More Squam!

I have to say thank you to all you Squam ladies for warning me about the downward emotional spiral that often comes after one of these wonderful art retreats. I went home fully prepared for it and I think I'm doing ok. Granted, the "snow-day" the day after I came home (see post from 9/16) definitely gave me the upper hand, but I hadn't realized that I've had this emotional crash you all speak of many times (right after Christmas, usually!) - I just never associated it with the emotional high that preceded it. Being aware of it makes a huge difference.
Anyhow... as my new friend Linda said , "I'm not even going to try to put Squam into words". I did the best I could in the last post. Now I'm just going to show you pictures!
I had the privilege of taking Judy Wise's Art Journaling class. What an incredible teacher and delightful person! I got so much out of this class. Take a look at the studio we worked in... Even if Judy's class hadn't been completely inspiring, the room by itself would've been enough to make me happy.
Ice cream sundae on the dock...


On my second day of classes, I got to meet Penelope... she has been inspiring me with her writing for years and I was so completely excited to meet her. I took her Travel Journaling class and her Editorial Illustration class. Both were fantastic. Here I am with Beth checking out an interesting contraption on the dock during the Travel Journal class...



Then in the second part of the Travel Journal class, we all piled into Penelope's rental car (and a few other cars!) and headed to Meredith, NH, a little south of the RD Camps. Three of the girls in the class and I went looking for a coffee shop to do some sketching in. Along the way we found a cute antique shop that we walked around in for a while. I thought I smelled a funny burning smell while we were in there. Then we found a bead shop in the back of the same building. While we were in there, a lady from another shop within the building came in and told the clerk that she smelled something in her jewelry shop. About 15 minutes later, fire trucks and police cars were showing up to put out an electrical fire in the basement! Now, only true artists (and probably scrapbookers) can appreciate what happened next... two of the girls I was with went running up to the fire trucks and started posing in front of them! This was when I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life at Squam. I had found my soul mates.



After all the excitement was over, we settled into a beautiful little coffee shop and sketched and painted for about an hour.

Now, my next pictures are of my blogging hero who pulled my out of a three year artist block. Judy Wise, in a recent post, dared anyone to get a serious picture of Penelope... I am apparently not up for the challenge.
and she's FAST. This picture I just whipped around and snapped without even looking while we were all waiting for the professional photographer to take our group shot. I didn't even know Penelope was in this shot until I got back to the cabin that night!! So yes, Judy, I'm with you. I dare you all.

Now this lovely lady is my new motivational kick-in-the-pants. Theresa asked for the mic one night at one of our evening gatherings and wanted to know (I'm paraphrasing because sadly, I did not write this down. ) what was wrong with all of us (artists). "Your work is fantastic. You are so talented and yet I hear you all saying that you're afraid you're not good enough... where is this coming from?" She went on and I just don't remember exactly what she said because frankly, I was stunned. You know what Theresa? You're totally right. And I'm going to do my best to try to remember that the next time I feel that way- which is a lot. This picture is going up in my studio. Rock on, Theresa.

One day I finally got brave enough to go swimming. It wasn't bad, but I don't think any of us ever really got warm while we were at the camp, so this wasn't easy!! One night I even had a dream that it was snowing. Of course, it hit 90 on my drive home. I'm not kidding.
Here is Cat's cat quilt (I love her name). Cat was one of my cabin mates and she runs Bad Cat Graphics. Cat and I found common ground pretty quickly.

My favorite thing was hanging out in the living room with the fire and all the girls creating art. These ladies were full of creativity all the way to the tips of their toes. I will not show you my boring white socks. I will be going shopping for artist socks very soon.



And I will leave you with this poem that I found in the Rockywold Deephaven history book. This pretty much says it all.