To see details about 2008-2009 workshops at my home studio El Cielo and around the region, scroll down on this page. Events are listed in reverse order, upcoming ones first. You can download a current brochure about these workshops from the link on the sidebar.
Finally, the Fall-Winter planning is done -- it's taken me a long time to get my thoughts straight and then to plan an all-new series of workshops. I've been running repeats of some favorites during the past season, so it seemed time to develop a new group of inventive weekends.
The problem with that is, that for all the new toys and tricks and materials that we artists (especially we quilt art/fiber art/mixed media artists) are bombarded with, there are really only so many with substance and style and staying power. So, I have decided to concentrate on what I do best, focusing on creative process and on helping others to find their "sweet spots," their strong suites. Yes, there will still be fun and new and different techniques to explore during these weekends, but the majority of them will have more to do with digging deeper, loosening up, starting from scratch and pulling rabbits out of our (proverbial) hats --if any of this makes sense, then you are a better mind than I!
Nevertheless, here's the fall-winter rundown, with a link here to the brochure up in la-la land -- you can download it (in theory) by just hitting the button, or by pasting the address into your browser bar. If you don't get it and want a pdf copy to print, notify me by email --use the form on the sidebar if you don't have my email address handy. I'll email you an attachment that is sure to work!
Nurture your creativity as you come away from a weekend with renewed energy, new materials and techniques in surface design applicable to fiber, ceramics, jewelry, painting and mixed media work. Susie Monday leads artists’ retreats and workshops throughout the year at her studio near Pipe Creek, Texas, about an hour from downtown San Antonio. El Cielo Studio workshops are designed with the needs of the participants in mind; free time is scheduled throughout the weekend for reading, reflection and personal work in the studio. You are welcome to bring projects in process for Susie’s critique and for peer feedback in an environment of trust and respect. You’ll share meals, poetry and stories, music and advice for living an artist’s life. Enjoy the 25-mile vistas from the deck and strolls down the country roads. A spa and pool, and large screen media room are also available to participants. The fee for each workshop retreat is $160 for a 2-day event with discounts for early enrollment. Comfortable accommodations are available from $15 - $30 per workshop. Most workshops offer a Friday night potluck option. Limited enrollment. Most supplies included. Call 210-643-2128 or email susiemonday@gmail.com
Susie has taught creative process and art techniques to adults and children for more than 30 years. Her art is in numerous private and public collections around the world.
NEW AT EL CIELO
FROM SCRIBBLE TO SYMBOL; PERSONAL MARK-MAKING
SEPTEMBER 25-27
(optional Friday night potluck & critique session)
In this workshop, start with simple sketches and doodles and end the weekend with an arsenal of new surface design tricks and tools. Explore doodles and scribbles as sources of uniques and personal imagery that will give your art quilts, wearable art, or mixed media work personal depth and layers of meaning. take a favorite symbol -- for example a heart, star, spiral, circle -- and by taking it (and yourself) through a series of creative generative exercises, you’ll make something new and different to incorporate into your design, composition and surface design. Tools and techniques explored include paper lamination on fabric, large scale “mark-making” rollers and monoprinting.
OCTOBER
Find Susie at the Houston International Quilt Festival, See www.quilts.com
NEW: A CREATIVE STUDY: PETROGLYPHS, POTTERY & PREHISTORY
NOVEMBER 6-8 (optional Friday night potluck and critique session)
Many artists have found inspiration in prehistoric and archetypal imagery from caves, cliffs and ancient ceramics. This is the first of a series of “creative study” workshops that will illuminate how you as an artist can take inspiration from the images and imagination of the past, while transforming the images into something uniquely your own. This workshop models a time-proven creative study process (based on that developed at Learning About Learning Educational Foundation and the Paul Baker Theatre) that can be adapted to many inspirational sources. We’ll go from collection through synthesis to creating, and explore textile and mixed media techniques that relate to the aesthetic and philosophical qualities and intent of the earliest art-makers. Explore some simple natural dyes; use handmade brushes as tools, make pigmented paints with ashes, earth, rust and minerals.
NEW: MEMOIR, MEMORY and MEMORIAL
DECEMBER 4-6
(optional Friday night potluck and critique session) Continue the season of Dias de los Muertos by creating a memorial altar to a person, to a personally potent memory (or past life of your own), even to a summer vacation! Learn to transfer photos onto a number of interesting surfaces including plastic, metal and fiber; add words, names and text with resist crayons; microwave dye custom fabrics, and embellish your textile and mixed media altar with all manner of beads, trinkets and meaning-full treasures. (Additional $10 fee for wooden altar frame.)
ARTIST JOURNEY/ARTIST JOURNAL
JANUARY 8-10
(optional Fri. night potluck & critique session)
This annual workshop has become a tradition at El Cielo Studio. Spend the weekend in creative activities (All new this year!) that help you set the stage for a 2010 filled with productivity, imagination, focus and artistic goals. Using some new exercises gleaned from sources around the globe, we’ll banish procrastination, make an annual love letter, and find ways to remind us of what really matters in our artistic lives. Meanwhile, you’ll work with mixed media and surface design techniques to start your artist’s journal for the year.
WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT SUSIE’S CLASSES & WORKSHOPS:
“It was just what I needed right now. I have been in a creative slump, questioning what I do and how I do it. The exercises we did this weekend were freeing on the one hand, but will also help me focus.”
“This workshop was a fabulous, uplifting, nurturing environment to create in. The journaling was particularly helpful, I would definitely recommend it to a friend.”
“This weekend was totally awesome! I am humbled by Susie’s talents, her teaching abilities and her hospitality. I will come back as often as possible.”
susiemonday@gmail.com
www.susiemonday.com
210-643-2128
3532 Timbercreek Road
Pipe Creek, TX 78063
Read Susie’s blog at http://susiemonday.squarespace.com
You’ll find a downloadable pdf version of this flyer on a front page link on Susie ‘s blog.
WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT SUSIE’S CLASSES & WORKSHOPS:
“There was a good balance between thinking, processing and working ... you are good at letting people work at their own pace.”
“Excellent accommodations; exquisite food!”
“I like the spirituality aspect--it drew the group together as a family for two days.”
“Great class, it was just what I needed right now. I have been in a creative slump, questioning what I do and how I do it. The exercises we did this weekend were freeing on the one hand, but will also help me focus.”
“Your workshops are ALWAYS money well spent. I learned techniques I have read about but never tried ... I also now feel confident that I can make art quilts!”
PAST WORKSHOPS
CREATIVE JUMP-START
June 14-15, optional Friday night, Saturday and Sunday
Are you ready to kick your creative energies into high gear? Ready to go beyond other people’s ideas and patterns and into your own? Susie will lead you through a weekend of open-ended creativity exercises, exploring the sensory alphabet, playing with a wild assortment of materials, and challenging your understanding of your mind at work. Learn more about your strong suit as an artist, and how to work in your deepest and richest material, content and processes.
Usng a variety of simple materials -- abnd an even simpler vocabulary of a sensory nonverbal "alphabet", you will paint, sketch, make music, move, listen and explore in a freeing, open-ended framework of guided exercises. In addition to these "formal" explorations, that help you expand your vocabulary of media and approaches, the weekend will include practice and planning for building effective habits and rituals for approaching your own deepest work as a human and artists. As creative beings, we are called to express our unique stories -- as visual artists we may be shackling our vision by tuning too closely to the outside world. We hope that this workshop helps you tune into your inner voice and vision, making tiny changes, babysteps that take the fear out of finding your truest work.
Optional: This workshop can be followed up with 6 weeks of consultation by email and phone on a project that helps your develop your personal voice as an artist, $100 additional fee.
FOOL MOON/FULL MOON
July 18-20
Friday night - Sunday
The moon has long been seen as a symbol of the unconscious, and a sacred goddess of feminine instinct. How does the unconscious, the instinctual, even lunacy, influence your art work? Do you make room for accidents, for the spontaneous and unplanned? This El Cielo Studio workshop will take advantage of the July full moon to inspire a weekend of intentional accidents, spontaneous expression, and improvisational techniques for fiber and mixed media art, as we open our hearts and eyes to the power of the uncontrolled. Among the activities: guided meditation and journaling, moonlight storytelling around a bonfire and moonlight hike (weather permitting), time in the hot tub, and making an artist altar that explores your understanding of the divine feminine. Fabric art techniques covered include silk painting effects with salt and other additives; faux shibori and low-water dye techniques using the microwave; shaving foam dyeing and other improvisational play.
BURNING WOMAN WORKSHOP
August 16-17, optional Friday night, Aug, 15
Where ever you find yourself on the Farenheit scale of creativity, take the time at this retreat to channel that inner fire into creative expression and explore the relationship of passion, energy and desire to art and art-making. Participants will be engaged in a life-affirming series of exercises, meditations, rituals and art-making in a variety of simple media, including fiber, paper, paint and dye. We will practice sun-printing, burning and rusting on fabric and other surfaces; explore microwave dyeing and sun-batched color on cloth. Even if your discipline is other than textiles, you will find renewed energy from this focus on creative passion as we create rituals and light bonfires to keep our inner vision burning bright.
WORDS ON THE SURFACE
May 9-11, 2008
Friday evening to Sunday afternoon
Experiment with different ways to use written language, letters and text on surface of fabric for application in the making of art cloth, art quilts and art-to-wear. By putting your ideas and your personal vision into your work, you will deepen your own expression of your individual voice, finding words that are important to you. Using your story in a quite literal way can be part of personal expression and powerful art. This is a repeat of one of Susie’s popular workshop with some new exercises. Some of the techniques explored include: sunprinting (with dye and paint), thermofax design and printing, handpainting, soy wax batik with text, collage and stitched letters. Participants will also see a wide variety of examples and work in teams to discuss and critique the use of text in fiber and other contemporary work, broadening their conceptual understanding of using words in art. Friday evening will start out the creative work with writing exercises guaranteed to put deep rich imagery in motion.
NOVEMBER 3 & 4 (Saturday morning though Sunday afternoon)
In this workshop participants experiment with a number of different ways to use written language, letters and text on surface of fabric, for application in the making of art cloth, art quilts and art-to-wear. By putting ideas and personal vision/story into work, artists deepen their own expression of individual voice, using words that are important, using STORY in a quite literal way,all can be part of that personal way of expression. Some of the techniques explored include: sunprinting, thermofax design and printing, handpainting, soy wax batik with text, collage and stitched letters. Participants will also see a wide variety of examples and work in teams to discuss and critique the use of text in fiber and other contemporary work, broadening their conceptual understanding of using words in art. Fee $150, plus accommodations if desired, $15 - $30.
Calling All Archetypes
At El Cielo Studio, Pipe Creek, Texas
With fiber artist Susie Monday
April 7-8, 2007
Each of us depends on a cast of inner characters to get our work done: the organizer, the dreamer, the judge, the caretaker, the scout, the wild woman, the fool, and the wise one, for example. Whether we call these inner guides, inner selves or archetypes, their multiple voices help, hinder and guide our creative work.
During this renewing Art Journaling and Art Quilt workshop, participants will explore these inner aspects as characters, as well as their relationship to the archetypes of legend and myth. With personal imagery developed through journaling, each person will transform his or her insights into a small art quilt
Participants will explore their inner teams with a series of interesting and revealing art journal exercises adapted from diverse readings including Caroline Myss’s Sacred Contracts, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves, as well as other writers. Then, using the information and images that were developed in the journaling exercises, each person will design and create a journal quilt or artist’s altar art quilt honoring one of their inner archetypes, angels or voices. Quilt design techniques include working with fusable webbing, machine and hand quilting and embellishment with printing and stitching.
Artists Journey: Dark into Daylight
At El Cielo Studio, Pipe Creek, Texas
With fiber artist Susie Monday
TBA 2007
The days are dark: literally --as the light wanes toward Winter Solstice -- and politically, as peace on earth seems quite distant. This workshop retreat will give participating artists a chance to explore the movement and balance of the dance of light and dark, of war and peace in our lives and the lives of our planet. How in design, images depend on their opposite to give meaning and beauty, and how, in life, light and dark are both part of the cycle of creative growth. A chance to look at our own stance in the ongoing struggle between war and peace –in our emotions, our own homes, our everyday interactions. To ignore the shadow is tempting, but some of our most meaningful and most generous work as artists comes from paying attention to the darkness in our souls, the paths through pain and loss.
We will journey through techniques that allow work from dark and light opposites, and have the joy of doing so supported -- exploring shadow/light, darkness/daylight and the spiritual traditions that are part of this season. I am not a trained therapist: this workshop is not for deep psychological work, but the small group format insures a safe and confidential environment to explore dichotomies through journaling, conversation and creativity.
On the technical, art-making side of things, we will cut a plethora of Notan expanded squares and experiment with other Notan exercises (NOTAN is a Japanese word which means "dark-light". NOTAN as it relates to design is defined as the interaction between a positive and a negative space. ...). We will make fabric art quilt peace flags to send to an international collaborative art project. All the while playing with contrast as an element of design, and manipulating photographic images with software to create high-contrast images suitable to silkscreen and thermofax production.
WHEN:
Sat. Dec. 2, 9:45 am - ?*
Sun. Dec. 3, 9:30 am – 3:00 pm*
*Supper will be prepared by the group about 6 pm. We’ll conclude the day’s work with favorite poems, and time in the hot tub, with hillside walks, amazing vistas and a nurturing environment. Call 210-643-2128 for more information.
Or email susiemonday@sbcglobal.net
We’ll share meals (bring a sack lunch for Saturday, Saturday supper and Sunday brunch are included in the fee), vistas from the deck and strolls down the country roads or into the cedar as the weather permits, as well as participate in a variety of fun and meaningful exercises using simple materials, most of which are included with the tuition.
FEE, including meals: $145 per person. 10% discount for registration before 12/1/06 ($131.50). Limited enrollment. Overnight accommodations are available for a modest fee ($15-$30) per night. Supply List: your favorite kind of journal or notebook, assorted pens, 1 -2 yards of black dischargable fabric, scissors, favorite poem about dark/light.
Full Moon/Fool Moon
At El Cielo Studio, Pipe Creek, Texas
With fiber artist Susie Monday
The moon has long been seen as a symbol of the unconscious, and a sacred goddess of feminine instinct. How does the unconscious, the instinctual, even lunacy, influence your art work? Do you make room for accidents, for the spontaneous and unplanned. This El Cielo Studio workshop will take advantage of the February Full Moon dark of the moon (what calendar was I looking at?) to inspire a weekend of intentional accidents, spontaneous expression, and improvisational techniques for fiber and mixed media art, as we open our hearts and eyes to the power of the uncontrolled. Among the activities: guided meditation and journaling, moonlight storytelling around a bonfire and moonlight hike (weather permitting), time in the hot tub, and making an artist altar that explores your understanding of the divine feminine. Fabric art techniques covered include silk painting effects with salt and other additives; faux shibori and low-water dye techniques using the microwave; shaving foam dyeing and other improvisational dye and paint play.
El Cielo workshop/retreats are designed to meet the needs of the participants, so there is free time scheduled throughout the weekend for reading, reflection and personal work in the studio. You are welcome to bring projects in process for Susie’s critique and for peer feedback in an environment of trust and respect. We’ll share meals (bring a sack lunch for Saturday, Saturday supper and Sunday brunch are included in the fee), 25-mile horizon vistas from the deck and strolls down the country roads, as time permits.
Susie Monday has taught adults and children for more than 30 years. Her art cloth and quilts have been included in international exhibits and private collections. Recent teaching credits include Gemini Ink, Southwest School of Art and Craft, University of the Incarnate Word, King Ranch, and McNay Art Museum.
2009 WORKSHOP CALENDAR
January 22, 2009
AUSTIN FIBER ARTISTS
Susie Monday will be our speaker at the January AFA meeting. On the
following day, Jan. 22, Susie will present a workshop from 1-4. It
will be a wonderful opportunity to explore your own creativity. We
will have sign up sheets at the December meeting. The cost will be
$50.00.
WORKSHOP
Creativity Charette
Here’s your opportunity to discover more about your own creative strengths and unique voice as an artist. Rather than learning a particular technique or approach, you’ll find out more — through interactive, multi-media investigation — more about how you best collect, play with, and find creative form for your strongest, most expressive work as an artist. The term charette is borrowed from architecture and design practice and refers to a fast-paced hands-on creative process of brainstorming and group creative process. Susie Monday presents an interactive “playshop” that will put us on the road to making absolutely unique fiber art. Susie will share several different design approaches including using recycled materials, taking inspiration from historical sources, using a natural object to inspire a design, ideas sparked from the world of art and more.
SUPPLIES
paper cutting scissors
glue stick and small container of white craft glue or Elmer’s
large newsprint pad or sketch pad — at least 18′ by 24″
brushes of various sizes (bring what you have — we can share)
3-4 old magazines for collage work
shoebox of fabric, yarn, paper, embellishments, ephemera that you like
1-2 natural objects, such as rock, leaf, flower, shell etc, that you like
digital camera if you have one
markers, crayons, small watercolor paints if you have them
ARTIST'S JOURNEY/ARTIST'S JOURNAL
January 23-25, Friday evening through Sunday
This workshop, now in its forth year, has become a tradition for some of us. The new year is a time to reflect, to reevaluate, to set new actions and new rituals into motion, to make new habits. This retreat and workshop will enrich, enliven and inspire your creative path through year’s start, and, with some persistence, into the next, with reflections on your work, new approaches to journaling and imaginative ways to look at daily, weekly and seasonal routines and rituals that support your artist self.
This workshop retreat is for the fiber artist, book artist and anyone interested in using journaling as a tool for creative growth, reflection and inspiration, whether you consider yourself an “Artist” or not. While similar in content to previous workshops at El Cielo, a whole new lineup of activities awaits the participants with projects in mixed media collage, a personal card deck, and an altered book journal.
FIELD GUIDE TO COLOR
February 20-22, Friday evening through Sunday
Explore your personal palette while learning the "rules" of color harmony with hands-on exercises.Color is one of the fiber artist’s most emotionally powerful tools; mastery of dyeing and printing with color is essential to creating work of power and meaning. We walk a fine line between “over-organizing” our color choices and letting our palettes run riot over our compositions. This workshop is color theory made fun, with hands-on application of the "rules," and when and how to break them. Using a variety of source material, exercises and media, including dye and fabric, watercolor, collage and soy wax, participants will work with simple and complex color schemes in a variety of hue families. Dye experiments and color analysis, as well as a look at personal color palettes and how to make them work on the wall will also be part of the workshop.
STORYTELLING ON YOUR SHOULDERS
April 3-5
Explore the idea of narrative, telling a story, through mixed media collage and fiber art. How does one move from an inkling to a full-fledged expression of personal style and story. Then make an altered jean jacket to tell your story.
