V. Howard Johnson Jr. 1932-2009

I had thought that this posting would include all the fun information about our trip to The Fiber Event in Greencastle Indiana but things changed rather suddenly with the unexpected passing of Susie's father. We were actually loading the car for the trip when we received the call from family so rather than attend the festival, we attended to more somber matters and made a trip to Illinois instead. Even though we have been married for 30 years, I didn't really know Howard in anything more than a superficial way. For the past 20 plus years, he had been confined to a nursing home and his condition didn't allow for any type of deep relationship. Most of what I knew of his life, I learned from listening to Susie and her brothers and sisters conversations over the years. What I DO know is that before becoming ill, Howard was a consumate artist, musician, and photographer. He held a number of classified and non-classified patents and was one of the most intellegent men I have known! It seems a shame that this talent was never realized to it's fullest potential and it will only be on the other side of eternity that what "could have been" will be known to us. In the meantime all I can do is be supportive of Susie and her family in their time of loss....and wait for the day when it will be my turn to grieve.

Our First Clam Shell Box!

We recently completed our first clam shell box to house a book project we worked on as a group with the Tennessee Book Arts Guild. (Actually there were a LOT more that started this project than finished it!) The choice was made to make an accordion book with each of the members contributing a printed page demonstrating their art "forte". Once the pages were shared with each member and bound, our good friend John Smith began the task of teaching us how to make the box. Making a clam shell box was something that we had wanted to learn how to do for a LONG time so Susie and I were delighted to finally be able to try our hand at this. What we didn't realize was the amount of extremely detailed measuring and cutting that is required to make one of these WELL and that FITS. (Out of over 20 people that started this project, I think the final count of actual boxes made stands at 3) John put a LOT of work into his instructions and while my end result does fit well, it has a number of things that I'm not happy with but for a first attempt, it's not bad! (Now we just have to find a place to start working on the second box to house Susie's book and I'm sure that one will turn out much better!)