My friend Tory and I have long had the dream of getting together a group of women artists in Salem to go on art outings, encourage and support each other, and on occasion host art workshops. We started to put feet to our idea a month ago when we invited a few women for coffee to discuss our idea. They were all for it and suggested a couple of other women to join us. We pictured our group having eight members (small enough to go on sketching outings and to get together for art-making in one of our studios), have the ability to meet during the day, and be of a certain age (which will go unnamed). We haven't quite settled on a name, but we're referring to ourselves at this point as the Salem Art Group, or SAG for short, although one of our members has been referring to us as 8A, meaning 8 Artists.
Our first outing was last Wednesday and it was the unanimous decision to visit the Mount Angel Abbey. We met at my studio, where Jami brought us each a gift (with a special gift for the studio). Two of our eight couldn't make it, but the six that did: Jami, Kathy, Tory, Susan, Linda, and me. (If you want to read about our day from Tory's perspective, click here).
After arriving at the Abbey, Jami read a little something to get us in the mood for our day of exploration and inspiration.
Out and around the Abbey grounds.
Group photo at the Abbey coffee shop.
We were all excited to visit the Museum of Russian Old Orthodox History and Culture Center.
The highlight of of our day was a visit to the Rare Book Room in the Abbey's Library. Our guide was Brother Syril and he patiently shared the treasures of the climate controlled room as we took photos, touched the leather-bound books, and just overall oohhed and aahhed at all the beautiful, ancient books.
We already have plans for our May outing.
3 comments:
Dayna, your photos are wonderful! It brought back fun memories of our first outing. Looking forward to the next one!
oh, those books! *swoon*
Those books...oh my!! So beautiful!
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