Wanna Make a Yoolie with Me? Say Yes!

Guess what I get to do? I get to teach. Yes! And not just anything, but something cool, and somewhere cool. I mean, this is pretty unbelievable to me, really. When I quit teaching, long, long ago, I swore that I'd never teach again. Not that I don't love to teach, no. It's that the things I like to do are not generally things other people want to pay money to learn how to do, and I'm not out to convince people that they really DO want to do that. Frankly, it's exhausting. I love the things I do, but I do not love trying to convince people to do things they don't want to do. So I said, "No more teaching. I've had enough."

OK, before you read the rest of this, go here to see what I'm talking about. Then come back. We'll wait.

I'd taught various workshops--journal skirts, milagro pin dolls, other stuff--from Houston to Artfest and a bunch of places in between. And while I loved it, most of the workshops didn't fill up, and that means they didn't make much money for the organizers, which isn't A Good Thing. It was suggested that I try something else, try to find something to teach that was more popular, something people wanted to learn. Eh. I'm not interested in that, trying to do what everyone else is doing, i.e., what's popular. Where's the fun in that? So I quit--it's been so long ago I don't even remember--maybe a decade?

And then I get a note from Sallianne and Ellen at Art is You--Petaluma. You remember last year, when we went out to Petaluma and did what has since become known as Art Church: I moderated a panel discussion about passion and creativity, and it was fabulous fun. Well, they invited us back (The EGE is the reason: many of the photos on the website are ones he took for them), and they suggested that, in addition to doing Art Church again, I should teach a workshop with yoolies. I was way impressed: this was totally their idea, and the fact that someone would really get the idea of yoolies just makes me incredibly happy.  And not only that, but they wrote up the description and snagged the photos from the blog--they just took care of the whole thing for me while I was in the middle of Windows Week.

What's so cool about this is that they have a vision that makes these things possible. Instead of thinking things have to be the way they've always been, they're willing to try new stuff--these immersion workshops. Art Church. Things I've long been wanting to do but with nowhere to do them. And now we get to do it!

And now it's gone live, and people can register, and I'm totally jazzed. See, one thing I've dreamed of is doing a workshop my way, where it was less about finishing A Project that people could take home and show their friends than it is about learning a process, learning a different way of thinking about making stuff, and then sitting around and working on it together, talking about possibilities and the joy of making stuff. And that's what this is going to be--they've arranged for us to go thrifting together (!) and then spend the rest of the two days working together. This is so cool I don't even know how to describe it--it is, in my opinion, the way the world should be. We're not going to be making something you'll take home and put on a shelf; we're going to be making something that will change your idea of clothing and what it means to create your own life. Yes, I think it's that big, I really do.

Anyway. So that's what's really cool here, and I hope some of y'all can join us in Petaluma in September. Go here to find out more, and here to find out more about my workshop.