From Damascus

I wish I could post some photos but the photo card reader at the internet cafe I am using won't read my card unfortunately.

It has been a busy week but the exhibition Sense of Place is installed and looks terrific. The Australian ambassador to Egypt and Syria opened the exhibition.There was quite a lot of space as the gallery is twice the size compared to last time I saw it, so we ended up hanging quite a lot of my quilts which I had with me for the retrospective at Sophie Gelfi's Gallery in la Bourboule in France. ( and i still have two quilts to finish with hand stitching). I was delighted to find that they had used one of my quilts for the invite as well as the cover of the catalogue ( they did not know it was mine as the person to whom I had sent the cd and the document containing artists names had not married the two things together)

Since then I have spent a lot of time with Ynez wandering around the souq and old city trying not to spend money and just enjoying the ambience of the old city. We met with a German textile artist Monica Spahl ( and doctor) in one of the old textile shops in the souq- she has a daughter the same age as Ynez- so Ynez has gone to her school for the day. It was such coincidence meeting another textile practitioner ( well maybe it wasn't as it was an antique textile shop) . Anyway Monica came to the opening and brought another textile artist Mirja Wark whose work I hope to see in the coming weeks ( she is a weaver) and knows many of the crafts people still practising in the souq. So I hope to see some of their favourite textile haunts around the city in the coming weeks.

ok off to find some nint tea and put some time into my paper journal!