SOU’WESTER EVENTS!
Discover what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!
Contemplative Rest Retreat
Contemplative Rest: Our Basic Peace Work
A weekend-long retreat with M Freeman
Fri, Feb 9 @ 7:00pm – Sun, Feb11 @ 11am
In-person only at:
The Sou’wester Lodge
3728 J Place
Seaview, Wa 98644
The Brief
Explore, savor, and rest in the numinous through this weekend-long retreat with contemplative guide, media artist, and writer, M Freeman. Inspired by decades of heart-centered contemplative practices and by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness teaching that rest is our most basic peace work, Freeman’s Contemplative Rest cultivates engagement in the mystical realm and nurtures awe as a profoundly fortifying resource.
We’ve all had unforgettable experiences of awe. Maybe it was on a hike, or holding a newborn, or watching a flock of birds. Maybe it was in moonlight, or with your cat, or in a hospital room. This spacious weekend features practice sessions in which Freeman will lead participants through exploring and honoring recollected moments, and will then guide folks into reverent, somatic, contemplative rest. Participants will be invited into reflective writing, to share reflections and insights, and to enjoy lots of solo relaxation time. All this wonder happens along the stunning Washington State coast at the Sou’wester Lodge and Vintage Travel Trailer Resort.
How much: Retreat fee is sliding scale, starting at $325 – Tickets
Lodging is additional. The Sou’wester has set aside select lodging options for retreat participants. Book lodging directly here with the Sou’wester.
Event details at marilynfreeman.com
About M Freeman
Media artist, writer, contemplative, spiritual director, and independent scholar, M Freeman works at the intersections of reckoning and resiliency, queerness and film, and contemplative, creative and social art practices. Author of The Illuminated Space: A Personal Theory and Contemplative Practice of Media Art (The 3rd Thing, 2020/winner of the Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal for Creativity & Innovation) and creator of Cinema Divina (short films for contemplative practice), Freeman is the founder of Contemplative Rest: Exploring, Savoring & Resting in the Numinous; and co-curator of Good Symptom: A Serial Anthology of Time-based Disturbances. Their text and media arts essays have been published in or at The Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, TriQuarterly, Blackbird, Rolling Stone, Abbey of the Arts, and Good Symptom. Their films are screened on PBS and in galleries, spirituality centers and festivals worldwide. marilynfreeman.com.
M Freeman photo by Anne de Marcken
Feb 10
Kintsugi Breaking and Mending Workshop (FULL)
w/Glenda Goodrich $70
Where Grief, Gratitude, and Beauty Coexist.
Come join us as we delve into the art of breaking and mending. Participants will choose a bowl to break and mend as a ceremonial metaphor for the woundings of life and the beauty that comes from its broken places. The act of breaking a bowl and mending the “scars” with gold is based on the Japanese art of Kintsugi. Kintsugi teaches us we cannot go back to the way we were before, but instead move forward with our woundings and the beauty they can bring. Students will leave with a ceramic bowl with golden mended fault lines as a reminder of the places where grief, gratitude, and beauty coexist, as well as the opportunity to reframe old ideas about loss and adversity. Workshop fee includes ceremony, instruction, bowls, and all materials.
- Saturday 1:30-6p
Location: Ilwaco Artworks
Feb 17 & 18
Sgraffito Vases: Ceramic Surface Design Workshop
w/Jo Pfeirer $105
Sgraffito Vases: During this weekend workshop, students will spend the first day creating 2-3 10 inch vases with clay and spend the second day decorating them with the beautiful, versatile style of Sgraffito. A perfect project for the first spring blooms!
- Saturday 2-6p
- Sunday 12-4p
Location: Ilwaco Artworks
Feb 24
Playful & Sculptural Ceramic Cups Workshop
w/Ashley Campbell $65
Who says cups have to be strictly utilitarian or sculptural and not both? I am a firm believer in usable art and I love to dive into this mentality with one of our most used objects, the cup! In this workshop, your instructor, Ashley Campbell of The Beige Motel will show you the wonderful ways to use mason stains to color your clay. We will be discussing marbling and inlay techniques to create colorful patterns and then use templates, cutters, and molds to create our vessels. Each student can expect to create a pair of colorful cups to take home.
- Saturday 2-6p
Location: Ilwaco Artworks
Get ready for Spring! We will explore various techniques to make ceramic projects for the garden; planters, bird baths, watering bells and more! Includes open studio time for the duration of the class as well as glazing and firing.
REGISTER
- March 2nd: Pots & Planters
- March 9th: Bird/Bee Baths & Garden Markers
- March 16th: Garden Oya’s & Watering Bells
- March 23rd: Birdhouses & Feeders
- March 30th: Glazing
- Sunday, April 7th, 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Potluck Show and Tell
Mar 2 & 3
Ceramic Candelabras Workshop
w/Taylor Stefanski $108
In this 2 day candelabra workshop we will be touching on form and function. Candelabras traditionally are tall candle holders for taper candles – the height of both help illuminate a space. We will cover rolling coils, shaping and designing our forms on the first day. On the second day of class we will refine our taper holders and assemble everything to create our candelabras. This class is great for beginners and experienced folks alike.
- Saturday 2-6p
- Sunday 12-4p
Location: Ilwaco Artworks
T. Stefanski / Taylor Stefanski is a ceramicist living in Seattle, WA.
Their work is deeply inspired by the sea. Explores ideas of imperfection and honors the nature of the tides through meditative repetition. Expressed in the chosen hand-building process – each of their pieces are created primarily using a coil-building technique. Where she rolls each coil by hand to create each unique, one-of-a-kind forms.
Graduated from Cornish College of the Arts with a focus on printmaking and sculpture. Their ceramic work is carried in a variety of stores in Seattle, Portland, and LA. She currently works and teaches in her studio in Capitol Hill.
@t.stefanski tstefanski.com
Sat, March 9th: Flower Pots & Planters | 2-5p. $35/person. Ages 14+ & all experience levels. Learn handbuilding skills to create a finished piece! Clay Play includes a demonstration, clay, glazing & firing .
REGISTER
*Shipping available for visiting attendees! ($15 S&H)
Each March The Sou’wester is given over to 30+ artists and art collectives for a week of residency work culminating in a public exhibition of performances, installations & studio tours. Arts Week highlights the creative process and experiential nature of the Sou’wester Artist Residency Program. Arts week 2024 hopes to create communal movement from the confluence of individual flow states. Through each of our visions, we come together to share in making something bigger. How does this energized space wash back on us? How does it inspire us, heal us, move us towards a sense of belonging? What do we take back from this exchange to seed our own revisioning?
Schedule and itinerary TBA
