We were just swimming along and we were blindsided by an invitation to present a paper on the Southwestern Sumatran beaded baskets we collected while in Inddonesia at the 2nd Borneo International Beads Conference in Kuching, Malaysia! Food for thought as we swam along.
I went to Texas in September to see my family. My Dad has done a lot of woodwork over the years. His Dad also did a lot of woodwork. It seems to run in the family. We often talk shapes and decorating methods and ideas because ceramics and wood are very similar in those ways. This was the latest of his efforts and made me very proud. As you can see Mom & Dad have a table full of everyone's favorites.
The Bead conference was going to be October 7-9, 2011 so we really needed to make up our minds about throwing caution to the winds and go or say no.
Our precious niece Tracey was getting married to Philip Aus October 1st and that was the kicker. We wanted to be there so....the rest as they say is history. We were lucky to be able to make it not only to the wedding but had a chance to participate in helping with the details. We are so proud of and happy for Tracey & Philip. It was a wedding that was all about friends, family and love. It was a gift to be present.
We now had a ticket to the moon and needed to do what we needed to do. We wrote the paper, made the plans, got the tickets and tried to get ready. We would be gone over 3 weeks and there was a lot to cover and take care of before leaving.
Kuching is a beautiful and very livable city. It feels so nice and the people are friendly. A river runs through it with a beautiful walkway with food stalls and beautiful plantings all along the river. Lovely night or day. It reminded us of our time on the east coast of Borneo. Strangely familiar was the feeling. It was so easy for us to be comfortable even using our rusty Indonesian. That language was based on Malaysian so it is easy to be understood even though there are differences.
The Bead Conference was held at the Grand Marguerita Hotel on the river. It was an international group of stunning people who all love beads. We made new friends and enjoyed ourselves thouroughly. We learned a lot about beads from our new friends and shared that love for a few days. We look forward to deepening the connections with this amazing group of people.
We simply could not go that far away and be so close to our buddies in Bali to not pop over so we did. Our dear friends Nyoman Suradnya and his lovely wife Rai blessed us with their amazing and comfortable homestay as our base. We had to visit our carver friend I. B. Oka in Mas which we walked to from Ubud. A great distance but our way took us through many acres of rice paddies and was more like we know Bali from the old days. Turns out Oka and Nyoman know each other well but do not see each other very often. We had a good reason to get them together and we got to watch them connect again after a long time, just like we had done with each of them. Magic!
Spent a couple of days in Kuala Lumpur because we had never been. Found our old friend Geoff in town working so met him for dinner and caught up. Small world!
fun little pitchers
Salt, peppa & tray
At Last! The 2012 Island Directory is here! This week was the launching along with a Craft Fair at the Inn on Peaks. Wonderful!
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