An Artful Journey

I just returned from An Artful Journey retreat at the Presentation Center in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains.
Reentry to planet Earth was harsh. I realized as I rode through the city streets that I was tightly clutching the fabric of my jacket lying on the seat beside me. Not a good sign.
At the retreat I took Nina (as in Carolina...) Bagley's class. I've read her blog for 4 years and thought I had an idea of who she was, but it turns out I did not really. She is the warm, poetic, sensitive, emotional person who comes across in her writing, and an excellent teacher, of course, but she is also very down to earth and very real. Someone with whom I feel I can be my quirky, not always sweet self. The words engraved into the silver portion of the bracelet of hers that I bought, "I have waited until now to walk with you amongst these towering trees", may prove to be prophetic for me, as I have come to the realization that without a doubt I am not "a city girl". I must go find some trees amongst which to live, the sooner the better. Whidbey Island comes to mind, or somewhere else around Seattle.

In addition to the Presentation Center itself and to Nina's teaching and personal skills, the experience of being in community with more than one hundred women of all ages, from all parts of the United States, as well as from other countries, and with whom I have in common a desire to create, proved to be a very healing one, something I am looking forward to repeating. I do not know about other art retreats, since this is my first, but  if you have a desire to attend one, I can highly recommend An Artful Journey. There's another one coming up in July... just so you know....

We had a lot of "lightbulb moments" during class, and that is why Nina is holding up a drawing of one.

A few more photos of the Presentation Center, where even the trees were adorned with jewels.

My unfinished pieces made with items (the butterfly and the blue heart) from my father's "stash" from the seventies, when he made jewelry as a hobby, a pendant I made years ago, and the word "ricordi" scanned from a page in my mother's handwriting and embedded in resin. I really enjoyed making those resin charms and intend to make more. And now, back to earth... 

Jewelry Class

In the last few weeks I have experienced a renewed attraction to two old "frenemies": sewing and jewelry making. I don't know why I am always recycling previous interests and why they have to reappear two at a time, but that's what happens. And just when I was getting into painting and mixed media!

Anyway, I bought the Alabama Stitch Book, can't remember why nor how I heard about it, started cutting up some clothes, signed up for a pattern making class with Jarred Garza that starts on September 30th at The Sewing Workshop. On top of it all I started to feel the jewelry thing calling me again.

So today I'm just going to focus (something I should practice doing) on how the jewelry making reappeared on the churning surface of the not so still waters of my awareness. Did I actually write that?

It went like this. Jewelry making had not, except for brief moments here and there, interested me much in quite a long time, that is, until it started whispering to me "you've got all the tools, a gazillion beads and stones, silver and copper in sheets and wire.... come to me, come to me..." Then I listened to Alison Lee's Craftcast interview with Michael David Sturlin. He sounded like such an interesting person that I visited his website and there it was: he was scheduled to teach right here in San Francisco at The Revere Academy! The class that caught my attention was "Classic Wire Rings".

I tried to resist. I really did. I told myself "Don't do this! Stick with the mixed media!" I told myself the class was too expensive, that I could find it all on Youtube, which I did. There are many videos about the subject, some good, some bad, and I watched them all. But on Thursday, the day before the class, I told myself (we have a lot of conversations) that if I were to travel to a workshop it would cost me so much more in airfare and food and lodging, whereas this one was right here. I was convincing. I signed up, took the day off, and went to class.

I'm so glad I did, because less than 30 minutes into it, I knew that it was pretty stupid of me to have thought that I could get the same experience from a video. I find youtube videos great for discovering techniques or building on them, but nothing can really substitute for a live instructor or, next best, an online class with videos and pdfs.

The teacher was excellent. His expertise, clear instructions, soft-spoken manner, great sense of humor can't be captured in a photo. (And he's even better looking in person, but I won't apologize for the photo because he told us not to apologize for imperfections in what we make...).

The view was beautiful.

The sound of happy little elves hammering away in another classroom drew me towards them long enough to record the rap, rap, rap of their hammers.

Although we were taught several other styles, I couldn't stop making spirals in copper, copper and silver and just silver, and left the class with the collection of rings in the image at the top of the post.

I have enough of them to wear a bouquet of wrapped spiral rings.