Field Trip

Last week I finally got to go somewhere that I’ve been curious about for years. My niece, who is visiting here from Paris, asked if I wanted to go to The Farm. It is one of the original hippie communes. The founding members left San Francisco over 30 years ago to build a utopia in rural Tennessee. The commune concept didn’t work out, but the land is held in trust by the community of like minded individuals. They promote peace, vegetarianism, sustainable building and power, have a soy dairy, have their own school, publishing company and many other interesting endeavors.
I remember seeing the long caravan of brightly painted school buses pass by our house on their way to Summertown in 1970 or ’71. It was definitely the talk of the county. They have contributed a great deal to our area since they’ve been here.
We went to the Farm Store which sells a good selection of health foods and books and toured the museum. We had a long chat with one of the original residents. She was a fountain of information about their history.
One of the coolest things that we saw is called the Wholeo which is next to the school. Completed in 1974, Wholeo Dome is a 14-foot-in-diameter, 7-foot-tall geodesic dome covered with curved, stained glass panels. A couple of the panels were away being repaired because last year someone vandalized it. 🙁 We could not go inside of it, but it was inspiring to look at none the less.
Last week’s Studio Thursday was a great success. Now I have to get to work to get ready for next month’s sale. When I dropped my jewelry off for the sale, Shawn had a picture of a necklace that she wanted me to make for her. This page came from the Belle Armoire Jewelry magazine. I’m not sure who the artist was. I took a photo of my piece on top of the page. On the left hand side is my interpretation of the design. It was fun combining the stained glass with the vintage spoon and by coincidence, I had an earring almost identical to the one in the picture to use as a frame for the face. Next time I will try something a little more original, but using the same concept.