WRITING

Poetry Is Where You Find It

DATES: Saturday, June 10, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.**

FACULTY: Jane Desmond

TUITION COST: $120

This half-day workshop invites participants to find the poetry in Saugatuck’s history by transforming observations of the local landscape and its social history into works of visual and textual art. Taking the rich cultural and ecological history of Saugatuck and Ox-Bow as our starting point, we’ll explore and then transform copies of historical documents, which will be provided, into “found poems” through simple techniques of selection, amplification, and visual enhancement. Participants will leave with a hand-made work of art combining text, color, and line that reveals hidden expressive meaning in plain documents from the past, like storm reports, newspaper headlines, and ephemera regarding the history of Ox-Bow itself. No background in writing poetry or formal art training is required! Participants of all levels of experience can enjoy this process to create something new from the past.

Here’s What Matters

DATES: Saturday, June 17, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.**

FACULTY: Jack Ridl

TUITION COST: $120

Workshop participants will spend the day exploring, through their preferred form of writing, the things that have profoundly impacted their own lives – whether they are funny, traumatic, serious, sorrowful, or joyous. Using Jack’s suggestions, writers will first talk with one another about what subject they have chosen. Then, they will have time to explore that choice in writing, after which the group will engage in a delightful debriefing about what showed up as they wrote, culminating in a deeply memorable day.

Letters to the Land

DATES: FOUR DAYS

Tuesday–Friday, June 27–30, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.

FACULTY: Sheri Doyel, Tria Smith, Jessica Thebus

TUITION COST: $200

What is it about nature that inspires us, that causes us to pause and listen? What do we hear, and what do we want to say? If we were to share memories, desires or thoughts with the land, and let it listen, what would that look like? Join us for a 4-day writing and artmaking workshop that is an exchange with the land. Ox-Bow is home to diverse micro-environments –meadow, forest, and lagoon. It is full of inspiring shapes, scents, sounds and views. Together, we will experience a process of exploring and connecting with natural elements. Individual and group exercises will support you writing a letter (or a poem, a story, a list, a song) that connects you to the land, and might even offer something back. One day will be devoted to exploratory visual artmaking (painting, cardboard/fabric construction, mask making) that will augment your writing. All levels of artistic experience are welcome!