Grunewald Guild

Grunewald is an Arts Guild in Washington state which hosts retreats and courses.  I just got to spend a few days there. The property has studios for pottery, weaving, glass arts, print arts and more.  Art is everywhere on campus.  Volunteers can help out on the property in exchange for taking classes.  Permanent staff fill multiple roles and guest artisans and teachers join them from time to time.  

Above is the buffet counter in the communal dining area with a thickly textured plaster wall.  Below is facing the kitchen and self serve hot beverage area.  Each post was painted.  Behind the closest post is a small coffee table with a mosaic top.  Dining tables were covered in colorful fabrics and guests picked one of a kind cloth serviettes for their meals.  Many cups and bowls had been made on site in the pottery studio. Meals were hearty, earthy and delicious.

Below is the central meeting area surrounded by shelves full of art books and created things.  Lofts above either side were piled with over sized cushions. The guild's core value is hospitality and is modeled after the Benedictine monastic order.  For group sessions candles covered most surfaces and the wood stove burned in the evenings.

A view over the dormant garden to the library building in the trees. Nice bit of architectural salvage in the fence.

The back wall of the central building with more architectural salvage from an old church and pottery chimes hanging over the back porch on long cords.

 The guild library with stained glass windows.  One wall of books was devoted to spirituality.  A medium sized section held fiction and the rest was overflowing with books on creativity and art.

A very large painting in the stairwell of the building where I stayed.  Interesting dripped paint effect.

                              These stained glass windows were in bathrooms/restrooms.

      A large window in the central lounge/meeting area, sometimes obscured by a power point screen when art images were being shown.

The people we met on staff and at the retreat were as varied as the artwork everywhere, as were their philosophies of life.  An inspiring but also mentally and spiritually challenging stay.

Ron Findley: Guerrila Gardener

                   Ron says gardening is his graffiti and his art.   His inner city gardens transform the lives of neighbors on multiple levels.  "Food is the problem and the solution."  "If kids plant kale, they eat kale."

Outdoor painting experiment

           So, I thought I'd try painting outdoors like people in books or movies about artists.  Had 5 canvases to fill for a children's classroom.  The nice thing about being outside was catching some rare late February sunshine and not worrying about dripping paint.  Less appealing was discovering how many bugs like wet paint.  Especially black for some reason.  Camouflage?

Gallery class

     My youngest and I checked out a free family art class at a local gallery this past weekend.  A staff person told kids and parents about a few famous landscape artists, showing digital images of their work.  Then she walked us through this gallery's current display with its regional mountain/wilderness theme.  Finally we got to make a 3 D project as family teams or individually, using cardboard boxes, pre-made cardboard "mountains", masking tape, scissors and paints.
    This is mine.  It has 4 small pink mountains with snow-caps and a cascading stream that is sunk lower than the box top.  I liked adding pieces of cardboard with the smooth top ripped off to show the corrugation.  (See blog entry called Triptych for another corrugated project)  Fun to have to create something in about an hour.

Advent Painting 2012

           

                                 

                             
                        An Advent painting I did for this past year.  About 8 x 5 feet.  The idea emerged on an unpremeditated sketch as if it was waiting for me to start drawing so it could appear.  I was really pleased with the multiple layers of events and meaning that entered this picture and am still seeing new things in it.  One person came up to me after it was hung and asked me if I intended the meaning they saw in it.  Yes, I said! One out of comment-less crowds.  But it meant a lot and reminded me how important it is to tell other artists what I appreciate about their work.

Winter Trees

                         A couple pictures I did for a foyer for this past December.  Painting still doesn't flow as easily as sketching for me.  It felt awkward "drawing" on such a big scale with a brush instead of my humble but favorite tool, a black ball point pen.