SDA Day One & Two

the view from our hotel room looking south toward Country Club Plaza

On Thursday there were concurrent sessions, a featured speaker, the Keynote address; and the vendor fair opened.

In the evening we had dinner under the big tent on the lawn. It had been cloudy all morning, the sun came out but the temperature stayed nice and cool. There was no meeting agenda, it was open seating, and the wine was free. We sat with old friends and met new people. It was a great set up for the vendors fair. The vendors fair is in the 2nd floor conference rooms across the hall from the grand ballroom. The featured speakers, member meeting and trunk show are in the grand ballroom. This has been a great set up. It is like the village market place with people going from booth to booth, oohing and ahhing over the beautiful textiles and other things. At one point, Smadar found me in line for the dessert crepes and pulled me out to look at a piece of shibori that had just come from Japan. We ended up buying the whole nine yard piece together.

Chetna, holding a piece of shibori she bought, and Smadar

Crossroads Arts District

Interior of the phenominal Lidia's

Friday was gallery day in the Crossroads art district. Six of us from California headed down there after the membership meeting. We had lunch at the phenomenal Lidia’s, and went gallery crawling. There are four galleries with SDA related exhibitions on the street leading away from Lidia’s. at Leedy Voulkos Art Center we ran into and met Jerry Bleem, one of my favorite artists. I first saw his work at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art gallery on that same street, at another conference.

Jerry Bleem's work

At the membership meeting on Friday Morning we learned for sure that the conference won't be in Kansas City next time. The folks at KCAI have done a wonderful job hosting it five times in the last 10 years. They're tired, its time for a change. We found out the conference will be in Minneapolis in 2011. They're excited, and it sounds like it will be a great setting.

So I've decided part of my puropse here is to document some of my favorite things about how great Kansas City was for the SDA conference.

Cafe Sebastienne at the Kemper Museum

SDA Travel Day

Country Club Plaza

I got up early and my husband took me to the Flyaway bus, which goes from Van Nuys to LAX. If I’m traveling alone, its become my favorite way to get to the airport. I decided to fly out of LAX because Southwest has a direct flight to Kansas City from there, and no direct flights from Burbank. I’ve gotten tired of changing planes in the middle of what would otherwise be a three hour flight. I’ve gotten tired of changing planes in Phoenix.

Bee had a ticket on the same flight, so I expected to see her at the gate. After I got through the obstacle course that is the security screening in LAX’s Terminal 1, I went to Starbucks to get my first coffee of the day. Coming out of Starbucks, I ran into Bee. The flight was smooth and uneventful. We took off under cloudy skies in LA and landed under cloudy skies in Kansas City.

After we checked in to the hotel and got settled in our room, we walked over to KCAI to check in to the conference. From our room we called Smadar and Chetna, and got a hold of them at the rental car agency, ready to pick up their car. By the time We found the on-campus coffee house and sat down to go over the schedule, Smadar and Chetna called from their hotel room. We all went out for dinner at Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbeque in Country Club plaza. I had one of my favorite foods in the world, baby back ribs. Bee had some lamb ribs - a dish none of us had ever heard of before -and they were amazingly wonderful. I had french fries and baked beans as my sides and they were both excellent also.

After dinner there we just went back to the room. There were some talks in the campus auditorium by the workshop instructors, but we skepped those. We were all very tired from a long travel day, and just tried to stay up past 8:00 pm Pacific time before going to sleep.

Getting Ready for SDA

Its Memorial Day weekend. I'm getting ready to go to the biannual conference of the Surface Design Association in Kansas City. I'll be staying for a post-conference workshop, then going to Alguquerque for the opening of Times of Taransfomation at ArtHaus66 Gallery. The image above is the piece I did for the SDA Member Show, which will be on exhibit there.

I'm really getting excited about this trip. First off, I love the SDA conference; and because of it, I've come to really enjoy Kansas City. Second, I'm participating in this wonderful show in Albuquerque.


I first went to the SDA conference in 2000 with Bee Colman and Chetna Mehta. The conference has been held in KC for almost 10 years now; where it is hosted by Kansas City Art Institute. KCAI sits in between the magnificant WPA-era Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.


This is Vanderslice Hall at sundown in 2007. Its the oldest building on the campus, and I think at one time, it housed the entire Art Istitute.



Here is the Marriott where we're staying, along with some public art sculptures; again from 2007.
This fountain is near Country Club Plaza - a shopping & dining area at the south end of a park who's name I can't remember. Its walking distance from the Marriott. It was a beautiful Saturday evening when I arrived for my pre-conference workshop in 2007. Among the people gathered to enjoy the evening were a wedding party taking pictures: a woman in her graduation cap and gown taking pictures with her kids, sister and mom; and people from six continents.

Look in the background, and look in the foreground.
Anyway, I really have come to like Kansas City. The SDA conference is my favorite conference to attend. I'm rooming With Bee, and several other fiber friends will be there. I'll see people I've met at conferences, and only see at conferences, some of whom I ran into at Convergence in Tampa last year. Its a good fiber art time. I can't wait.