Sustaining Our Creativity

A Mid-Fall Gathering

SOLD OUT

Saturday and Sunday, October 13-14, 2018 9:30am – 4:30pm
Hosted by: Lori Kane and Daniel Gregory

Sustaining Our Creativity: A Mid-Fall Gathering of Creators

Workshop Overview:

“In a playful elder’s presence, everything and everyone is a teacher, a leader, and a potential friend, creative partner, playmate, or muse. Whenever we allow the universe herself to be our playful elder, our creativity will be sustained: period. There’s literally nothing that you or anyone else can do to stop it at that point.”  – Lori Kane

“I have to go: I think Lori is counting sheep as cows again.” – Daniel Gregory

Here at Silly Dog Studios, when we’re not creating photos or poems or essays or other art, we’re usually talking about creation, creativity, sustaining creativity, and being sustained by creativity—typically while walking the dog, cooking a meal, digging in the garden, and spending time with creative friends. After more than a decade of sustaining ourselves as full-time creators, we never seem to tire of talking about creativity with other creators. “Why is that?” we wonder.

This two-day workshop is for people like us: 1) creative people who love to take a break from creating now and then to talk with others about creativity and be reenergized, 2) creative people who’ve had to learn to receive inspiration from and create with and through everything life throws at us, including through pain so deep that we weren’t sure that we would survive it (or that we even want to), and 3) people who get off track, get stressed out, panic, worry that everything we’re doing is crap, and who need community help in recognizing that even when we’re off track, we’re still where we are supposed to be.

We’re not lecturers: we’re working artists. One photographer/photography educator and one poet/essayist/author. Daniel most loves to take pictures and tell stories and explore alternative and old processes and look at and discuss art. Lori most loves to show up as a guest of a whole place (like an island or a beach or a city), listen closely, live surprising stories, and stumble upon deeper, hidden wonder as she writes and talks with friends and with strangers. Both of us love to host and create with others. So this workshop will lean heavily on messy and imperfect art creation, individual reflection exercises, and small-group and whole-group discussions. We’ll provide a light breakfast, drinks, and an afternoon snack. To reenergize at lunchtime, plan to bring your own lunch and camp out somewhere entirely on your own on the property or to walk down into Langley with others for lunch (a 5-block walk that always involves some combination of the following creativity sustainers: bunnies, donkeys, deer, picking blackberries, swinging on swings, looking at the ocean, and playing video games at the local arcade).

Workshop Outline:

Day 1:

  • Get‘er done – individual routines and rituals that support creativity
  • Have some fun – the gift of creative partners
  • Tapping the collective imagination – the power of creative community
  • Receiving darkness – fear, rage, pain, betrayal, illness, death, loss, and other people who you’d really like to punch in the face

Day 2:

  • Creative jumpstarts – 50 ways to be and/or things to do when you wake up, look at the human world, and say “Yeah, no. No $#%ing way. I can’t create today.”
  • Me 101 – finding patterns and themes in where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and who has been with you all along
  • Creation and the sustained creator – finding shared experiences and language by talking about creative practice across disciplines

Includes:

  • 14 hours of professional instruction
  • Art supplies
  • Light breakfast, drinks, and afternoon snacks
  • Connection to a creative place and creative friends and colleagues

$300.00

Register now or call or text questions to Lori at 206-805-9978.

Early birds! Register by September 15, 2018 and save $50.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Stay up to date with news about our herbal offerings, coupons and sales, books, pop-up markets, open studio hours, workshops, and other events happening at Silly Dog Studios. Our privacy policy and terms live here.

Address

Mailing Address
PO Box 435
Langley, WA 98260

Silly Dog Studios Address
4683 Tompkins Road
Langley, WA 98260

Email Us

info@sillydogstudios.art