Travels with Hugh and Dolores, March 2010

Hugh and Dolores spent two weeks in March traveling first to Kansas City for a Needlearts meeting and then to Las Vegas to visit Doug and Lisa around Doug's birthday. Here is Hugh's account.

Part One - Kansas City

First, we went to Kansas City to the Assembly of The National Academy of Needlearts—known informally by the acronym NAN. The mission statement of this organization says it is "devoted to the advancement of embroidery as an art form.”

Each March, NAN holds an assembly. You can think of this get-together as a convention or a seminar. Several things happen at the assembly. There are the usual meetings, luncheons, and dinners that happen at most conventions. There are also classes for those who choose them. Some of these classes are part of a yearlong process that prepares the student to be “certified” by NAN as a teacher of needlearts or as a judge of needlearts. NAN offers this training for certification at several levels, so it may take a student a number of years to learn all the teaching or judging techniques to complete certification at the highest level. Other classes are offered to stitchers who wish to study with certified teachers and learn a particular stitch technique or complete a particular piece of needlework designed by the teacher.

This year, Dolores taught a two-day workshop to show needlework designers who do not have her knowledge of fine art some of the basics including line, shape, perspective, patterns, silhouettes, and light and shade. She illustrated the workshop with example of these techniques in historical and modern works of art and needleart.Another aspect of NAN is The Exemplary. This is an exposition of needleart and includes recent pieces entered for judging as well as non-judged pieces of interest to those at The Assembly. Special exhibits include samples of the lifetime work of the person honored each year with the award of the NAN Lifetime Achievement Award, and some of the pieces from the NAN permanent collection housed at the Gregg Museum at North Carolina State University. Dolores was one of the two judges for the judged part of the show. It is really good work, and she says that it is the most difficult show she judges.

You could describe my primary function at the NAN assembly as “NAN roadie.” I spend several days helping with the set up of The Exemplary. I work with others to hang the needleart pieces, install lighting, mount descriptive signs, and place ribbons on the winning pieces. When the show is over, I am again put to work helping to take things down and pack them in the correct box for shipping back to the exhibitor. I have done this for a number of years, and enjoy working with the knowledgeable and efficient people who make the show happen.

Part Two - Las Vegas

When the NAN assembly was over, we left Kansas City and headed for Las Vegas to visit Doug and Lisa. They expect to be in Las Vegas for about another six months until Doug completes the design of his highway project. They live in a second floor two-bedroom condominium in a newer section of town. Their unit includes a two-car garage. Doug explained that if you leave your car outside in the summer heat in Nevada, you might not be able to sit on the seat or touch the steering wheel without suffering severe burns.

This was our first visit to Las Vegas, and March was a good time of the year to go, with the high temperatures in the 60° to 80° range. Lisa was our guide during the week with Doug joining us Saturday and Sunday. We had a good look at Red Rock Canyon — a colorful natural preserve only about 15 miles from their home. We also managed a visit to Hoover Dam, saw Lake Mead and the nearby Valley of Fire natural area.

As for the city of Las Vegas, you have to see it to appreciate it. Downtown Las Vegas Boulevard — commonly known as “The Strip” is lined with casinos, each one larger and glitzier then the next. Many have a special architectural feature. Luxor has a giant glass pyramid and a sphinx. Paris has a ⅓ scale Eiffel tower growing from its roof. Bellagio has a large area full of blooming live flowers with oversized glass bees and butterflies hovering over them in the lobby and the world’s largest chocolate syrup fountain.Even more spectacular are the fountains in front of the building. They are in a pool of water about a city block long and probably 75 yards wide.

Every half hour there is a fountain show. As the show is ready to begin, the nozzles rise a few inches from the water. Some are configured in straight lines across the length of the pool. Others are in circles either side of the lines. Each nozzle has a spotlight shinning up beside it. There are speakers all around the pool, and as the show starts, they begin to play a piece of music. The various nozzles spray into the air in time with the music and are lighted when they spray. At times they spurt high and at other times low — the water effectively dancing to the music. We saw a show with the song “Luck be a Lady” from the musical Guys and Dolls, and another to “One” from A Chorus Line. Not all the music was from Broadway. While we were there, they did a song by Susan Boyle, a piece by Chopin, and “The Shaker Melody” (It is a gift to be simple).

Here's a link to someone's amateur YouTube video of a fountain show

Of course, the main attraction of the casinos is gambling. We are not particularly into that, but anyone can find any bet they might like. We were in Sunset Station, a casino off The Strip, to see the magnificent stained glass ceiling over the bar. There Dolores tried her hand at the slot machines. Lisa provided a $1.00 stake for a penny machine. When her total reached $1.24, she cashed out and went home a winner!

While this was going on, Doug and I had a look at the sports betting room. It was at least as large as two or three of the biggest high school auditoriums I have seen. Along the front are probably 50 large screen TVs showing every live sporting event then in progress including horse racing, basketball games, and spring training baseball games. Also posted on a board in large lighted numbers were the odds for each of the 65 teams to win the NCAA basketball tournament that started this week. Kansas and Syracuse were 9 to 5, Maryland 50 to 1, and I think OSU about 7 to 1. In the center section were people (mostly men) sitting at TV consoles making bets. On either side were others just sitting in auditorium seats watching the games.

On Monday we boarded the plane and returned to Baltimore—tired but happy after two weeks of travel.