On the Highway: Instructing Cloth Collage at Woodland Ridge in Downsville, WI, Half 1—Might 2024

On the Road: Teaching Fabric Collage at Woodland Ridge in Downsville, WI, Part 1—May 2024

In Maine, there’s a saying that we’ve got two seasons—winter, and the Fourth of July. Hope you had as lovely a summer season season as we did!

For this submit, we’re going to go “On the Highway” and journey again in time to a stupendous week in spring—on the finish of April and starting of Might—at Woodland Ridge Retreat in Downsville, WI. Sandy Schmitz’s lovely “blue” heron, in picture above, is ready to greet you.

With temperatures no less than a pair weeks forward of us in Maine, an array of contemporary inexperienced springtime colour was starting to dot the Wisconsin panorama outdoors my bed room home windows. An exquisite sight any time of day.

I’ve taught at Woodland Ridge many instances earlier than. The proprietor, Chris Daly, takes superb care of me and my college students. An all-in-one facility, we eat, sleep, work/play with cloth, even store for cloth(!) in the identical constructing. Having morning espresso, working in your collage, and consuming lunch all in the identical fuzzy slippers is all the time a chance.

The 2 lecture rooms give my twelve college students ample room to stretch out (six per room), for every week of creativity. Their baggage and containers explode with all the material they packed, protecting their tables, partitions, and flooring round them—a certain signal of creativity at work—reminiscent of Cathy Borneman’s splendidly tussled elephant-themed workspace, beneath.

I fall into a snug morning routine at Woodland Ridge. I are likely to get up early, and with the time zone change, even an hour earlier. I pad down the hallway in my pj’s and fuzzy socks, activate the already arrange espresso maker within the kitchen, and begin to arrange my very own tables (above) for the day’s class demo.

This 12 months, there have been different early birds right here and there in pajamas, generally beating me to the espresso, and protecting me firm whereas quietly engaged on their tasks. I end my activity with contemporary espresso in hand as I pin yesterday’s examples on the hallway pinning partitions (beneath).

Then again to my bed room to ponder a pre-class stroll within the woods and fields behind the retreat heart. However extra on that in subsequent week’s submit.

If you end up keen on becoming a member of me for every week at Woodland Ridge Retreat, I shall be returning there, Might 28-June 1, 2025. Click on right here for extra info on their web site.

Now, drumroll please, meet my first six college students and their whimsical, fanciful, attractive color-filled collages from this 12 months’s Retreat!

Click on on any of the smaller images to see them bigger and to scroll by means of the gallery.

Joan Handrahan

Joan’s bigger than life feline companion has an added depth with the colourful colours and distinction in values of the crimson and yellow fur.

Kim Bates

Kim selected materials for her squirrel with a classic kind of calico look, not what I’d have really helpful—nonetheless, “Rocky” is lovely and I’m so glad she stored to her creative imaginative and prescient.

Ann Coleman

Ann’s use of white lace for among the second-draft additions had been good for including additional highlights to her cute little snaggle-toothed princess.

Jean Grube

Jean made nice use of the patterns in her materials to boost the contours within the face and ears of her soulful-eyed “Sammy.”

Sandy Schmitz

Sandy took a deep breath the night earlier than class started, and switched out the “pure” grays and whites of her heron to the wealthy and stylish colours he now seems fairly pure in.

Cathy Bourneman

Cathy is making a portrait of a buddy—as she research the shapes and colours discovered on this magnificent and resilient rescued being—that she met, touched, and whose sensible eyes gazed at her.

Tune in subsequent week for the second installment of my Woodland Ridge Retreat 2024 class, with the ultimate six college students and their fabulous collage work—and be part of me in a brief armchair stroll by means of the springtime woodland panorama.