Last week was Tennessee Craft and I have always loved that show. I won the award for best artist statement and although some might say-sorry you didn’t win an actual award… I’m here to say that as hard as it is to sculpt (I say that intentionally), an artist statement and make it say what you are trying to do with your work… I was elated. It’s only taken 40 years to get it right. This award had a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant in Nashville that we used before we packed up. But the big news is that we were in our first weather incident and it was a whopper. After setting up all day Thursday, we went to see our friends Ann and John and go out to dinner. A weird weather went through but because we were inside talking-we didn’t pay much attention. We headed to the restaurant and on the way a friend called and said to get down to the TC site as soon as possible. When we arrived we were shocked-at least 50% of the tents had damage. Potters work was broken all over the park. Tents were upside down or blocks away from where they went up. My tent was broken and the top was disassembled and had concaved to have about 30 gallons of water about to explode. Like a giant udder about to blow-all my work was under and saturated. We started to pull all the work out and try to dry it off. Ann and John helped and Karen and Paul Fincannon helped too Gail and her husband (I wish I remembered his name), brought towels and helped too. I think I was in shock but somehow we got all the artwork into the van and got the tent upright again. We were really lucky as our tent didn’t break or bend. Somehow it survived. I know David and I could have never done it alone. Krystie Hyde’s dad, Stan, had to go home as his tent was totally bashed. We saw many people packing up. We headed to the hotel and John and Ann brought sandwiches. With all the art in the hotel room-there was little place to sleep but at least we got everything dried out. We woke at 5 the next morning to get down to the show and hang everything again, thankful that we had something to hang…. it’s been ten years since I’ve done shows and I guess that’s a pretty good run to have gone unscathed so far. It was bound to happen. Maybe it’s like the movie”The World According to Garp” when the plane flies into a house he is about to buy and he says, “Yes, we’ll buy it-what are the odds it will happen again? “ Not sure that’s the reality with the weather as crazy as it has been in the last few years. But I’ll take the odds. Life is always unpredictable… but I hope this is a one and done. Tennessee Craft is still a great show.