artist victoria o'neill: Building Vibrant Communities

It's been a busy past month, conceiving of and conducting creative activities for the hundred or so participants for just one of ten thousand Baha'i inspired conferences that took place around the world called Building Vibrant Communities. This in addition to creating inventory for The Frog Hollow Art Show., taking a beginning quilt class AND taking care of my 15 month old granddaughter most weekdays from 9 to 4 while my daughter works as a freelance print fabric designer.

Our local Building Vibrant Communities conference took place at West Chester University in three adjacent ballrooms. It was such an inspiring pleasure to be around so many people who are working/striving every day in every way possible to build a better world.

One of the highlights was creating a traveling photo booth with separate pieces so people could walk around and take pictures! It was so fun to make these and they went to Frog Hollow Art Show the following weekend. Next stop for these flowers will be a Race Amity Picnic this weekend, and a Cultural Diversity event in July. I am hoping to make some more flowers for it, and maybe even a bee or butterfly. It's amazing what can be done with cardboard, hot glue and paint.

A colorful display with a world map illustrated

"So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole world"

People wrote their names on paper candles, added "flames" and glued on nine pointed stars to the map.

I have thousands of flat geometric blocks for my Mandala Workshops

so there were plenty for each table to create group mandalas.

We also made little booklets with beautiful papers to create personal action plans, as in what we do personally, within our families, in our communities, and in the world to be of service. I didn't get any pictures of that because I was busy working on the weaving a new world project.

Each participant received a ready to go cardboard loom. Getting these looms ready in advance was very time consuming. I ordered 6" cardboard cake rounds from a restaurant supply company after attempting to cut out 120 cardboard circles! Once they were delivered I cut slits around the edges and made a hole in the middle. I learned afterwards that there are scalloped cake rounds that would have alleviated the need to cut the slits. Oh well next time........I actually threaded 120 plastic yarn needles and make looms, with enough yarn left on the needle so people could start weaving right away. I like to have activities that are going to turn out great no matter what one's ability level is.

Various colors and textures of yarn were laid out on a table and people chose the pieces they wanted to add on.

The completed weavings were attached to a big wire mannequin. They were removed at the end and placed on a table so people could take them home. Here is just a smattering of them.