Skip to main content

Anderson Ranch

 Okay, here is the much anticipated post from my recent adventure at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, CO.  Honestly, I don't have words sufficient to fully credit the experience.  It was a bit like turning inside out and finding yourself whole again.  I grew so much and am now painfully filled with a longing to make art...NOW.  Not my usual crafts, but PAINTING and creating and listening and beholding.
The photo below is an exterior shot of our studio.

And this fabulous woman is Judy Glantzman, our fearless, fabulous and utterly inspiring, leader!
Here is the gang after a luncheon hike atop a bizarre yin/yang slab at the summit.
 And here we are again.  It was so refreshing to discover myself as a woman again...not a mom, a teacher, a mate, a daughter, a friend...just as me and the real treat was that I loved her.
One of the other attractions, was the simplicity of NOT having to cook.  Not for myself or for anyone else.  I was shocked by the relief this provided and how quickly I adapted to the luxury.
But perhaps the best thing was ART and my opportunity to make some.  Here are some of my creations at the final critique.
All in all, this was one of the greatest gifts of my life...thank you to Ron, Joanne and Shane for thinking of me and my deepest needs.  And another thank you to Annaday for her generous donation of supplies and a wonderful night spent in her home before the retreat.  Thank you!

Comments

Wind said…
I saw this post some time ago, and have had a powerful and continuing thought about your art being so strong and complete in its expression! I am really stilled when I see your work.

Popular posts from this blog

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much.  It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall.  The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep.  But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy.  I am a woman who loves the spring.  I nearly live for it.  When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis.  I gorge.  This year has been hard.  Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally.  The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment.  It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float.  It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within.  It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains.  Eyes closed.  Eyes opened.  A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being.  It takes courage.

the way of the sunflower

A few weeks ago, I sat holding a sunflower seed in my hand, just prior to the mouth popping, mastication phase, when it's perfect elegance floored me.  I stared in awe at the tiny seed nestled in my palm and saw it, in all of it's possibility, for the first time.  A flower, a million seeds, a million flowers.  Each unique, each the same.  And suddenly I was dumbfounded by the arrogance of human. A small seed, with no big beefy brain to catalogue, categorize, prioritize, conceptualize, quantify, qualify, justify and deify, had within it the flower it could become.  Dissect the seed and there's no  flower, nor any glimmer of the life that will unfold when the seed surrenders to soil, light, water. I wondered. What arrogant assuming is it, to think, with our over indulged brains and narcissistic lens of "self", that we need "do", "think", "struggle", "fight", "hustle", "cajole" and otherwise dance our way...