Maureen Carlson’s Delightful Storytelling and Demos at Fandango

Maureen Carlson's Storytime Guy

Maureen Carlson was one of the demonstrators at Orlando Clay Fandango.  She entertained the classroom students in the evenings and the retreat only attendees  during the day. Wish I could have been everywhere at once. I did manage to attend at least one demo each day of both Maureen’s and Barbara McGuire.

I had not met Maureen before the retreat, but had featured her on my other blog The Figurative Artbeat. We conversed by email several times. I also sent her pictures of my failed attempt at polymer clay and paper mache to include in a presentation she was doing for Synergy. So we  knew each other but had never met.

We ran into each other on the first day of Fandango and I introduced myself. She said, “oh you’re tall”, I said, “yes I am”. We laughed and that was, I ‘m happy to say the beginning of a fun filled three days enjoying Maureen’s sense of humor and her vast creative talent.
(Just so you know, I AM very tall and it is unexpected at times, it makes me laugh)

The first evening we were treated to one of her famous Storyclay^® Tellings. She weaved a delightful audience participatory tale about the little guy in the picture above. She constructed him as the story unfolded. She had everyone laughing out loud and extremely happy to be entertained by this master story teller.  At the end someone in the audience took the purple Weefolk® home to live with them. Thanks to Tanya Johnson for his photo.

The next time I saw her demo, she was showing us how to sculpt a face. What a master she is, with quick sure strokes she turned a ball of clay into a face that looked ready to talk to me. She makes you feel that you could maybe create a face too.

I have to thank Maureen again for leading the artists to talk about themselves in my video. She was terrific to do that for me. It was a perfect ending to a perfect retreat.

She and her husband owns Maureen Carlson’s Center For Creative Arts in Jordan, Minnesota. I know you would have an incredible experience should you be lucky enough to be able to visit her there. If you can’t go to her, check out her calendar to see if she’ll be near you this year.