Susan Lenart Kazmer & Linda Larsen

Creating Relics & Ruins

We will be working with found items to make relics and ruins of our own culture. Students will have time to explore their ideas and will be given many techniques to help them along the way. Each student can choose their own direction and work through their ideas with resin, sheet metal and fibers to add to the mix. We will be visiting the local market and flea market with a foray into Paris if you are interested. You will have class and studio time for lots of individualized attention. The creativity just spins around the room in this kind of setting. Who knows what new projects we will be coming up with?!!

• Cost: $2,600
• Visit www.susanlenartkazmer.net for more information — and to learn more about Susan and her work.
• Contact Susan & Linda at linda@susanlenartkazmer.net with questions or to reserve a space.

Tory Hughes

Take a Little France Home With You! …
Pietra Dura in Polymer Clay

In this enchanting retreat, you'll make miniature 'paintings' with inlaid imitative polymer stones. You'll learn this brand-new imitative technique, making brooches, pendants, and whatever else you desire! Sketching on our field trips around the countryside will inspire your images, from architecture to landscapes and local flora. And the polymer 'stones' themselves will be colored in part with local materials. Morning studio classes, catered meals, afternoon field trips, staying in the peaceful studio to work, catered meals on the terrace above the river - all combine to give you a unique artist's retreat experience. Tory will be working one-to-one for much of the class, supporting your individual creative expression in this versatile medium. When you leave, you really will be taking a little France home!

• Cost: $1,700
• Visit www.toryhughes.com for more information — and to learn more about Toru and her work.
• Contact Tory at victoria@toryhughes.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Kathleen Dustin

A Polymer Purse …
The French Connection

Exploring unlimited shapes for hollow vessels, each student will make an interior mold, then a lidded vessel, then a purse(s?). With a small class size in an inspiring setting, emphasis will be placed on individualized attention in developing one’s own voice in the context of a polymer vessel. Design decision principles will also be covered as we explore key surface treatment techniques including Skinner-blend overlay, carving, and large-scale canework. For even more inspiration we’re planning a couple of local field trips (to be included), making this one of the most memorable workshops you will ever have taken.

• Cost: 1,335 Euros
• Visit www.kathleendustin.com and click on Calendar for more information. Be sure to explore Kathleen's gallery while you are there!
• Contact Kathleen at kd@kathleendustin.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Sarah Shriver

Colors & Patterns of France

We’ll begin our week by going on a treasure hunt through the charming local area, collecting fragments of color and texture to be used as inspiration for a distinctly “southern France” polymer clay cane composition. We’ll create patterns in multiple variations that can be laid onto a surface as a veneer, into a surface as inlay, or formed into a variety of bead shapes for jewelry. With this small class size there is plenty of time for one-on-one instruction and each student can move in a personal direction.

Some half-day trips to historical nearby towns, a visit to one of France’s most delightful open air markets, meals prepared by our wonderful cook, a well-designed studio, and the incredible charm of La Cascade itself… all make this an ideal artist’s retreat.

• Cost: $1,800
• Visit www.sarahshriver.com for more information — and to learn more about Sara and her work.
• Contact Sarah at sarah@sarahshriver.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Susan Lenart Kazmer

Objects & Elements

Each day class begins after breakfast cooked by our own French Chef! After class and lunch on the terrace, there will be time for exploration of the French countryside. Dinner is tres gourmet with candlelight and the wonderful wines of the region.

For those who are obsessed with their creativity, the studio is open 24 hours a day. Weekend flea and farmer’s markets offer opportunity to find materials to create your very own artifacts.

Classes will incorporate all of Susan’s best classes and also techniques from her new book — Making Connections: A Handbook of Cold Joins for Jewelers and Mixed Media Artists.

Plan a side trip to Paris on the way home!

• Cost: $2,500
• Visit www.susanlenartkazmer.net for more information — and to learn more about Susan and her work.
• Contact linda@susanlenartkazmer.net with questions or to reserve a space.

Dayle Doroshow

Capturing Ancient France:
A Mixed Media Journey

In this spirited workshop let's explore Artist Journals, Jewelry and small Sculptures to capture our week in the French countryside. The region is rich with medieval villages, artists, flea markets and fairs, which we will draw on for inspiration and ephemera gathering. Start the week making a multi-signature journal covered with beautiful French fabric and polymer clay elements - an idea collector to hold your week of inspiration and techniques. Next we'll create Jewelry, small artifacts and figures (art dolls) that tell a story inspired by French medieval village life, the Renaissance court and your imagination.

Techniques will focus on integrating polymer clay with textiles, papers, flea market treasures, and Market finds. Instructed studio, delightful field trips. Open studio at night, new friendships, and exquisite food from our personal chef. Live and work at La Cascade where time relaxes and creativity flows.

• Cost: $1,700
• Visit www.dayledoroshow.com for more information — and to learn more about Dayle and her work.
• Contact Dayle at dayledoroshow@hotmail.com or 707-962-9419 with questions or to reserve a space.

Pamela Hastings

… to be determined

Check back for details!

• Cost: $2,500
• Visit www.pamelahastings.com for more information — and to learn more about Pamela and her work.
• Contact Pamela at pamela@pamelahastings.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Linda Privitera

The Spirituality of Art

This week long workshop intensive will allow artists to think in a contemplative way about art-making, how we access the soul, the unconscious, and our experiences in the zone of creativity. We will give ourselves time to integrate our spirituality and explore how that engages us and others. We will pay attention to the quiet, the mysterious, the soul work of imagination and creativity using the senses, the season, and the spirit of southern France.

Our art making will make use of a number of creative exercises that focus on sensory meditations. We will use the poetry of Hafiz and Rumi in addition to other texts. We will visit some spaces that invite our response to faith and creation and share our insights in the group.

"You wish to see, listen. Hearing is a step toward vision."
       —  Bernard of Clairvaux

"You wish to hear, look. Seeing is a step toward hearing."
       —  Linda

Linda Privitera is the author of Restoring the Contempative Gaze, published by Alban Institute's Congregations Journal, and Practicing Healing: Body Maps, for Episcopal Times in Boston MA. Her doctoral work focussed on Art as Transformation in religious community. She has led numerous retreats in museum and church settings in the United States. She is a priest of 20 years in the Episcopal Church; she now resides in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

• Cost: $1,900
• Linda is represented by the Foyer Gallery in Ottawa. Visit the Artists section of www.foyergallery.com to learn more about her.
• Contact lprivitera@rogers.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Kathleen Dustin

… to be determined

Check back for details!

• Cost: $2,500
• Visit www.kathleendustin.com for more information. Be sure to explore Kathleen's gallery while you are there!
• Contact Kathleen at kd@kathleendustin.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Anne Bagby & Lynne Perrella

The Visual Vagabond

Take your art journal on the road with two award-winning artists, and savor the incomparable unspoiled landscape of Durfort in the Southwestern region of France.

We will spend time in the well-equipped and welcoming studio at La Cascade, plus use our surroundings to prompt and provoke work in our art journals. We’ll explore lots of low-tech ideas for creating elegant layered surfaces, as well as methods for getting the most out of visual elements and shapes. The weekend market at Revel, with its lavish fresh flowers, produce, gourmet food and antiques; where all the senses are stimulated and the opportunity for on-the-spot journaling, sketching and writing is ideal. Walk the aisles of the outdoor market, as people have done for ages, or just take a seat at a café on the square and experience a visual feast for the eyes and heart. Then, we will make a trip to nearby Montolieu, the so-called antique book village, where one is surrounded by winding streets spilling over with books, collage material, and ephemera. The ultimate paper chase! At the nearby ancient fortress of Carcassonne, we can explore the aesthetics of another time and place. All of these experiences will be woven into a visual memoir of your trip; plus all of the techniques that we explore can easily be translated into your future work in collage, assemblage, and mixed-media artwork of all kinds.

• Cost: $2,500 … Very limited enrollment!
• For more information, and to learn about Lynne & Anne and their work, please visit:
  • www.lkperrella.com
  • www.annebagby.com
• Contact Lynne at lkperrella@aol.com or Anne at annebagby@bellsouth.net with questions or to reserve a space.