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!
Exhibtion opening in our Art Trailer Gallery
No Lo Tenia Escrito / It Wasn’t in My Plans by Jade Mara Novarino
No Lo Tenia Escrito showcases a short film, Mi Abuela La Hormiga / My Grandma the Ant (40 minutes, 2023), and several prints and works on paper. The footage and the work are from a trip to Argentina in February of 2023. This work was made in order to remember—my grandma, us, a place, and a time. In a sense, it is a small archive, a document that marks a special moment in our relationship. Initially, for the film, I had set out to ask my grandmother many questions, and in some cases succeeded in receiving answers—but in the still and quiet moments of the footage, when the camera was just another piece of furniture and not someone to act in front of, was where I learned the most. The film is conscious of its own form, and the camera itself is acknowledged multiple times. Even so, the main subject—my grandma—doesn’t seem shy or to change before its presence. The prints and works on paper are reflections, journal entries, and photographs made within the year leading up to the show.
Jade Mara Novarino is a first generation American artist, educator, farmer, and community member born and raised in San Diego, California. Her work draws on inspiration from her family and the seasons, personal narrative, site-specificity, songs, and attempts to highlight the everyday as sacred. Her multidisciplinary work spans from socially engaged projects to imaginary restaurants to calligraphy to video to collage, photography, painting, and found sculpture. She runs an artist space and farm from her home in Milwaukie, Oregon. Her birthday is in February, her favorite month is September, and she looks forward to planting garlic every October. She is always looking for new pen-pals.
Curated by Nikki Cormaci
FREE Public screening in The Sou’wester Lodge
12/1/23 at 7 p.m to open our Winter exhibition in our Red Bus Theatre featuring
Wide Blue Yawn – An experimental documentary film by Eva Knowles
The idea for Wide Blue Yawn occurred to Eva after observing a UFO while alone on the beach in October 2020. She always had a powerful relationship to the Long Beach Peninsula, having grown up coming here for family getaways since she was a child–and so, after her mysterious encounter she decided to embark on deeper research of this place and make a film about it. Wide Blue Yawn attempts to capture layers of history at the mouth of the Columbia River and to honor the specific feelings evoked by the rugged pacific northwest geology, the spiritual presence of the first human inhabitants (the Chinookan people), and all that has unfolded since Lewis and Clark hit the scene in 1805. Wide Blue yawn spans centuries and wonders at how we ended up here, in our strange present reality.
Eva Knowles was born in 1990 and grew up in Bonney Lake, Washington. Her films are shot with a handheld digital camcorder and have an intimate and personal feeling. As an artist Eva is concerned with the mysterious, the sublime, and the mundane. She has worked as a teacher, a farmer, and also practices reiki. She has many projects in the works about fascinating topics.
Contact: email: eeva.knowles@gmail.com / instagram
Curated by Nikki Cormaci
1:1 Wellness / Acupuncture Sessions
w/ Celestial Window Restorative Arts
$150 / 90 Minute Sessions
December 18, 2023 by Appointment | Text: 971-282-3891 to Book
My work is focused in the lineage of Worsley Five Element Acupuncture, however, in my 8 years of clinical training I studied many modalities and can offer a variety of treatment strategies. Acupuncture is a beautiful craft with techniques for bringing flow to stuck places, and fostering a deeper harmonization within the body. It is based on philosophy that sees the human being as whole, with the full potential for healing as innate. Acupuncture uses a network of physical connections to activate the body’s own healing potential and is supportive for all aspects of life, from pain management, fertility support, digestive disorders, to finding creative expansion and self actualization.
Solstice at Sou’wester
Tea “As Gentle Hospitality” Service
(by appointment) in the Tea Trailer | December 20, 2023
Hosted by Celestial Window Restorative Arts as part of their Creative Wellness Residency
Sessions by Appointment | $33 / Person for 75 Minute Sessions
Text 971-282-3891 to Book
Solstice at Sou’wester
Acupuncture + Sound Bath
“Sound Dérive (Drift)”
An Embodied-Listening-Acupuncture-Sound Bathing-Fluxus-Art-Exercise with Unity Garnish x Feast of The Epiphany
Wednesday, Dec 20, 2023 | 6-7:30pm
For this unique group “sound bathing” experience we are invoking the 1960s French Fluxus Art Exercise of the “Dérive (Drift)”, which in essence describes a meditation through which one is invited to “get lost on purpose”, in order to facilitate an embodied state of inspiration and wellbeing crafted through the blending of multiple creative mediums. Utilizing sound, visual art and the option of gentle acupuncture, participants will be guided to reset and renew into an evolution of self. In the vein of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies, individuals will leave with a one of a kind art object to carry the experience with them into life and the remainder of their time at the Sou’Wester.
Solstice at Sou’wester
Quadraphonic Acupuncture & Sound Bath
With Star Child x Sonic Ceremonies
Winter Solstice | Thursday, December 21st | 3-4:30pm
Collective Release Fire
Outside in the trailer court in front of the lodge, we will gather into an expanded moment of presence with the weight of the world, a time of reverence through lively celebration of the complexity of existence in togetherness, where whatever wishes to unfold may do so naturally through the intentional lighting of a fire. There will be pieces of paper and pens on which to write and reflect and then offer the writings into the fire, instruments with which we can play, and an invitation to donate whatever resources are available, financial or otherwise, to Source Food and Goods, a group offering community aid to the local Palestinian community in Portland, OR .
*No drinks in public. Quiet hours after 10p.
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
Community Acupuncture at the Sou’wester with lara pacheco
Come rest, relax, and heal in the coastal forest with others in the pavilion space at the Sou’wester in Seaview, Washington on Friday, June 14th, 10-2pm with lara pacheco. $25-$55 sliding scale.
Book
This in-person event will take place at the beautiful Sou’wester Historic Lodge. lara pacheco, a licensed acupuncturist, will be providing community acupuncture as a way of making acupuncture more accessible. Community acupuncture is also a way that multiple people are able to relax in a communal space and share in the wide array of benefits that this ancient medicine provides. Acupuncture can treat anything from depression, anxiety, any kind of pain, digestion, sleep issues, and chronic conditions to also providing overall support for general well being. People can expect to rest anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on what your body needs and what you are comfortable with. Come experience this simple, yet powerful medicine with community and as an addition to being surrounded by the coast and forest.
Please bring a whatever you need to relax (blanket, mat, cushions). Please dress in comfortable layers and be prepared to roll up pants up to knees and long sleeves that roll up to the elbow and to remove socks and shoes for treatment.
- How does this work? Sign up for a time slot. Tickets will be available in 15 minute slots. You’ll sign up for some short paper work, then find a spot, roll up sleeves and pant legs if that is comfortable for you and lara will start treatment.
- How long do I stay? Depends. At least 30 minutes is recommended but listening to your body’s needs is most important. Sometimes people fall asleep and sometimes they don’t, but what is most important is that they relax.
Always Moving / Magical in Motion By LAURA HEIT + MONA HUNEIDI
- OPENING FILM SCREENING 6/16/24
- FREE AND OPEN TO ALL
- FILM WILL BE SCREENING DAILY 11a & 4p or by request with the front desk
“I am interested in everything that is opaque, that which takes place in secret and behind curtains or in the shadows. My aim is not to make clear or justify, rather I aim to watch/show as if in a dream. My work focuses on the minutiae of human behavior, obsessive habits, arduous matters of the heart, betrayal, espionage and inexplicable phenomenon. These themes are the impetus and the architecture that builds the sets, the mise en scene and the characters I create.
I use wood, glass, transparencies, wire weaves, paper dolls, found objects, doll parts, shadows, tea leaves and texture to create space and the characters that inhabit it. I believe that everyday articles are curious when taken out of context and that still objects, no matter how pedestrian, are magical in motion.” — MONA HUNEIDI
Always Moving / Magical in Motion features the stop-motion, live-action puppetry, hand drawing and computer animation in the short films of artists Laura Heit and Mona Huneidi. Sometimes fantastical, sometimes abstract, sometimes in orbit, these films visualize the things we cannot see, fears, hypothetical stars, moments inside catastrophes, and the future. On view at The Sou’Wester’s Red Bus Microcinema, 3728 J Place, Seaview, WA, June – September, 2024, with screenings at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. daily. A special closing event attended by filmmaker Laura Heit will take place in September. More details to come.
Laura Heit is an interdisciplinary artist who currently lives and works in Portland Oregon. Her work has been exhibited and screened in the US and abroad, at venues including Track 16 (Los Angeles, CA), Boise Art Museum (Boise, ID), Adams and Ollman (Portland, OR), The Schnitzer Museum of Art (Eugene, OR), The Schneider Museum of Art (Ashland OR), She Works Flexible (Houston, TX), REDCAT (Los Angeles, CA), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), MoMA (NYC, NY), Millennium Film (NYC, NY), Pompidou (Paris, France), TBA Festival (Portland, OR), the Guggenheim Museum (NYC, NY), Walt Disney Hall (Los Angeles, CA), and Detroit Institute of the Arts (Detroit, MI) among others. Her grants include; 2016 Oregon Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship, Artist Project Grant Regional Arts & Culture Council including the 2014 Innovation Award, The British Council, and the MacDowell Colony. She has previously held positions at PNCA as chair of Animated Arts, SAIC, and Cal Arts where she was co-director of the Experimental Animation Department. Her book Animators Sketchbooks was published in 2013 by Thames and Hudson.
Mona Huneidi is an animator/filmmaker who was born and raised in Kuwait. She went to primary schools in Lebanon and Kuwait and arrived in the US in 1980 to pursue her education. She holds a BFA in Filmmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute. She worked as an assistant producer for television productions in Kuwait in the late 80s and early 90s. Upon returning to the US, she joined the pre-production team at Imago Theatre working as a puppeteer, a dramaturg, prop master and a set dresser. She earned a Drammy award in 2004 for the projection design on the play Missing Mona. She writes, creates and produces her own animated films, which have been shown locally at Performance Works Northwest, Imago Theatre Cabaret and PCC’s Art Week. Her work has also been screened internationally at Festival Du Cinéma Bruxelles, Festival De Cine Internacional De Barcelona, Animacam Online Animation Festival Galicia, and the Cannes Short Film Festival.
Curated by Nikki Cormaci