Making Magic Matches

Say that five times reallyreallyreally fast.

I like to think of myself as a matchmaker (and, yes, you can thank me for putting that particular ear worm in your head this morning: "Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match! Find me a find, catch me a catch!" OK, my job here is done. . . .)

No, not really: my job here is to tell you about the lovely threads that weave us together, but not in a romantic way. Not here. Because while I used to kind of fancy myself as a romantic matchmaker, way back in the day, I learned (over and over and over) that I pretty much suck at that kind of matchmaking. People I would imagine would be perfect for each other, setting each others' eye alight and hearts afire? Never. Not once. They'd meet the person I would have SWORN would be perfect for them, and then later they'd kind of look at me in a whole new way, as if they suspected me of some sort of subversive plot to ruin their lives.

But! It turns out that I am quite excellent at putting people together in another way: knowing which creative people need to meet which other creative people.  I know this guy, The Rock Guy, who's passionate about rocks. He works in the oil business, but his degree is in geology and his love is fossils and schists, subduction zones and layers of sediment. He's new to wine and wants to know more. I know someone else who knows a ton about wine and who grew up, as I did, as the child of a Doodlebugger, an exploration geophysicist in the oil business, and who got his daddy's love of—you guessed it—rocks.  And his wife, also a wine expert, is a geologist. Also loves rocks! I was going to introduce them all, but I didn't get a chance: they found each other ahead of me and hit it off fabulously: when I came up to them, they were having a wonderful time talking wine and rocks (a much better pairing than you might imagine, even better than beer and pizza).

I love that. And I love putting creative people together: artists and collectors, artists and editors, people who want to learn soldering/welding/weaving/sculpting and the people who know how to teach those things.

So imagine my delight today with the release of the summer issue of Stampington's Mingle magazine, with an article about Art is You, filled with photos of the retreat taken by my husband, The Ever-Gorgeous Earl. (It's the summer issue, the one with the glamper (glamour camper) on the front).

 (You should be able to find this issue starting today, July 1st, at your local Barnes and Noble, but you can order it here, and it would be really nice if you'd check with your local independent craft store, if you're lucky enough to have one of those.)

I got to write, The EGE got to take photos, Sal and Ellen got to meet (virtually, so far, but that's going to change) my editor, Christen Olivarez Hammons (she just got married, woohoo!), who gave me the assignment. In September, Christen gets to be our guest in Petaluma, where she and another of my favorite editors, Tonia Jenny, will get to meet In Real Life and do a panel discussion with me. You don't want to miss the two top editors in the mixed media world talking about getting published, now do you?

Is all that cool or what? Yes, most definitely cool. Because Sal and Ellen are like me: matchmakers. They love finding people who need to know other people and then putting them together, and that's what Art is You is about: meetings among people who love the same kinds of things. Paper and paint, rusty stuff, stitching, digging into clay, drawing. Someone who wants to learn to paint meets someone who paints just the way they most admire. Someone who wants to teach meets a room full of people who can't wait to dive in and learn. People who've been sitting in their dining room making fabulous brooches or hats or scarves or stencils or dolls sets up at Art Trunk and meets a bunch of people who absolutely love what came from all those late nights at that dining room table.

It's magic, and that's how this issue of Mingle feels to me: the magic of putting together some of my favorite people and getting to spread the word and make even more magic. To find out how you can jump in and be a part of it all, go here.