A Big Adventure

Yesterday was a big adventure. High Fiber Diet, the group that Gerrie and I belong to had a meeting planned in Philomath, Oregon, where Karen Miller (another member) currently has a show of her work hanging at the Historical Museum. We planned to see her show, then hold our regular meeting. As it happened, a QuiltArt friend, Sue Reno, is in Portland this week, and Gerrie invited her to go along with us. We have "known" Sue, who lives in Pennsylvania, via the internet for many years, but had never met face to face, so this was a special occasion!

We started out around noon and decided a drive through Oregon's wine country would give Sue a better view of Oregon than the freeway. We stopped at the Dundee Bistro for lunch, then headed south toward Philomath. I missed the first turn at McMinnville and soon figured out we were headed for the ocean, instead of Philomath, but a look at the map showed us that we were still fine and could take a different route through Dallas (Oregon, not Texas) and end up in Philomath. But something went wrong in Dallas and we ended up on a gravel road that wound around through the hinterlands, but eventually spit us out in Monmouth. Back to the map and back on course. We were only about 30 minutes late and Sue saw lots of Oregon in one afternoon!

Karen's work looked beautiful in the spacious museum gallery.

Sue, Gerrie and Karen

Karen uses the Japanese stencil cutting and printing technique called Katazome and her work is very beautiful and very distinctive. Her background as a professor of marine biology is evident in her special love of sea life as a subject for her work.

This mandala of sea creatures was one of my favorite pieces.

Diatoms! I recognized these right away, having just learned that the mystery sculptures I saw in April in downtown Portland were images of diatoms. Isn't it interesting when you learn something new, that you had never heard of before, suddenly it pops up again.

We had a good meeting, then all went into Corvallis for dinner before heading home. It was a much shorter trip back to Portland. I took the freeway.

It was a lovely day all the way around. So nice to spend a beautiful spring day with friends, old and new, see beautiful scenery, eat good food and view inspiring art. And I have saved the best for last. I have a souvenir that will always remind me of this very nice day. Sue gave me a lovely piece of her own artwork. It is sitting next to my computer where I can enjoy it until I find the right frame for it. I'm a lucky person!

P.S. In case you ever need to know—Philomath is pronounced "f-LO-muth". And we taught Sue to say "ORY-gun" not "oh-reh-GONE". Oregon place names can be challenging. Tualatin, anyone??