Caution: Artists at Play

This past weekend was the annual Portland Art Collective fall retreat at Menucha. Menucha is a retreat and conference center located in the Columbia River Gorge, just east of Portland. It's a beautiful setting and they describe themselves as a sacred space for purposeful work.




About 31 women attended the retreat and we all began trickling in on Friday afternoon. After getting my space set up, I spent the first part of the weekend designing and assembling paperweights for the upcoming PAC Open Doors Show and Sale.






The second part of the weekend I worked on a series of my Fearless Faces, in my Fearless Faces journal (a recycled atlas) and on repurposed wood boards.





Lots of time to create, visit, and play.






A couple of our members gave demos, with the opportunity to give the new techniques a try.



The artists at work, I mean play . . .







Post Script . . . .

One of my many obsessions is old paint tins and this is one I found at the Antique Mall in Troutdale. The price tag may say $1.87, but it wasn't . . . . but it was only $10!

Super Deluxe Art Date!

Oh my! What a perfectly fabulous day I had yesterday. I got to spend the entire (and I mean entire) day with four lovely artists: Stephanie Brockway, Gloria Sowell, Louise Brewer, and Tory Brokenshire. A little background: Steph, Gloria, and Louise all live in Portland and Tory lives right here in Salem. I met Stephanie at a class I took at Oregon Collage of Art and Craft earlier in the year and we sort of took to each other. I had never met the other ladies, but I had purchased a piece of art from Mary Lou Zeek's Gallery that Tory created. I blogged about it back in February of this year, so if you're interested in the art that Tory made for the 100 Artist's show, click HERE. (Teaser: I will be in the 2010 show, oh, I am so excited!).

Stephanie thought it would be fun for the five of us to meet and get together because all of us will be attending an art retreat at Menucha the end of October, hosted by the Portland Art Collective, of which Stephanie and Tory are members (fingers crossed, dreaming of one day being invited to join . . . there, I've said it out loud).

Back to yesterday. We all met up at Mary Lou Zeek's very fine gallery.

Here we are. Tina, who works at the gallery, was kind enough to snap a photo. Left to right we are Stephanie, Louise, me, Tory, and Gloria.

We barely made it down the street 'cause we had to stop in at The Arbor and at Ma Valise. Here we are in the very French store, Ma Valise.

Then to an antique mall, right around the corner from Mary Lou's.

Lunch at Wild Pear, with an appetizer of sweet potato fries.

After fueling up on caffeine, we headed to my studio where we did some show and tell of our work.

Then Stephanie, who had cut out wooden birds for us, launched us into a little art project.

Chocolates, of course.

My little tweety in process.

Gloria dries her birdy.

And Destree, who lives next door, was kind enough to stop washing dishes long enough to come over and take a final photo. Awww . . . .


Plans are underway for another art date, the next one in Portland and will hopefully invovle making Santos (of the religious art variety) . . I quiver at the very thought.

Oh, and you've gotta meet my new studio buddy: