Listening to Squam
I am still feeling the sweet ripples of 5 days at Squam Art Workshops earlier this month. Squam is a creative retreat. It offers classes in knitting and embroidery, poetry, painting, book-making, collage and so much more. Visioned and developed by Elizabeth Duvivier, it's a gem. Tucked between Holderness, NH and the shores of Squam Lake, it is pure beauty. From the landscape (wide sky, magical water) to the varied and lovely folks who join each year. Every aspect of the weekend is hand-crafted, right down to the screen-printed bag you are handed when you arrive.
So on the first Wednesday of this month, I packed my entire studio into my small car and drove north to Holderness. The photo below is from my drive. This landscape opens me up.
We stay in small cabins and share rooms with one another. My cabin was quiet and had a fireplace and a view of the lake. I sat in front of the fire the first morning and did yoga.
The class I teach is called This Precious Life. It is a messy, joyful, sometimes quiet exploration of what we hold precious. If I could boil the whole class down to a single experience it would be listening. Really, it's a class about listening to yourself and your life. And while ideally we'll walk away with something physical that bears witness to this process, always (always!) I stress the importance of process and play. This is about showing up (which we do). And what comes is reliably some form of mystery.
At the start of the class, we sit still and listen. We get to know ourselves and each other in new and familiar ways. We journal and write. And eventually, after some small and not-so-small inner adventure, we discover a theme or thread or tiny spark of something we care deeply about. And finally, that spark comes with us onto paper where we begin slowly, page by page, to create our mini-books. Full of listening, words, feeling and care, these pages are a witness to the journey of finding and listening to what is precious in our lives. Once the pages are complete, we sew them together.
With the permission of each maker, here are some examples of the beauty created in my two separate classes. Thank you to the lovely, brave, deep listeners and makers I got to share this process with, 6 hours with each group!
So grateful to have met and shared with each of the lovely folks in my classes. Thank you! As well as the amazing teachers I touched in with over meals, sitting on the dock or standing for hours and chatting about creative process, running a business and the magical, challenging balance of making a living doing something we love.
Of course I couldn't be at Squam without getting in the water.....(it's like that movie Cocoon. There's something youthful and magical in the lake, people....).
Finally, one of my favorite experiences at Squam comes back to the theme of my class. It's the experience of listening to someone I haven't met before explain why they came to Squam. It happens walking the path between one side of camp and the other, coming into pace with someone else who is walking. Or sitting at a table of folks I haven't met. It begins when I ask what brought you to Squam? Every time, I am moved and surprised. Each person's story is so unique. And yet, over and over again, the same thread: creative community. For many, this is the only weekend of the year they get to fully manifest their creative selves and wear it freely, away from the daily hum of work and career, family and partnered life. Most of the folks I spoke with, their work life is in an industry or field that keeps them far from their knitting needles or paintbrush. This time at Squam is a homecoming.
Back in my own studio and home, I'm doing what I can to listen to my life here, too. It takes intention and courage. It doesn't always feel easy and I need reminding. So this is one of the many gifts of Squam: to spend five days amid so much creative bravery and collective listening---to ourselves and to Squam: the lake, the sky, the encouragement to show up and simply BE. Yes, yes yes. Thank you.
