Three Big Things!

Copyright Margot Potter 2009 Butterfly for Houston Museum Holocaust Project
Copyright Avalon Potter 2008 Butterfly for Houston Museum Holocaust Project

So much to share, so little time! Eek! I have three big things to share today.

First I wanted to let everyone know we are nailing down the details of the Beads and the City trip for August 13-16th 2009 and the Crafty Cabaret Southern Caribbean Cruise for October 9-17th 2010. As soon as I have links to the sign up info online, I’ll post them here along with details about both trips! I hope you can make it!
Secondly I received my Create Your Style with CRYSTALLIZED™-Swarovski Elements Ambassador kit on Wednesday afternoon. Calloo callay! I am one of 21 designers who have worked with the CYSWCSE brand as teachers and consultants and were invited to become official ambassadors. A few folks asked for a sneak peek, so here is a little of what I got. I also received bead mats, a Create Your Style color wheel, the ginormous catalog, a look book for Spring/Summer 2010, a jaunty mouse pad and educational materials. As always, impeccably presented. I’m so honored to be among such a talented group of designers and to be an ambassador for a brand in which I wholeheartedly believe. Plus...we all know how much I love to sparkle. Here’s a little sneak peek at some of my kit.

My daughter and I worked on butterflies for the Houston Museum Holocaust project. You can see our finished designs above. We both used Tim Holtz™’s Grungeboard Elements, CRYSTALLIZED™-Swarovski Elements and Ranger paints to make these vibrant three dimensional butterflies. Avalon did a stellar job, I love the colors she picked! I followed her pop art vibrant color lead.

The Houston Museum is attempting to collect 1.5 million handcrafted butterflies for a display that represents the 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust. My dear friend and gifted poly clay artist Michelle Zimmerman asked me to participate. Her father is a Holocaust survivor. Everyone is invited to join the cause and I truly hope if you’re an artist or even if you’re not, you’ll consider making a butterfly and sending it to the museum. If you’ve never read the poems written by the children of the concentration camps, you should. They are deeply moving and viscerally powerful. It is my hope that one day we will live in a world where this sort of thing is impossible. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet.

Here is the poem that inspired this project. Amazing.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly

The last, the very last
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing against a white stone....

Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ’way up high.
It went away I’m sure because it wished to kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.

Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942
Born in Prague on January 7, 1921.Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on April 26, 1942. Died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944

Finally if you posted about internet piracy and copyrights this week, send me your link so I can do a link round up for tomorrow. Thank you very much for your participation!

Love,
Margot