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ClayMates:
I just got back from the Employment Development Department. Much has
changed in the years since I've been to the Turk Street Center.
There's rows and rows of computers, some hooked to the internet, some
dedicated to word processing.
Folks can check for jobs with HotJobs, Monster.Com and the like from
there. They can type up resumes. Make phone calls to employers for
free, fax for free. I was just gobsmacked.
I was in my Suit Drag in modest loafers, and the Manager of the
Employment Development Department, a lovely lady named Mary Asher
from the UK, came over to me and we started to chat. We were the only
middle aged women there in suits in sensible shoes. Does anyone know
about a light green stone from Scotland, looks like milk jade? She
had a necklace made of them and I promised I'd ask around. But I
digress.
I looked around and saw folks who couldn't type, never been on a
computer, was afraid of using the computer, was overwhelmed with
filling out forms online, and I thought of my ClayMates.
My techno buff ClayMates. How proud I am of all of you. From around
the world you have wrestled tech to the ground, made it submit to
your desire to congregate with other people who share your love of
polymer clay and miniatures. In languages that were not your first
you come to demos, post to the list, share your work and that's
coming across thousands of miles as well as crossing linguistic
barriers.
I am so very proud of all of you.
I know more Grandmas in trailers in the woods and the Outback, who
are more able to kick butt with a computer than these urbanites at a
San Francisco employment center.
We mail boxes overseas, fill out custom forms, buy postage online. Oh
yes, that's another thing. I was looking at SciFi book titles at the
Clean Well Lighted Book Store at Opera Plaza, since I was hours early
for the Job Seminar and at the end of the SciFi section is an office,
the door is open and I could over hear one of the ladies hassling
with a Metered Postage Company. All she wanted was more labels to put
into the postage machine and all she got was the run around. Now
because we send "pressies", Newbie Boxes and Swaps stuff out all the
time we know we can buy postage online.
http://www.stamps.com/.
This
lady at the book store didn't know she could do that. I told her just
do a search. She looked at me like I was speaking Latin.
Then I felt so proud of all of you. We are Shipping and Receiving
Buff as well.
We order from ClayAlley and
Amazon.com.
We auction our stuff with
eBay and
JustBeads.
We know about
PayPal
and aren't afraid to use it.
We are internet savy too, see?
What do we do when we're preparing to make a flower petal? In Demo
what do we do? A few of us will peel out of chat, do a quick
google
on "Blue Nile Lily" and check the "Images" tab on google
and get
links in a New York Hot Minute. We all will come up with different
links, and from there we can all look at them together and find
things that are eyecandy and inspirational. We've done that for food,
furniture, the muscles on a man's back. So we are Search Engineers as
well.
You just don't know how proud I am of all of you. I saw today that
there's folks who drove up in cars who admitted they knew nothing
about computers and had that look in their eye. Like the pregnant
mare in a barn fire sort of look. Ready to stampede.
We can show up by bus and go... oh fill out an online form, where,
there, ok, done, now what?
Do you know that being in Demo you're practicing speed reading and
speed typing? All of those who are Demo regulars you have to notice
that you can read faster now, keeping up with three or four different
conversations with one eye on the Demo.
We use digital cameras and scanners. We use graphic programs to crop
the pictures and adjust the lighting. We load these digital pictures
into albums or attach them to email for the Pix List. So we are
skilled there too, aren't we?
Some of us have registered for our own domain and would not have done
so if it were not for miniatures and or polymer clay. We had to learn
how to do this ourselves. We learned how to transfer our domain to
our webhost and then we had to wrestle a program to make pages to put
our stuff on. Some of us have mastered
mals-ecommerce
and connected a
free secured shopping cart to their wares. We learned this on our own
or with the help of our online pals.
So pat yourselves on the back. I don't care if you've never opened a
pack of clay yet. You got here. That alone is an expenditure of time,
resources and brain shares. You got here and because of that I am so
very proud of you I just could bust my vest buttons.
If I've done nothing in this world but fostered this increase of
personal skills in all of you, just getting you here, I feel I've
done something positive. For all of what you had to learn to get here
are transferable skills and I do hope you add those to your resume.
So my Techno Buff Darlings, know that I recognize the effort and
expense it took you to get here. I recognize the time you take from
your life to show up at Demos. I appreciate all the trust you give to
us, out of love, to show your first efforts. I'm honored to be at the
helm of this boat of art and I couldn't do it without a great crew.
So I tip my Pirate hat to my Moderators and say, it's good to be part
of a great team. What we're doing here is worth us patting each other
on the back like a circular conga line.
pitty pat on the back all of us in a world wide ring
LOL
Heart felt and True, I am proud of all of you
xoxo
NoraJean Stone (formerly "Gatine")
Former
Owner of MSATClayArt/Current Co-Owner of CITy-o-Clay
all official like in my grey suit.
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