Retreat from it All

My weekend was spent wandering the incredibly beautiful grounds of Fort Flagler. It was SO nice to step away from everything into wide open spaces, sea air and greenery. I went with my household and what had started as a structured time for the group to be together morphed into just casual good ol fun.

We cooked and ate well. Very well.

And we clocked plenty of beach-combing time in.

And long rambling hikes where we subsisted on Salmon berries...

And what trip would be complete without campfire stories and s'mores?

It was completely apt and totally perfect for me to be able to step away from it ALL this past weekend. Despite getting ready for my first solo gallery show AND the EDGE program both just a few short weeks away. Perfectly perfectly timed.
I now feel recharged and ready to rock my to-do list. Sometimes you just gotta step away.

Portland Art and Soul - Pt. 1 Katie Kendrick

"Swimmer Balancing Thoughts"

This week since I have returned from Art and Soul in Portland I have been savouring things. Colors are brighter and the air is rich with crisp autumn scents. Perhaps it is just my love of this time of year in the NW, but I'd like to think it is still the residual way of seeing the world after taking a workshop with Katie Kendrick.

Katie Kendrick, if you do not know, is an intuitive painter. I signed up for her class after seeing her work thinking that I would learn a bit about encaustic techniques, since her pieces are usually coated in a top layer of wax. Though I did learn how to cover a piece with a layer of wax to protect it and give it a dreamy quality, the class ended up being so much more than that. In fact, the time we spent on the wax was less than an hour of the whole day!

Katie began her class by getting us to all do creative warm up exercises - which at first seemed funny but then they actually worked. Just simply by taking a crayon and some tissue paper to play with rubbing patterns and textures was enough to loosen the brain up into "oh good - it's play time now!" Which if you are going to do some intuitive painting that is right where you want your head space to be. She then had us working pretty fast - bouncing between 2 canvases at the same time smearing paint, pressing on collage and smearing more paint until "something appeared".

This is completely opposite of how I usually work. I pretty much always start a piece with a full blown idea of exactly how I want it to look. I sketch out the design in pencil direct on the canvas and then paint it. And that is just fine and I'm sure I'll continue working that way. For some pieces...

Katie's way was just so much more of an instant release! So from now on I think I'm going to start working both ways - just to see what comes of it. No plan, no expectations. Just me and my inner artist smearing some paint around.

Here is my 2nd piece which I actually finished in time to give it the wax coating:

The first piece of the swimming girl was just paint while the second one above was mostly collage layers with paint over the top. I purposefully did not finish the swimming girl piece because I knew I wanted to add the golden spheres on the left - and since I had a gold leaf gilding class the next day I knew it was worth waiting for!

Taking flight for an Artist Retreat

By early tommorrow morning I will find myself here.

I'll be meeting up with my long time soul-sister Karrie for a weekend of filling our inspiration cups to the brim.

Here is a bit on our agenda:
Visiting Golden Gate Park
Staying at the Hotel Des Arts
Browsing City Light Books
Wandering Chinatown
and the creme de la creme: Seeing Frida

I am so excited I'm practically glowing!

But first I'm off to see an art opening by the lovely Betsy of Baddins. Wouldn't miss it even for San Francisco! If you are in the Seattle area - specifically Capital Hill, I highly reccomend dropping by the Last Waltz Boutique on 18th & Union.

Artfest Glow

I'm still fully immersed in the post-Artfest glow. My studio table is covered with projects and paints and collage images are scattered in piles all around. How completely wonderful. If I had known what sort of an inspiration booster shot I was missing out on every year .... well let's just say then I wouldn't have been missing out on it!

This picture was captured on Sunday morning as we were all leaving by everyone else's camera but mine (since I had forgotten to charge it). When I saw it on Julie & Candice's blog I just loved it and had to repost. I think it captures the Artfest glow that is on all of us. Not to mention that SWEET house we all got to stay in. I miss all of them already - including Jennifer who sadly isn't pictured since she had already gotten on her shuttle to the airport 3 hours earlier.

From left to right: Candice, Me, Kecia & Julie

Kecia & I shared a room and we got along fabulously. I sense a growing friendship! And the Artnest girls were just riot - they brought such excited happy energy to our household. Jennifer & I got inspired together at the Lomography lecture and carried some great, thoughtful conversations throughout the rest of the weekend. And all 4 of them had already known each other previously by attending the Artnest in Colorado. These ladies were one of the best parts of the trip for me and I am so glad for having met all of them.

The Adventure of Artfest - a Novel

What an experience! I’m so completely inspired I can barely deal with myself today.

It’s almost to the point of being a disadvantage because I’m having a hard time focusing on anything else! After painting, playing and connecting with other artists for 4 days I'm finding it quite hard to adjust myself back to my "normal" life. (i.e. the dayjob)
More-so than any other vacation I've taken.

I am so extremely greatful that I took this opportunity, made the financial leap and went to Artfest at the last minute this year. Everything worked out so perfectly it just felt like it was meant to be. The workshops I took, which were not of my own choosing, were all AMAZING and I know that the techniques I learned within them will change the course of my artwork. Already, on the drive home on Sunday I had to stop and rough sketch out ideas for 3 new paintings.

The photo above is the art mess that was the dining room I shared with 6 other artsy ladies (including my Funky Wallpaper person from Anahata Katkin's class!).

I stayed in the Officers housing of Fort Worden - this cool old funky house across a field from all the Artfest workshops. It was a super fun house because I got to stay with some super amazing folks. I shared a room with Kecia of Lemoncholys which I felt incredibly lucky to because we got along fabulously. Much fun and talk was had between her & I. And she had another friend staying in the house as well - Jennifer, who I also got along fabulously with. Great long walks and talks of art & photography and the ways of the world with those girls!

Also in our house was Julie & Candice of the Art Nest who brought some exuberant fun energy to the group and an artist from Alaska named Jane and another artist named Jennifer. We all had some wonderful times in the house coming home after our classes and showing each other what we had made and drinking tea & wine by the fireplace in the dining room.

Kecia & Jennifer taking pictures of the Fort

The first night there was a little disconcerting. Artfest has gotten HUGE - it was way bigger than I ever imagined. So upon my arrival, which was somewhat late due to having to work that day, I quickly checked in and unloaded my stuff to an empty house and then headed off to the Commons for dinner. I got my tray of food and then walked into the dinning room to eat - and there I was - standing with my mouth agape in the doorway holding a full tray and not a single place to sit in sight. The room was huge and packed to the gills with barely room to squeeze between the tables. Waves of laughter and excited energy and bright colors abounded. An entire cavern of artists! Whoa.

I admit that I felt immediately overwhelmed like that first day in a new school. Within barely a moment though some nice folks were waving me over to an empty spot at their table where once seated, I got to witness the artfest phenomen that is "Trading". Many participants who come will make hunderds of little mini art bits - ATCs, charms, etc to trade with other artists. I knew this in advance and had just brought a few of my leftover craft show things due to time constraints. Little did I know what a frenzy it all was though. I was kind of glad to not be involved in it that first night. Much better to watch the exchanges people made. Throughout the week I did end up trading some things but mostly I just gave away things as gifts to my housemates & new friends.

On Thursday the wariness that I had felt from the massive crowd was washed away the moment my first class started. It was with LK Ludwig and the workshop was called "Seasons Journal". We got to play with many of her nature journaling techniques which included gelatin prints, layered tissue paper collage and bleaching. Messy and fast paced and exciting and fun! LK was a generous and through teacher and I enjoyed the class immensly. In the afternoon we began the process of building a journal to sew all of print pages into. I'm excited to upkeep that journal as my new Art Journal - which I've never really kept one. That in itself will change my creative process I'm sure.

Gelatin Nature Prints

After class I had to run into town to get more cough syrup because unfortunately, my Seattle Crud Cold had still not left me and I had coughed all through the previous night. Once I armoured myself with some serious cough syrup though things got better.
At the house that evening we all got more acquainted and then all turned in early in preparation for our classes the next day.

Friday came with a grey foggy northwest drizzle which was perfect for heading into a workshop with Misty Mawn. She had soft music playing in her classroom when we all came in and the rain made for a soft relaxing backdrop for a morning of learning gel transfers and painting. By lunch the rain had cleared and the sun returned. There was a building excitement that day on the Artfest campus for Vendor night was that evening. Kecia, Jennifer, Julie, Candice and I all fortified ourselves for the mad dash of Vendor night by going into town for mexican food - fabulous fun!

Artfest Vendor Night

At Vendor night Kecia was offering chair massage which I helped her garner interest from the crowd by getting to be her first "demo" massage. That was a serious treat for me - AND Kecia ended up with a line for the entire rest of the night. Guess I must have looked pretty darn relaxed. (Thanks again Kecia!)


Which I think helped me be not quite so nervous when I finally went up and introduced myself to Kelly Rae Roberts. I've read her blog for some time and have watched her grow into the amazing artist that she is today. It was through her blog post that I found out about the opening and therefore found myself at Artfest in the first place, so I had prepared a gift for her of a wood burned pendant to say thank you. I absolutely LOVED seeing her paintings in person finally (so much more depth of layers!) and I actually ended up chatting with her & her Mom for a bit. Turns out I share my name with her grandmother - how weird is that? We ran into each other a few more times the following day. She had wandered into my Saturday class midday to check out all the funky wallpaper people in process, and then I got to see her amazing workshop creations that evening at show & tell. It's an interesting thing to actually meet someone who's blog you've followed. A strange phenomen of our digital age - that feeling that you know someone and of having a friendship that you don't actually have because that person doesn't know you at all. Strange indeed. But upon meeting her and talking with her and then waving at each other at artfest, I felt like there could be perhaps a future real friendship afterall. I think all of the artist blogs that I'm drawn to are not necessarily because of the art itself, but perhaps more of just finding someone who shares a piece of your world view and who is struggling everyday with the same sort of muse and dreams that you yourself wrestle with. It's an amazing blessing that we artists of this generation have been gifted with. Our community of others is vast and wide.

The last day found me half of my housemates in the best workshop I've ever taken - Funky Wallpaper People with Anahata Katkin. The above picture is of the painting I made in that class which Anahata had commented that she looked like me. At first I balked but I think now I see it. She IS me - in a community of artists that is vast and wide, looking to the future.

For a complete viewing of all the Artfest pictures, check out my Flickr page.