Blogs Abound!

So a couple days before the symposium, I was invited by Brigitte Martin to blog about it over on crafthaus. I'm way excited about this, and my first post went up yesterday! I'll be re-posting everything over here too, but posts will always be up of crafthaus first. I'm still in the process of contacting participants for images and permissions, etc. but I wanted to do a quick introductory post to kinda start things off:

This student organized intercollegiate symposium, Material Topics, was originally conceived by East Carolina MFA candidate, Laura Wood as a way to connect with fellow students and faculty from neighboring schools. With the support of our wonderful faculty and the hard work of both our graduate and undergraduate students, the idea rapidly developed into a two-day event including lectures, workshops and exhibitions. Educators, professionals and students of all levels came together to share their passion for materials and making.

Now in its second year, this East Carolina University sponsored event has drawn
participants from across the country. Co-chaired by MFA candidates Kat Cole
and Laritza Garcia, this year’s theme was Shifting Tradition, emphasizing new
techniques, alternative materials, and exciting dialogue on the current direction of
the field. Once again our students out did themselves, putting on a spectacular event.

As a graduate student at ECU, I've been fortunate enough to both help organize and attend this event both years. I was also fortunate enough to be asked to blog about this year's event here on crafthaus. Over the next few weeks I'll be blogging more in depth about the presentations, the exhibitions, and topics of this incredible weekend. I hope that through these posts you are able to get the overall feel of the event.

Just as a quick preview, here's a list of this year's presenters:

Ken Bova

Michael Dale Bernard

Dan Dicaprio

Caroline Gore

Mi-Sook Hur

Nicole Jacquard

Lisa Johnson

Tom Muir

More to come!

Please, please feel free to join my group on crafthaus!

(Sorry that third paragraph is so weird. It looks fine in my editor, I swear.)