I know many of you have been looking forward to seeing the sights of the South America tour. First, let me say that our journey was focused around the creative process and the lessons I gave prior to leaving on the trip were on composition. The idea was not tour to these wonderful places and then spend time 'quiltling', but rather to have an experience that would enlightened us all personally and let our insights filter into our artistic endeavors when we returned home. My talks were on The Journey - the journey in life, on our trip, as well as our creative journeys. There were two reasons for this: 1) So we could spend all our time focusing on the sights we came to see and, 2) so anyone who is not a quilter (spouses, friends etc.) would be able to fully enjoy the trip too. If you ever want to do a trip with me, you'll find we won't be sewing, but we will learn and experience a lot. By the way, the next big trip is Africa in early 2011 with Jim West, www.sewmanyplaces.com. The itinerary, cost, and actual dates are not set, but if you are interested, start putting your dimes in the cookie jar. You can contact Jim and be the first to get the details when they are final.

I came home very inspired artistically and I think many of our group did as well. My first creative effort will be to document this from my personal perspective in video clips. These take a great deal of time to put together so they will likely be issued rather slowly. Here is the first video. The narrative is from my daily journal and the photos were taken by either Justin Shults, Jim West, or myself.