Home After Breyerfest

Home after Breyerfest ~
I had the most wonderful time at Bfest this year.  I cannot adequately express how happy it made me watching people flipping through Maureen's sketchbook photos and calling out the Hagen-Renaker names they recognized!  Hearing how each collector felt connected to her work, how they started collecting, memories of perhaps meeting her, a few who were at her home....  It made up for the many avid plastic collectors running out of the room who had never heard of her now that Breyer has discontinued leasing her molds.

A few precious memories will stick with me ~ bits of advice on mold making, pouring slip, cleaning seams ~ offers to answer technical pottery questions, listening to Leslie answering questions on equine colors with such a depth of knowledge and humour our mouths went from forming wows to laughing out loud.   In slow periods in the room during the day having time to talk in-depth with a few people and getting into conversations about random things like relationships they had survived, or how we detected our cancers, and giving hugs and encouraging words to each other.

Then there is the Sunday morning frantic TP wrapping of the HR minis, trying to snag the elusive Clarion carts, wishing you could have said a proper goodbye to certain friends who'd been there, the stacks of empty Breyer boxes in the hallways.  Finally, heading north on I-75 and getting to play moldy oldy discs and enthusiastically sing without worrying about staying in key to Blind Faith, ancient Rolling Stones, Beatles Abbey Road and the White Album ~ and then being SO lucky as to find playing on the radio the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th symphony, the most sublime piece of music ever written.

Life is good...........