Over Labor Day weekend we were at WorldCon or Lone Star Con 3 as it was called this year, since it was held in Texas. Five wonderful days of science fiction and fantasy STUFF.
It was pretty darn cool. My 12 year old spent most of her time in the Rangernaut program for the older kids. She loved making stuff. She appreciated having lots of hands on projects to do. Her best buddy was there too, and I understand the highlight of his weekend was getting to build lego stuff with a real astronaut. My girl was more focused on costuming stuff and liked making a jet pack out of plastic bottles and steam punking up a nerf gun.
I saw very little of my husband as he was very focused on either going to literature and comic based panels or hitting the art panels I couldn't go to and taking notes for me. He is way too good to me. Being a hermit by nature, he really wanted to spend a few hours hidden away from everyone, but there was just too much to do.
After 5 days of art related stuff, my brain turned to mush. I didn't have enough sense to go hide away for a few hours. There was just too much to do. I went to panels about art, the business of art, politics, Chelsey Awards, Hugo Awards, masquerade, mythology. It all sort of ran together.
I didn't get to go to as many things as I would have liked, because we did have to eat at some point, especially since we had a pre-teen that is always hungry.
Some of the things I did get to do that I am not used to seeing at my local conventions were the Art Show docent tours. The one I went to with the president of the ASFA, was a nice basic art appreciation class. There were also panels on political issues. Which makes sense since Sci-fi folks are always thinking about the future, and nothing affects the future as much as what is going on in politics. And there were some more nitty gritty of art. Artists talking about how they actually work, with slide shows, and even some of the underlying political messages in their art. Yes, sci-fi and fantasy art can have real messages beyond the illustration of the story. Which makes sense, considering many a sci-fi and fantasy story conveys an underlying political message.
Politics did seem to be an underlying message at this convention. Or maybe it was because of my own interest in this area, that I gravitated to these sorts of things or remembered those moments better. I think my favorite moments were during the Chelsey and Hugo awards where Picacio, a Texas artist, used his time at the podium accepting his awards to express his support of women's rights and how raising a daughter in Texas has made this issue important to him.
Overall it was an enriching experience and made me want to expand my own art more.
