National Museum of Women in the Arts, Summer Institute

A portion of downtown Washington, D.C., was not focused on the budget crisis this week, but rather on creativity in the classroom. Twenty-two area teachers participated in the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ Summer Institute, learning how to integrate arts into standard curricula. I gave a half-day session on pop-ups and landscape books, and discussed how these formats could be integrated into subjects such as biology, history, and literature. The teachers work with classes from pre-school to college, and many were educators who did not have an arts background, but everyone walked away with wonderful examples to develop further in their classrooms.

Focus on Oregon: Book Arts and Camping

This summer’s book arts activities continued with the Focus on Book Arts Conference, held every other year at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, outside of Portland. I taught two one-day workshops, one on tunnel books and another on  carousel books. I had a great group of students, and re-connected with a lot of book arts friends and colleagues.

From there I met my husband Henry and we set off with our friends John and Linda Sneed to camp in southeastern Oregon. Heading eastward along the Columbia River, we then turned south to the Owyhee Reservior where we enjoyed three days of beautiful weather along the lake. From there we drove to the White Horse Ranch, just above the Nevada border. This desert area boasted views of star-filled skies which we enjoyed from the Willow Creek hot springs, and a beautiful walk following the creek. Finally we drove to Delintment Lake for July 4th, where we spent a restful holiday.  We had one last day in Portland with John and Linda before heading home.  Thanks, friends, for an exciting vacation.