Creative Arts Eliot 2021: Your choice of workshops
We will be back in-person at the Seabeck Conference Center for this camp! We are delighted the Barbara and Jaco ten Hove are leading this camp as our deans. Their theme for the camp: Yes! The Circle is Unbroken!
Important Update: Our painting workshop has changed! Eduardo Fernandez will be teaching a class on acrylic painting, since Lisa Snow Lady had a scheduling conflict.
Important Update: The painting workshop, fabric dyeing workshop, and writing workshop are full. Please consider our other wonderful options.
Drew Betz - Prayer Flags
Program Description: Prayer Flags for Modern Times
The world has changed for all of us as we acknowledge our vulnerability. We have been forced to see air and breath as our potential enemy because of the dangers of COVID-19. Let us reclaim and honor the wind as an element that can send messages of hope and courage to the world. Traditional prayer flags that originated in Nepal, Tibet and India are used to this day to promote peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. The flags are blown by the wind to spread these values to all. The Art Quilting community has embraced making modern prayer flags that honor our lives with additional messages of hope, support, beauty, and more. This class will be an opportunity for you to create a series of flags using fabric and embellishments that send the message you want into the world. Drew will challenge the group to focus on themes that are meaningful to themselves and to make a special flag to honor our Eliot community. The workshop will have guided meditations and journaling that will inspire themes for the flags and lots of time for construction. Construction can be by hand, machine, or both. Guidance will be given to design and construction.
"...Walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide." John Lewis, New York Times, 7/30/2020.
Biography: Drew has been making quilts since 1997. She has made all sizes of quilts but prefers to work small. She has made a series of journal quilts and quilted prayer flags and has entered her small quilts in the local fair and area quilt shows. She has shown quilts at local, countywide and multi-state shows and is the proud winner of a number of blue ribbons. She has also taught classes on small quilts, wearable art and has given a number of lectures at local quilting guilds. She has taught quilting at Creative Arts Eliot and in her home community of Bellingham. In 2020, she offered a virtual prayer flag class through the Pacific NW Quilt and Fiber Art Museum. She began making prayer flags in 2007 and restarted the practice during the pandemic.
Natalie Danielson - Book Arts
Program Description: Creating Handmade Books -- There is a bit of a mystery when you hold a handmade book in your hands. It could have a creative folding technique, be handstitched, or open in a distinctive way. What lies inside can range from colorful drawings, handwritten quotes, popup or peek-a boo windows, or a blank journal. It could be an old book that has been creatively altered. In this workshop, you will create a variety of books that will each be a treasure.
Biography: The art that Natalie Danielson creates is always full of energy and exudes happiness. She always has a paintbrush, calligraphy pen, palette knife, or glue in her hands creating something new regularly.
She has been a book artist for the past decade combining different mediums. “When I started experimenting with bookmaking, I found I could take my art to another level and create a vessel for stories.” For the past several years, she has attended “Bookies,” a group of book artists that share new techniques and ideas every month. In addition, she has taken numerous bookmaking courses.
Natalie has been a featured artist at art walks throughout the area. She has taught classes and workshops in her studio in Kirkland over the years. The one word used most often to describe Natalie is “enthusiastic!” She brings her passion for art, wild creativity, and sense of humor to her workshops!
Fode Sylla -
Drumming
Program Description: Traditional West African Djembe Hand Drumming
Fode will introduce students to the Djembe drum, hand positioning, and the five basic sounds -- bass, slap, tone, muff, and flam. He will teach "KuKu" and the full moon celebration rhythm. Students will practice the hand positions, sounds, and learn Djembe parts 1 & 2 for the rhythm KuKu. Fode’s teaching focuses on creating community, tolerance, and healing. He says the repetitive, rhythmic movements can become a meditative experience, and using both hands helps align the right and left sides of the brain. Students should arrange to bring their own djembe or similar drum. He will have a few for rent for a small fee, and a few for purchase, but renting or purchasing needs to be arranged in advance.
Biography: Fode Sylla is a dynamic acrobat, drummer, dancer and performance artist from Conakry, Guinea, who specializes in traditional West African drum and dance. Sylla received circus arts training at the esteemed Centre d'art acrobatique KETA Fodeba (TINAFAN) from 2005-2007. He is a master of West African Rhythms, having performed with the nationally renowned Ballet Mervielle de Guinea as well as Amoussou, and Ivory Coast dance troupe. Over the past 7 years, Fode has performed in many festivals, including the Oregon Country Fair, as well as offering demonstrations and audience participation events coast to coast and in Hawaii. He is a standing guest artist at MiniGuinea Dance and Drum Camp on Vashon Island, Camp Fareta in California, and Camp Saamato in Seattle, where he also performs with the African Allstars. Fode has a dedicated family of students and he is a gifted musician, dancer, choreographer and teacher. Having recently returned from 10 months in Guinea West Africa where he taught, performed and rehearsed with artists from around the world, he is fresh and ready to begin teaching students in his new hometown of Bend, Oregon.
Tim Hesterberg -
Active Sports
Program Description:
An additional morning option, "Active Sports" will be available for those wanting a more physical activity. Led by Tim Hesterberg, there will be options for biking, hiking, kayaking, a service project at Seabeck, etc. What this group does will depend on the interests of those who sign up.
Eduardo Fernandez - Acrylics
This workshop is full.
Program Description: Painting 1-2-3!
Explore the art and craft of acrylic painting in a studio offering personalized instruction, demos and feedback. Students will learn and gain inspiration by painting directly from life and by copying a master artist's work; a tried and true way to learn and create fresh and interesting work. While some attention is paid to theory, the workshop is meant to be hands-on, engaging, and fun. Painting 1-2-3 includes lively discussion of artists and their work to explain and illustrate: essentials of picture-making like value, color, and composition; painting technique such as color mixing, brushwork, and building a painting step by step; how to start strong and block-in a painting. Painting 1-2-3 is open to all levels and beginners are welcome!
Biography: Eduardo Fernandez is inspired by the effects of color and light, direct observation, imagination and love for oil painting and drawing. Portraits, still-life, and landscapes are ongoing themes in his work. Eduardo is know for his portrait work and has exhibited in several Pacific NW venues. He greatly enjoys teaching and has been an instructor at the Portland Art Museum, Pacific NW College of Art, and Multnomah Arts Center. To view his work, visit: www.eduardofernandez.com.
Jennifer Springsteen - Writing
This workshop is full.
Program Description: Creative Writing: Find Your Writer's Voice
Writing to prompts and in community allows you to get rid of your inner critic and write from that deep well of memory and imagination. It also develops your skill at feedback and noticing what is working in writing so that you, too, can identify techniques that can make you a better writer. This workshop is appropriate for all genres of writing: poetry, fiction, and memoir, as well as for all levels of experience.
Biography: Jennifer Springsteen is a seminary student at Starr King School for the Ministry in Oakland, California. She is the co-founder of PDX Writers and her writing has won several awards including Regional Arts and Culture Council grants, an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. She is represented by Joanna MacKenzie of Nelson Literary Agency. She writes, teaches, and studies in Portland, Oregon.
Liz Strausz -
Hand Dyeing Techniques
This workshop is full.
Program Description: We will explore tray, low water immersion, and overdyeing techniques on cotton fabric using Procion dyes. With these easy-to-master techniques, we will create beautiful patterns and variations of color on fabric. Cotton fabric will be provided.
Biography: Liz fell in love with tie dye at July Eliot in 2004. Over the years she went from avid participant and volunteer to co-coordinator for the tie dye all camp activity. Eventually Liz was so drawn to dyeing she experimented and was inspired by books, websites and YouTube to create beautiful patterns and colors. From 2013-2019, Liz sold her hand-dyed clothing and scarves at Arts and Crafts fairs and Etsy. Liz loves to share what she has learned by teaching people how to dye items that make them proud. Liz lives in Seattle with her husband, two black cats, two chickens, and is a member of University Unitarian Church. www.BlueHeronArtworks.com