Inn of the Wandering Dragon

Yes, Jinx the dragon accompanied me to Rhode Island this past weekend for the 5th annual Henna Gathering put together by Heather of Artistic Adornment. (This free flow scrabble table is in the lobby of the hotel we stayed in - Hotel Providence.)

I love landing in a new city. While I was disappointed that the Moor workshop had been cancelled, I was happy to have a day to wander the city center of Providence before the actual conference began. The hotel is in the Arts district so we had a blast checking out small galleries, massive murals, shopping and the numerous musicians / artists wandering about on their daily business. I say we because I finally met and joined up with a couple of my room mates - two awesome ladies who flew all the way from New Zealand for this gathering. Nothing makes you ponder the quirks of North America quite like the enthusiastic curiosity of of someone from another country!

The conference overall was well put together with some great presentations on a variety of henna related topics. The role and style of henna in various cultures around the world was my main reason for attending. Of that there were several presenters. There were also presentations in gilding, face painting and the realities of working in a festival environment. Naturally, since there were two presentation rooms, there were other presentations that I would have loved to take part in. There were some great crafting ideas that would be a lot of fun to explore - should I have the time to at some point.