So THAT'S what's down the rabbit hole...

More than a week has passed since I disappeared into the Alice-In-Wonderland themed East Coast Artist Retreat, and it already seems like light years ago in some ways. I have never experienced anything like it...it was a sumptuous feast of creativity, like a music festival for your eyes and hands instead of ears. I spent most of my time there with Keith Lo Bue, a found object artist originally from Connecticut but who has resided in Sydney, Australia for a decade. http://www.lobue-art.com/home.html Keith's website showcases the work, so wonderful in person, but we were there to see if we could utilize his amazing techniques in our own work, or the work some of us hadn't even dreamed of doing yet.When members of our class emerged from our work area some of us sounded like cult worshippers. I had 3 days and 4 workshops with him and many took every one of his classes over the full 5 days. Closed in that hotel I definately felt like some sort of vampire, hidden away and greedily sipping life from all I came into contact with. In the end I could call myself, at the minimum, a Keith Lo Bue groupie. This is Jeanne, Nancy, Keith and me. I certainly look like a woman who rarely slept and closed myself in a room with a bunch of tools and some "junk" for days. Found objects, lost touch with the everyday!

Learning the new techniques will truly enhance my own work, but the retreat was "spiritual" for me as well as technical. Combining the hands-on tactile experience with meeting other artists walking similar paths created a feeding frenzy in my soul. So many artists described similar art-school experiences, shut down in some way, and the self-taught among us (there were many...with mad skills) had their own barriers, and we were able to strip all of that away for the weekend...to say "why not?" in place of "how will I ever?".

There were plenty of extras. We had creative visual journaling sessions in the morning and special lunchtime placements to be sure we met everyone we could, regardless of their creative focus. The screening of the documentary "Who Does She Think She Is?" was icing on the creativity cake. Be sure you wait for the flash intro to load if you visit the site http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/ . I recommend the film to anyone who has walked a path in pursuit of a creative life. Though the documentary describes a woman's journey, it may be eye-opening to the men among us who also want to understand the barriers to making and showing art. The organizers outdid themselves: the air virtually buzzed with excitement all of the time.

I made great friends, both the kind one keeps around all the time and the see-you-next-year kind. There were people for whom art serves as a vocation and those who have it as a passion in addition to a full time career, and those non-art career folks were no shirkers. It reminded me (like a great clap of thunder) how fortunate I am to be able to be in my studio as much as I am and how much all these other  business people have to offer~ I vowed to stop working in such isolation. Jeanne, pictured with me, and the found-object art piece she created, volunteered to share her hotel room and it made all the difference. We both had plenty of stuff to haul around (she came as an antiques vendor as well as participant) and our room looked like a mini warehouse. Our lodging couldn't have been farther from the venue and without her help hauling I would have been a very sorry soul indeed. The worst part for Jeanne was my talking aloud while I dreamed about the work~ really loud.

So I will be there next year...in some form of ruby slipper or other...ready for the magic Art Is...