10th Annual joint luncheon with River City

For our May meeting, we traveled to Batesville, Indiana, which is about half-way between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, for our annual (and much anticipated!) joint meeting with the River City Figurative Artists' Guild.  We determined that we have been breaking bread together since 2001, which made this fancy luncheon our 10th.  (The meeting was made even fancier by a visit from the Fancy Nancy tea party next door -- four- to seven-year-olds decked out in tiaras and tutus and other such fancifulness!)

The first order of business, obviously, was ordering the food while dolls looked on from both ends of the room.


The Sherman House staff took very good care of us.

After catching up on all the news from both groups, we introduced our challenge dolls.  Every year, one club will challenge the other to create dolls based on a theme. 
 

The 2011 Challenge theme was the Zodiac -- create a doll based on an astrological sign.

This year we decided that we needed prizes, so we each cast a ballot for our favorite.  The voting was almost evenly balanced between four of the seven dolls.


Pisces by Jude Hernly, Scorpio (pin doll) by Liz Marten, Aries by Cody Goodin, and Aquarius by Katie Jones

 

Aries by Mary McNeely, Cancer by Martha Jungclaus, and Leo by Andrea Baughman

With a very close tally, Martha's 'Cancer' doll won the ribbon by one vote.  She was perfectly executed, and really showed off the water sign's attributes with her sea-green costume accented with silver and pearls.

After the challenge came show and tell!  We all brought dolls from recent classes to discuss.

Below is a close-up of the middle of the table, showing off several of Liz Marten's dolls from AFIC classes with Monika Shedden and Leta Benedict.

The picture frame laying flat holds a fabulous beaded face made by Martha J., who has been applying what she learned in Annie Hesse's class to create a beautifully shaded realistic face with bead-loop fringed hair.

The next picture below shows more dolls along the back of the show-and-tell table, including Kathryn Walmsley's wonderful 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' piece from her nursery rhyme series.  Kathryn lives nearby, and so comes to hang out with us when we meet in Batesville as 'a friend of the club(s)'.  She is very gracious and let us play with the hand crank on the table that moves the blackbirds up and down.

After show and tell, we traded pin dolls (which I have no pictures of whatsoever!) and gift bags, and received our Challenge for next year.  River City has challenged us to create a Recycled Doll -- made of reused items or materials -- for May of 2012.