity to install a solo exhibition. I can listen to the work and create a sense of a conversation or dialogue between the work. The glass case in the middle displayed journals and maquettes of ideas. These added to a sense of the dialogue or progressive conversation of ideas that inspired the work. The staircases and sense of journey that have been the muse of my textiles for many years are evolving in to sense of a journey by vessel or boat.

On another note, Kansas City is great, full of old architecture, signs painted on old brick warehouses, now peeling off, a sense of westward and river history and very friendly. It was a stimulating conference on many levels. Seeing old and new friends, great exhibitions, speakers that stimulated thought and I had a wonderful group for my post conference workshop "Making and Keeping Creative Journals."