I spent last week in Santiago, Chile, and believe me, there was literally no time at all for logging on and jotting, no time for emails, finding myself burning the candle at both ends, but it was really interesting, worthwhile, and certainly fun for all attending. I really enjoyed being in that city – it was clean, easy to get around on the metro, signs of history via fabulous architecture everywhere, the wine and seafood wonderful, and the people kind, helpful to travellers – it was a wonderful few days there.

South Project is a 5 year program exploring what it means to be from the South. Through a 5 year plan of annual gatherings aimed at increasing cultural knowledge and understanding, it is hoped to create and enhance artist residencies, exhibitions, publications and critique between and from artists and artesans from coutries in the Southern Hemisphere. An initiative of the Craft Council of Victoria, Australia, the next gathering is in Johannesburg, South Africa, and I hope to be able to go to that one, too. For more information on this interesting project, go to www.southproject.org

From not knowing a soul before I went to the gathering, I came away feeling I had connected with some very interesting people and their ideas, and although I am not sure yet what may come out of it in terms of cultural exchange, collaboration, critique or whatever, I am sure something will emerge, if only several ongoing friendships. Without going through a name dropping exercise, some of the people I met included interesting authors from New Zealand and Australia, an Argentine film maker, a Mexican community arts leader, a gallery director from Australia, a prominent gallery director and arts activist from Paraguay, a chilean embroiderer, a former opera singer turned antiques valuer, a South African woodworker, an eminent Australian cartoonist of whose work have been an admiring fan for many years, a maker of jewellery using found junk, and several arts administrators, curators and researchers. Wendy, I met your pal M.McD, and for that experience alone thank you for encouraging me to go!

There were several exhibitions to attend during the week, concluding with a wind-up dinner party at the end. Several of us seemed to form a dining group and discovered some lovely eating places for dinner at night. So, late nights /early mornings were the order of the day, but on my final night, I got back to my hotel at 2am, in plenty of time for my 4-30am wakeup call for the 5am departure to catch my flight….I can assure you I slept every minute of that flight including through the plane-closing and flight safety instructions! Sleep deprived I was, but nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed the weekend visit by our old friends, Jim and Holly, from our Denver days. Now based in La Paz, Bolivia, their visit reinforced this gap in our experience so far, and maybe early-mid 2007 will see us visiting that country.

What have I been reading? Well, almost nothing, apart from the conference program, a couple of artist brochures, a newspaper one day, and a few articles from The Economist, and the captions mostly to some pics in the current Fiberarts Mag. ! Tonight I am finishing off the paper work to accompany my successful entry into Quilt National ’07 and sending all that off as pdf’s, and then retiring with a book for a good read – it might not be a long read, but is an attempt to get back at last into some normal pattern of living. Oh, and, my plan is some more frequent blogging.