[Woodcarver] Original Subscribers to Mailing List

[Menendez, Kathleen G.]

Hello, Bill and All the Mailing List Members,

I started researching the internet in 1996.  In the fall that year
right after my eldest daughter's wedding and their departure for Mali,
Jeff Fleisher, then president of the Northern Virginia Carvers
spoke at our monthly meeting and introduced us to your mailing list
and explained how we also could get on it and make use of it--it was
such a new idea then!

I signed up and immediately messages started pouring in--about 50 a
day!
After reading messages for a number of days, I decided to bravely ask 
if there were any pyrographers on the mailing list, which, as a result
of someone's comment (for all of you who were here back then, you may
well remember whose comment that was  ;-)  ), started a flame war 
around me and about me!  Ah, those were the days!  

It was all so exciting and provided a wonderful opportunity for me to 
talk about pyrography because of all the (favorable) comments and 
questions that ensued.

It was only ten days to two weeks later, Bill, when you announced that
you
were planning a new e-zine as well and asked for feature writers.  
The premiere issue came on line January 1st, 1997, and included, at
your request, Bill, a feature column on pyrography.  The rest, as they
say,
is history... (My fifth article that year on "Pyrography as Traditional
Art"
subtitled "To Timbuktu in Search of Pyrography" was on pyrography found
by
my daughter and son-in-law in Mali.)  Today that publication continues
under
the name Woodcarvers Online Magazine published by our mailing list
member 
Matt Kelley.

In the last ten years, pyrography, which had been mostly absent in
carving circles until shortly before the mailing list, is now a
significant
niche of its own in almost every show and magazine.

Although there was almost no pyrography on the internet when I started
my research, we now have a community of pyro artists from between 30
and 40
countries and a significant body of research on this obscure art form.
(I
am amazed at how much research was done in the past and published
previously
without the aid of the internet.  How did they do that???)

What a great decade this has been!  Congratulations, Bill, on this
important 
and successful undertaking that is your mailing list.

Happy Holidays to all,

Kathleen M. G. Menendez
Falls Church, Virginia, U.S.A.
Cofounder IAPA
Curator, E-Museum of Pyrographic Art:
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/4029/
Feature writer on pyrography for the WOM
(current and back issues--over 50 articles!):
http://carverscompanion.com

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:13:30 -0600
From: Bill Judt <bjudt at sasktel.net>
Subject: [Woodcarver] Our List is growing... are you an original
	subscriber?... read on...
To: Woodcarver Mailing List WML <Woodcarver at six.pairlist.net>

Gentle Subscribers:

I checked the List database today and noticed that we are a growing  
group. Our population is now at 724 members/subscribers.
For your information, this is an increase of nearly 100 members in a  
year.

I'm curious to know how many of our original members are still with  
us today.

If you were subscribed to the Woodcarver Mailing List during it's  
first year of operation... that's back in 1976 [1996]... send a message
to  
the List and let us know.

If you are doing the math... this means we are at the end of our  
tenth year of operation! Wow!!

Blessings and Peace,

Bill

My books are for sale at: http://wwwoodcarver.com/Books/index.html
W.F. Judt,
46 Harvard Cres,
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
S7H3R1
PH: 306-373-6649
bjudt at sasktel.net
Website: http://www.wwwoodcarver.com