As for business, the Board has been working on the  2001 budget and many other issues. If you’d like to know more, contact me at: 360-579-1995 or lwhannell @yahoo.com. Now, on to more important matters. I just had the wonderful opportunity to accompany Gary McWilliams, of Stone Arts of Alaska, to the big gem and mineral show in Tucson, Arizona. Both Gary and Jim Tobin have written about  this event in past newsletters, but like most things in life I enjoyed actually being there even more than reading about it. I was overwhelmed by the size of the event. It is spread over more than 25 hotels, inns, convention centers, and tent pavilions all over Tucson, and the Show Guide is 500 pages. So, I just wandered around trying to see as much as possible. Amazing large jade sculptures from China, exquisite carvings in semi-precious stone, and probably the fossils of everything that has ever lived. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I’ll be processing all that I saw for a very long time. The other place we stopped on the way down was Art City in Ventura, California. The Tucson show was fun, but Art City was totally inspirational for this Northwestern boy. Tucked off in the corner of town between the train tracks and the car parts yard is a little oasis for those who love stone. The variety, the enormous sizes, the artistic display of raw stone, not to mention the sculptures being worked by various artists on site sent my mind into overdrive. I haven’t traveled for far too long, and this trip reminded me of how much we add to our possibilities when we expose ourselves  to new  ideas, people and places. I wish you all happy sculpting, but don’t forget to get away every now and then.