Quinlan Con Part II

Breakfast with Lillian Alberti, Christine Shively-Benjamin, me, Floyd Bell, and Sandra Wright Justiss.

Lillian Alberti at her table.

Lillian's mermaid.

Lillian's Mrs. Haversham.

Cassandra Graham.

Cassandra's old crone.

Kevin Buntin.

Kevin's giant that just woke up and is about to go on a walkabout. He is so cool and his new home is the Quinlan Doll & Teddy Bear Museum & Library.

Kevin made the little house and trees.

Truly an awesome piece.

Christine and her table.

Her wonderful dolls.

Anki Daanen and some of her dolls.

Sandi McAslan and her table. I met some really wonderful artists, there was so much talent at the convention. If you can make it next year, please do. We had a great time.

Quinlan Doll & Teddy Bear Convention

I hadn't been to a doll convention in years but this year I participated in the Quinlan Doll & Teddy Bear Convention, Show & Sale in Essington, Pennsylvania. It was wonderful. If you are interested in dolls or bears or both, this is the place you should be next year. The talent was astounding. I did have a table of my dolls set up and have ideas swirling in my head for next year. It will be bigger and better. I saw an old friend there, met new friends, got lots of business information, networked, and had a lot of fun.

Here I am with the kids.

A view of my whole table. It turned out better than I'd hoped.

This is a needle felted bear by artist Stevi T of Alpaca Encounters. www.stevit.etsy.com

And this is her pirate Steampunk rat.

There were many panel discussions and this one was on How to Find, Create and Encourage New Collectors. The panel included Agnes Intellicato, Christine, Donna Nielsen, Debbie Weimert, Cindy McGuire, and Amy Thornton.

Christine Shively-Benjamin also gave a talk for someone who couldn't make it. It was called, Dolls in the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian.

Me and Christine. We've been friends for a very long time.

Lillian Alberti, Diane Troutman, and me.

Some of the wonderful people I met at one of the yummy meals.

Mark Dennis. Love his work. He won two awards the last night.

Here's Christine again. She's a lovely lady and avid collector. I'm going to have to do this in two parts.

Richmond, VA

On my way to the Quinlan Doll & Teddy Bear Convention, I stopped for an overnight stay at my friend Annie's. So much better than driving straight through from North Carolina. She and her husband Mark to me to the Canal section of town where there's a walkway.

The canals were used in transport a long time ago but now aid in flooding. Richmond had been flooded many times. The worst in the 1771, then again with a couple of recent hurricanes. The one I can remember is Agnes. There is now a very tall flood wall with gates in case it gets that bad again.

The week before I got there, they had a huge art fair. These murals went up all over the city by different artists in a 48 hour period of time. They did some amazing murals.

This is the long causeway where artists set up their booths. Annie said it was packed.

Chair art.

This was very cool. Half bodies sticking out of the bulls eye.

Love the catfish in this one.

That's me standing in front of this one. I love the saying on it. "James, is that you I smell?" I don't know, I thought it was funny.

A folk art type mural.

This bird was awesome. Almost Steampunk like.

A closeup.

This is art someone did in a drainpipe of a building. Pretty cool.

There is also a large park along the walk where they have concerts. This sculpture represents the industrial boom in the early 1900s.

  Here's an old warehouse that is being renovated, probably for condos.

As you can see from the front, it was a R J Reynolds Tobacco Company building. I would love to see what's inside. There's more to come.