SOU’WESTER EVENTS!

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Drawing as Seeing and the Acceptance of Chaos: A Sumi Ink Wash Drawing Workshop with Heather McLaughlin

Drawing is a way of seeing, a way of understanding and an exercise. This drawing workshop will focus on plenair (on-sight) observational drawing the beautiful and chaotic material: sumi ink.

The ink is an excellent tool to capture light and shapes, as compared to the way pencils and pens lead themselves to more contours and patterns. This special ink has rich, deep blacks that are easy to swoon over. During this 3 hour workshop students will complete multiple small drawings using the Sou’wester grounds as their muse and model. We will cover techniques for recording scale, light and shapes while practicing plenair drawing skills and increase our understanding and mastery of the sumi ink medium.

Heather McLaughlin was born next to the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore Maryland and relocated to Red Lodge Montana, on the north border of Yellowstone Park, in 1991. After high school, she continued west to Portland Oregon and continued her studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Heather completed her Bachelors of Fine Art in Printmaking in 2005.  She served on the board of Flight 64 Studio (a Member-run Print Studio) from 2008 until 2014. She currently serves at the Printmaking Studio Manager and adjunct Continuing Education instructor at PNCA. In addition to her art, Heather is a musician in the band Rotties, a performer and production assistant. Visit Heather’s website at hardcoremermaid.com

COST:  $40 plus $10 material fee (Please pay material fee directly to instructor.) 

BRING: Please wear clothes that you will be comfortable in outdoors that you do not mind getting art materials on. Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided.

All workshops are open to the public.

All Skill Levels Welcome.

This workshop is geared for adults.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Yoga in the Sweet Sweet Summertime with Ivy Ross Ricci

Explore asana (yoga poses), journaling, and habits of mind as avenues to self-knowledge, serenity, and celebration during the height of summertime on the Seaview coast!

Ivy is a nationally recognized yoga teacher, musician, and youth development activist who creatively incorporates philosophy, poetry, humor, storytelling, and a radical understanding of human potential into accessible yoga practices, songs, and social service. She believes in the power of everyday life lessons to draw us all into the heart of Yoga and Music.

She is currently in the process of building an army of artists who will fight via creative critical thought and profound self-love to alter standards of beauty in this country. In the words of Bill Coperthwaite, “Beauty is not what something looks like, it is what it is made of.” Ivy imagines a world in which young people can find refuge from harmful images in mainstream media within a culture of vibrant and caring adults who embody self-love and acceptance.

She is also co-founder of a national movement called the Keepers of Wonder in which youth of all ages work hard to keep the world magical.

COST:  $20

BRING: Yoga mat, journal and pen. Hot tea and coffee provided.

All workshops are open to the public.

All Skill Levels Welcome. Open to all ages. 

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Custom Mosaics with Damon Ayers and Christy Wiesenhahn

10am – 4pm Sat July 15 (w/ hour lunch walk on the beach)

     11am – 12:30pm July 16 (short day to grout, finish & admire work)

Participants will complete a paneled mosaic using tiles and found objects. You can come prepared with an idea or sketch of a design that you would like to execute OR take an experimental approach to the materials. Either way you will come away with a wonderful, finished mosaic panel that is specifically emblematic of the particular time and place in which it was made. One of the great things about mosaic is its durability and timeless nature. There will be some discussion of the history of mosaics and possible materials and we will also host an extended “beach walk lunch hour” during which we will look at different kinds of local materials (shells, rocks, etc.) that we might incorporate into our works.

Damon and Christy are two artists who have been good friends for decades. Christy is primarily a tile/ mosaic artist whose expanded practice includes designing theater sets and working on skateboard parks. Damon mostly works in video but his practice often includes actors and extensive set building. They got the chance to work on a skateboard park together a few years ago and have been looking for a chance to work together again ever since.

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Time/Travel: Experiments in Typewriting Creative Nonfiction about Place and Movement with Melissa Favara

Come play with vintage manual typewriters and focused creative prompts as you experiment with writing about places, travels, and the various kinds of movement you’ve experienced in your life. After writing, we will work as a group to create one of a kind zines in which you’ll include your favorite writings from the day.

Melissa Favara is a writer, educator, and vintage typewriter enthusiast who lives in Portland. She has published work in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, street roots, the Columbia Poetry Review, Metro Parent, and elsewhere, and she’s delighted to teach at the Sou’wester again. 

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Writing Through the Cracks: Self-Forgiveness & Compassion in Memoir Writing with Cooper Lee Bombardier & Gina Senarighi

‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

To write about pivotal events from our own lives requires a reckoning with our pasts. How do we interrogate ourselves to get at the truth of our stories when the details do not always shine a glamourous light upon us? Writing Through the Cracks will give you tools to get vulnerable in your writing, scrutinize the past from a place of compassion, and help you to discover the story beneath your stories. Join educator, coach, consultant, and professional shame slayer Gina Senarighi and nonfiction writer and educator Cooper Lee Bombardier for an engaging, accessible, and intensive day-long writing workshop at the beautiful and historic Sou’wester Lodge. Writers of all levels are welcome!

Cooper Lee Bombardier is a writer and visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. His work appears in many publications and anthologies, most recently in The Kenyon Review, CutBank, Nailed Magazine, Original Plumbing, as well as the anthology The Remedy–Essays on Queer Health Issues, (ed. Zena Sharman) from Arsenal Pulp Press. Cooper’s visual art was recently curated in an exhibition called “Intersectionality” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. He teaches writing at the University of Portland, Clark College, Portland State University, and at various Portland-area high schools as a writer-in-residence through Literary Art’s program Writers in The Schools. 

Gina Senarighi, MS, MA, CPC is a communication consultant, sexuality counselor and certified relationship coach specializing in queer love polyamory, open relationships, jealousy, and infidelity.  She’s been leading retreats to build courage and slay shame in LGBTQ community across Washington and Oregon since 2003.

COST: $30 ($50 for both classes)

(This workshop will run on Tuesday August 15th and also on Wednesday August 16th. The cost for each workshop is $30, but if students wish to take both classes, the returning students on Wednesday would receive guided writing time. and both classes together would cost only $50.)

BRING: an open mind, a couple of pens and a notebook or paper to write in/on. A legal pad with a cardboard back is ideal! Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided.

All workshops are open to the public.

Workshop for students age 18 and older.

All Skill Levels Welcome.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Writing Through the Cracks: Self-Forgiveness & Compassion in Memoir Writing with Cooper Lee Bombardier & Gina Senarighi

‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

To write about pivotal events from our own lives requires a reckoning with our pasts. How do we interrogate ourselves to get at the truth of our stories when the details do not always shine a glamourous light upon us? Writing Through the Cracks will give you tools to get vulnerable in your writing, scrutinize the past from a place of compassion, and help you to discover the story beneath your stories. Join educator, coach, consultant, and professional shame slayer Gina Senarighi and nonfiction writer and educator Cooper Lee Bombardier for an engaging, accessible, and intensive day-long writing workshop at the beautiful and historic Sou’wester Lodge. Writers of all levels are welcome!

Cooper Lee Bombardier is a writer and visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. His work appears in many publications and anthologies, most recently in The Kenyon Review, CutBank, Nailed Magazine, Original Plumbing, as well as the anthology The Remedy–Essays on Queer Health Issues, (ed. Zena Sharman) from Arsenal Pulp Press. Cooper’s visual art was recently curated in an exhibition called “Intersectionality” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. He teaches writing at the University of Portland, Clark College, Portland State University, and at various Portland-area high schools as a writer-in-residence through Literary Art’s program Writers in The Schools. 

Gina Senarighi, MS, MA, CPC is a communication consultant, sexuality counselor and certified relationship coach specializing in queer love polyamory, open relationships, jealousy, and infidelity.  She’s been leading retreats to build courage and slay shame in LGBTQ community across Washington and Oregon since 2003.

COST: $30 ($50 for both classes)

(This workshop will run on Tuesday August 15th and also on Wednesday August 16th. The cost for each workshop is $30, but if students wish to take both classes, the returning students on Wednesday would receive guided writing time. and both classes together would cost only $50.)

BRING: an open mind, a couple of pens and a notebook or paper to write in/on. A legal pad with a cardboard back is ideal! Please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided.

All workshops are open to the public.

Workshop for students age 18 and older.

All Skill Levels Welcome.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Fermented Vegetables 101 with Sash Sunday

OlyKraut owner, Sash Sunday, will present the basics of vegetable ferments. You will each make a batch of sauerkraut and a batch of brined pickles before the day is done. We will go through the basic sauerkraut and pickle making process, take a little dive into the science of fermentation, and discuss why probiotics are so awesome. Sash will also answer questions and go over some troubleshooting for your home ferments. Come with some jars and lots of questions! Sash will bring the veggies and some know-how.

Sash Sunday grew up in the PNW and, in 2008, founded OlyKraut to put her fermentation fanaticism to work building a food system that supports healthy people and farms.  OlyKraut makes delicious, raw fermented vegetables with mountains of local produce while sharing the wonders of probiotic foods with the community.  She has a BA from The Evergreen State College, and an MBA in Sustainable Systems and Certificate in Sustainable Food and Agriculture from Pinchot University.

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Cedar and Willow Tray with Donna Crispin

We will use locally grown willow and red cedar bark. Learn twining and plaiting while creating a tray, about 9”x12”. Beginners will do an over/under weave, while more advanced students can pick a twill pattern.   We’ll finish it with a lashed border around willow sticks from my garden.

“Eugene weaver and basketmaker Donna Sakamoto Crispin isn’t one to expound on the depth of meaning in each piece of her vastly diverse body of work. Rather, she is one of those rare, refreshing artists who allows a work of art to speak for itself–and, often, for her. Ms. Crispin’s art form utilizes traditional Japanese and Native American techniques passed down from generation to generation for hundreds, even thousands of years. She believes her work as artist and teacher is fundamental to preserving this craft which, outside of the realm of art, is largely obsolete.

But beyond these considerations–and we should hope every artist regards the heritage of their craft with such reverence–Ms. Crispin doesn’t get overly concerned with the details. “I’m just doing what I want to do,” she says. “I like to see what I can do with different materials. Often, I’m just responding to the environment.” This usually means she works with materials gathered sustainably, from leaves and pine needles gathered from the forest floor to painstakingly harvested strips of cedar bark.

But sometimes, Ms. Crispin creates a piece that seems to be in direct conversation with the world around her. As complex, intricate, and varied as all her work is, it is these landscape-inspired pieces that are arguably the best examples of Ms. Crispin’s artistry. While artist-in-residence at Playa Home in Summer Lake, Oregon, Ms. Crispin created Willow Pod, seen above, a living willow and red osier dogwood basket. The juxtaposition of basket and landscape reminds her, she says, of the Japanese concept of wabi, “a lonely sense of impermanence.” It is perhaps appropriate that all she need say in explanation of the piece is a single word, all others failing. Isn’t that, after all, why we create visual art in the first place: because explanations, summaries, generalizations–words–simply aren’t enough.” ~Luke Fannin

COST:  $50 plus $25 material fee (Please pay material fee directly to the instructor.)

BRING: scissors, awl, water bottle, old towel, and please bring a sack lunch and/or snack. Hot tea and coffee provided.

All workshops are open to the public.

All Skill Levels Welcome. Open to students age 16 and up.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542

Workshop Series at The Sou’wester

Ayurvedic Nutrition and Self Care for Autumnal Equinox with Elyssia Schaeffer

Learn how to use the ancient healing practices of Ayurveda and Yoga to keep your body and mind balanced as we transition from Summer To Fall. Seasonal beverages and snacks will be provided!

Elyssia Schaeffer is a Certified Wellness Coach and Registered Yoga Teacher from Portland, OR blending her knowledge of Ayurveda, Yoga and holistic nutrition to share person-centered seasonal eating and self care practices.

COST: $15

BRING: Yoga mat and a blanket. Please wear comfortable clothes.

All workshops are open to the public.

All Skill Levels Welcome.

RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542