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Program Descriptions

Conference Cost: $200 per program (15% discount if you take TWO programs – scheduling restrictions apply) Space is limited to 12 participants per program!

Art

Session One - Spill Life: The spontaneous unfolding of art making

In this workshop we will work with paint and drawing materials, adding random marks and spills of paint to paper. In an approach to art making that is playful and exploratory we will follow our instincts and let the subconscious mind direct the artistic process. It's a surrealist approach to art where seemingly random marks reveal images that would not have been accessed through controlled conscious thinking. Participants will be guided through the additive process of building up a surface with a variety of materials and editing their work with erasers and paint.

Session Two - Rip it Up: Collage Workshop emphasizing the temporary and abandoning the precious

Letting go of preciousness in art. Taking images you have created in "Spill Life" we will then deconstruct them and reshape them into new art. Using scrap materials, new works or installations come to life. Nothing is permanent and out of the old comes the new. By taking a leap, letting go of what you thought was precious, surprising new discoveries await.

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Connect to Your Creativity through the Expressive Arts

Session One - Access Your Essence through Diorama Construction

This class will be a combination of process and creating. Students will be guided inward through some directive questions, you will then create a diorama based on what has come up for you internally. The type of diorama we will be making is out of small boxes which are then decorated with whatever materials are supplied by the instructor. You are basically creating a miniature expressive scene. You will then have a chance to process what came up for you within the group setting. This can be a very fun and eye opening exercise!

Session Two - Creating Polarity Mandalas

Mandala is a sanskrit word for circle. Creating mandala's is an ancient spiritual process in Hinduism and Buddhism. It has been used to help create sacred space and also as an aid for meditation. In this class we will be using the circle as a container to explore the polarities in life, i.e light dark; loud, quiet etc. Students can work individually, or in pairs, using paper and various colored drawing implements supplied by the instructor. We will process as a group afterwards. This is a wonderful way to embrace the light and shadow sides of life and learn how they can be integrated.

Writing

Embracing Your Inner Voice: Writing and the Creative Process

This program explores how, what and why we write, or don't write, as in the case of the tortured blocked writer(s). By lifting the lid on the murky, bewildering process of writing, you will discover what inspires you and what holds you back from releasing your writer's voice onto the page (or screen). Using a few tools from The Artist's Way toolbox, you will be led on a journey that will teach you how to listen for and connect with your inner voice.

This is the voice that directs our work. It is the voice we hear when we're not listening, the voice that contains the very essence of creativity. It is also the voice we too often silence with kneejerk judgments and criticisms.

In this class, you are free to explore any form of writing and do not have to be a writer to benefit from this deeply creative process. You will learn fun ways to silence your inner critic and will produce a piece of writing that you are proud of. You will be invited to share your writing at Sunday's Celebration of the Arts event. This program will help you to find your writer's voice and encourage you to start using it!

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Renaissance Writing

A workshop for those with an impulse to write; a workshop that claims to encourage flexibility of mind, but what does that even mean, really? Furthermore, how would you do that, eh? Well. It might involve a lot of very serious, very highly-focused noodling around, so as to start to liberate one's creative-spontaneous- noodling-loving right brain from the habitual oppression of one's critical-editorial- authoritarian power and control-ing left brain. (Or is it the other way around? I forget. Something like that.)

Anyhow, over the weekend, workshop participants will be asked to do lots of different things, some involving writing, some involving not writing, some involving loosening up, changes of perspective, contemplation, meditation, possibly something else, plus a possible sprinkling of Emily Dickinson and T.S. Eliot and creating notebooks or not notebooks. Bring a pen.

Music

Songwriting Workshop

Usually modest in length, songs have nevertheless been a powerhouse cultural force for centuries. What makes them tick?

All level welcomes, including tone-deaf folks who neither strum nor tickle the ivories. (Singing during the workshop is optional, it's your choice.) Bring any, all, or none of the following: pen/paper, guitar, ukulele, mandolin, portable electronic keyboard (or other accompanist instrument), portable recording device such as hand-held cassette recorder or laptop housing a simple audio-recording utility program.

Even if you're not seriously considering writing songs, but are interested in the alchemy, give this program your consideration.

Meet the Faculty

 

Jackie Reeves was born in Montreal, Canada. She received her BFA in Design Art from Concordia University, Montreal (1990), and MFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA (2012). She has been a resident of the United States since 1995 and currently lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband and three daughters, and works at Chalkboard Studio in Barnstable Village.

Jackie is a prolific artist who exhibits regularly on Cape Cod. She currently has a solo exhibition of mixed-media works at the Cape Cod Chat House, in Dennis. JACKIE REEVES: YESTERDAY WAS TODAY will run from August 7 – September 28, 2013

Click HERE to read an article about Jackie Reeves published in CWO magazine

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Jennifer Stratton is an artist, musician, expressive and creative arts educator and life coach living on Cape Cod. She has been drawing, painting and creating her whole life.

Jennifer's personal experience with the healing powers of expressive art developed into a desire to help others tune in to their own creative gifts. She received her Certificate of Graduate Studies for the Professional Application of the Expressive Arts from Salve Regina University in Newport,R.I. For the past 10 years she has been working with groups and individuals using the expressive arts (visual, music movement, writing) as a way for people to deepen their own self discovery process and as a tool to deal with specific issues.

Recently, Jennifer became a certified Co-Active Life Coach through the Coaches Training Institute. She now uses Life Coaching and Expressive Arts together and separately as a way to help people "live their best lives". Jennifer is also a singer/songwriter who plays at a variety of venues on and around Cape Cod.

Nicola creates and facilitates writing, personal growth and creativity development programs on Cape Cod. A fierce advocate of the importance of living a creative life, Nicola's programs have nurtured the professional growth of writers, artists and musicians for over 16 years.

A member in Letters of the National League of American Pen Women, Nicola has coached many writers through the production of manuscripts, short stories and poetry. Her own writing has appeared in various New England magazines, newspapers and anthologies. In addition to teaching, she works as an editor and book manager for Booktrope Publishing.

Nicola is co-founder, editor and publisher of CapeWomenOnline magazine. Click HERE to learn more about Nicola's ongoing classes and read student testimonials.

 

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C.E. Wilkinson holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Horace Gregory Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College, where she worked with incomparable Jane Cooper and Grace Paley. Constance is a writer of plays, poems, translations of poems (Spanish, Nepali, Tibetan), novels, novellas, restaurant reviews, news, and feature articles.

Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and small literary magazines such as The Paris Review. Her plays have been produced in New York, Nepal, Kenya, and South Africa. Plays created with her company, Kuku Ryku Theater Lab, were performed at the Michigan Experimental Theater Festival, the Munich Theater Festival, Dusseldorf Schauspielhaus, Teatr Kalambur/Poland, among others, as well as in New York at venues such as the Performing Garage and the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds.

Constance is a psychotherapist in private practice and writes a column for CapeWomenOnline magazine.

Eli Woods is twice a first place winner of the Eventide Arts Songwriting Competition and is also an Eventide grand prize winner. Eli holds a Bachelor in Music from USC in LA, a top-five music school, where he studied musical composition. Via his work in media productions for companies like GMI, Scholastic and McGraw-Hill his songs and music scores have had international distribution.

Eli's media production company can be viewed at EliWProd.com. He also specializes in editing and recording poetry, creating voice-over demo reel, marketing, website production, etc.

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