Kate McKinnon

I’m making kits for the Mexico class in January, kits filled with the coolest bits and parts I can dream up or locate in my two huge bulging bins full of pearls, beads, gemstones, clasps, components, and whatnot.

Lucky Mexico students! There is still time, if you can believe that, for you to pack a bag with your sarongs and your sunglasses, and your favorite beading needles, and join us. $1500 pays your class fee, your materials fee, your lodging, and most of your food. For a week! You can’t beat that.

The TechnoGods willing, I’ll post pictures throughout the day of the cool things I pick out and put together. What I am going to do is make a luverly pile of parts for each person, and then we will go over all of the possible ways to put them together that we can dream up. It should be a really productive exercise. When we dream up a component we don’t have, we will attempt to fabricate it from beads, wire, metal, metal clay, beach sand, or sheer force of willpower. 

Hopefully the class experience will contribute to the creation of my new mixed media book, the one that will follow the Project Workbook. It’s time for a whole new wash of ideas. The Mexico class will be the beginning of the creation of the book pages.

One of the things I’m looking forward to doing is the next generation of the Shag. I’ve got some good ideas about it.

Hey, did you see that Barack Obama has declared January 19th (the day before the inauguration, and MLK Day) a National Day of Service? I think that’s wonderful. Bringing people back to a focus on shared responsibility is so important.

Some people are having winter. It’s sunny and clear here. Here is a shot from a Seattle yard- I hear that they are enjoying pretty good snow all over the Pacific Northwest right now. 

We are going to get to snow over this winter break come hell or high water. It’s either Mt. Lemmon or Flagstaff, I’ll stop at nothing. The boys are desperate to sled, throw snowballs, and just play in the snow.

I was so impressed with the crew of the Continental jet that went off the runway in Denver. Can you believe that they got over a hundred people off of that plane, with only minimal injury? The plane was on fire, in a ravine, after taking a major bounce. These things rarely end well. The people on that flight are lucky that they got the flight crew that they did. People forget what the job of a flight attendant actually is- it’s to get your scared ass of that plane alive if things go south. Sometimes passengers forget themselves and think that the crew is there to bring them peanuts.