If you checked out this week’s Throwback Thursday post, you would have seen links to 12 previous posts from my Maine retreats—and those are just the ones from 2016 through 2018 that have been documented on my blog. I began these Maine retreats in Spring 2011 in order to stay closer to home for teaching (no airports involved). The first, and latest, location at the Harpswell Inn (below), half a mile down the road. Pretty darn close to home.
The Middlebay Room of the Inn will just accommodate the 12 students—and boards, and fabric—that I take in these Maine Retreats. It’s like a hive buzzing with activity and creativity—such as the in-progress fish in the first photo, by Debbie Yavner. I encourage the messiness of letting fabric trimmings fall to the floor (you may need them later and then you know where to look). I love to see our room get more and more “decorated” as the week progresses, though the housekeeper was observed standing in the doorway, giving a great sigh as she looked at the floor. But not to fear, when I dropped in the day after class ended, one (or both) of the two ladies who stayed one last night had made sure it was swept and tidied as they packed up. Thank you, ladies.
Most of these students were “first-timers,” though there were a few who knew each other. Judy Dunlap and Mary Gorelick below, are two friends that live far apart, but take a class together every year to re-connect. I consider myself lucky that they chose my class this year—they were happy and smiling the whole time.
Both Judy and Mary took my general suggestion to create a spiral (above, respectively) as a test canvas of sorts, to audition and play with the fabrics they brought for their main subjects. It’s a good way to see how the various colors and prints interact with each other, as well as a good way to just play and relax with the fabric if (or when) the week gets a bit stressful.
Judy took the practice one step farther and made a couple spare eyes (below) right after my “eye demo” on day three.
Three returning students (below, left to right), Marilyn Davidson, Darlene Determan, and Vickie Ostrow, tucked themselves into a corner and, in the case of Marilyn and Darlene, worked on two or three projects over the course of the five days. Both these two are long-time fabric collage converts, working as hard at home as they do in class. The dancer you see behind Marilyn was created outside of class (based on a photograph by her husband Joel Davidson), as most of her artwork has been. I only gave a final critique and background suggestions this time around.
June 2019 Maine Retreat photo, left to right: back row—Leigh McMorrow, Marilyn Davidson, Heidi “Massage Therapist Extraordinaire” Carlson, and Debbie Yavner; second row down—Beth Linnebur, Vickie Ostrow, and Amne Parsons; front row, standing—Nicole Brooks, Judy Dunlap, Mary Gorelick, and me; front row, sitting—Darlene Determan, Julie Bermant, Tristin and Liza Carter. (Photo courtesy of Marilyn’s husband Joel—he got us to laugh as he tried to catch the attention of Tristin the service dog.)
See in-progress photos of all these lovely ladies’ work in the slide show below.
Student Work Slide Show
Being so close to home at this location, also means that my husband Tom, takes a more active roll in the retreats. This week he was the classroom set-up guy, the part-time (a friend and our son also helped) delivery and wait-staff for our yummy catered lunches ordered from a local cafe, and wrap-up and pack-up help at the end of the week. He seems to like it when I’m home more, though it’s probably a lot easier on him when I’m teaching a class somewhere else.
Still, he made time to act on the suggestion to “get some videos” of my students. In the clips following, a few of them share some tips and lightbulb moments. Tom has interviewed a couple other classes in the past year and I know from feed-back that the short videos are popular additions to the blog posts. For me, they are nice reminders of these people, and what they have to say and take away from the class always make me smile long after the week has ended.
Another set of friends who share a class with each other every year are Julie Bermant (above) and Liza Carter (below). In these videos they share tips they learned during the retreat for both getting started in fabric selection and keeping going with glue and the Purple Thang.
Mary Gorelick, below, was one of many of the students who wanted to work on creating form in her fabric collaged subject. As sge explains below, she needed to carefully study her photo to really understand the form of the bird in order to render it in a realistic way.
Cutting around and with the print found in your fabrics, in order to facilitate the blending of those fabrics pieces, is a learned skill. Beth Linnebur explains some of her learning process in the video below. Beth took on a mighty task of rendering a sculpture of St. Micheal and the Devil into fabric collage. I have to admit I had quite a few doubts as to the that choice as a first project, but Beth has proved me wrong in her quiet diligence, creating both of the faces and one hand in the course of the week. Her in-progress photos are in the earlier student slide show.
Usually when I give my eye demo in class, it’s to help students creating, well, an eye. Though it can just as easily apply to mouths,, or dog noses, or bird beaks. I think when Leigh McMorrow (below) applied the “top down bottom up” process to the wheel-well of her rusty car, it was a first. A true light bulb moment.
Vickie Ostrow wraps up the week in the video below—great starts with lots of info to take in, and try to remember. I certainly realize how much information I’m throwing at my students, and truly, it’s why I started my blog in the first place. And in writing out and posting the How To’s for all my students, it’s also available to all of you, as Vickie so nicely points out. She also put in a great plug for my Master Class Manual. Thanks Vickie!
One night during the retreat week, I take the class (and Tom) out for dinner at a locally-flavored restaurant. Recently, my choice has been the Cribstone Grill for it’s awesome location perched over the water on a beautiful location in Harpswell. It’s not too large of a place and doesn’t take reservations, so this year seating got split up and a few of us had to “suffer” out on the deck (below). Below right is the view from the restaurant parking area.
Each day after lunch (as the wait staff—aka Tom et al.—cleaned up) a few of us took the short stroll down to the town boat launch into Casco Bay. At low tide, a small island is accessible where Julie and Liza gave Liza’s pup Tristin, a little extra run-around time (below).
The weather cooperated all week and enabled my sister Heidi (LMT), to set up her massage chair out on the front porch at the Inn—a retreat perk that’s included for everyone, if they so choose. That’s her below, with my student Nicole. It was day four of the five day retreat, and everyone took Heidi up on the opportunity to relax some hard-working muscles.
And finally, there’s food. All other evenings besides the class dinner out, students are on their own to explore the area’s restaurants. Mary and Judy (that you met earlier in the post) accompanied their new friend, Leigh McMorrow (above), to Estes Lobster House just down the road. Judy shared her photos with me saying, the wine and dessert were a, “perfect end to a wonderful dinner.”
On the final night everyone was together, Tom and I hosted dessert at my studio. It’s now a tradition that Tom makes a couple of his “World Famous” Maine blueberry pies for the occasion. It adds one more job to his weekly list, but he does seem to enjoy the enthusiasm and resulting compliments for his culinary skills.
It made for a relaxing end to the day (the wine probably helped too) and was it was fun for me to share my own creative space with this group of ladies. They left in the late dusk of summer, most walking the half mile back to the Inn. Judy shared with me this final photo of the Harpswell Inn aglow.
It was such a great week! I so enjoyed meeting new friends and learning a lot. I want to thank Susan for an excellent class. Harpswell is beautiful. I look forward to doing it again some day.
Oh how I wish I could get off the waitlist. It looks like so much fun!
Me, too!
I agree with Leigh! What a wonderful week and the days just fly! Thank you Susan (and Tom, Heidi, and all the other “helpersâ€) for such a wonderful time!
Love all the tips from students as well as seeing the range of pieces people worked on.
This brought back memories of my time with Susan at the Inn. Such a lovely person and awesome teacher. My friend,Helen and I loved Maine even though we were lost all of the time. We are from San Diego so the ocean was in the wrong place. Made driving an adventure.