What a wonderful coindicence that the following gathering was able to come together today: I was lucky enough to bring together in my home the wonderful talents of Judy Anderson (founder and owner of the wonderful Fireworks Gallery in Halifax), Pamela Ritchie (professor of jewellery design at NSCAD University), and the lovely Eve Llyndorah, whose work I have been admiring for at least a decade. I have known Pam and Judy for a few years now: My friendship with Judy has been growing over the last couple of years during our weekly practice of Kyudo, or Zen archery. And Pam and I became friends especially while sharing a hotel room for the duration of the Society of North American Goldsmiths Conference just now. But Eve, I had never met. It was such a pleasure to meet her, after all these years of me looking at her work and thinking “oh my goodness, how gorgeous!”. Years of drooling over her showcases in select galleries, and then here she was, standing in my kitchen, making coffees with my espresso-machine! I could hardly believe my luck to be in such an intimate setting with such greats in my milieu.
All these ladies have known each other for years, decades even; I am the new kid on the block, and so I was happy to sit back and listen to them reminiscing about the old days, when the jewellery department was in the dungeons of NSCAD, about their old profs, and former colleagues. We had lovely pot-luck food, and talked about contemporary jewellery and (or versus!) sales, we shared techniques we each have discovered, and stories of retail and exhibitions. The whole thing was such a treat!
Here are a couple of photos from this wonderful treat of a day:
![Pam_and_Eve](https://dorotheerosen.ca//wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MG_1341.jpg)
- Pam Ritchie and Eve Llyndorah catching up on my back porch
I hope, at the very least, that I will get to see all of these faces at the SNAG conference when it comes to Toronto in 2013. I participated in a talk where Paul McClure and Melanie Egan (of Harbourfront Centre) spoke about the plans for the Meta Mosaic as well as planning a Toronto International Jewellery Festival, and how we need to start showing off what we can do! I cannot wait….and especially hope that a lot of the talented alumni, faculty and students at NSCAD in the jewellery department will participate, it is an event not to be missed. I hope to, in whatever way I can, contribute to making it a success for all those who visit Toronto.
Cheers! Emily
Dear Emily,
in Seattle, there was a lot of hype about the Toronto SNAG conference in 2012. I am totally pumped for it! And I am sure, you will be a main player! It’s been great to see you take off as you did since your graduation!
I look forward to seeing you there, and hopefully before.
Dorothée