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
Ancient Pools: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Ancient Pools is the home recording project of husband and wife duo Vin Christopher and Anna Jeter. They have a soft approach to pop music. Warm, lush synth chords, watery guitar playing and crystalline vocals aim to usher listeners to a calm and peaceful place.
Ollella Live at the Sou’wester
Ollella’s (pronounced oh-lel-uh) career as a musician started early, when she sang before she could talk. Trained as a classical cellist since the age of nine, the Seattle indie-folk musician merges her technical string background with authoritative vocals and live-looping. Described as “really outstanding” by NPR Music’s Bob Boilen and “so tastefully done” by Michelle Zauner (AKA Japanese Breakfast), Ollella blends the acoustic with the contemporary, folk with pop, and tenacity with softness, pulling on influences such as Feist, Cat Power, and Sylvan Esso. She was a finalist in the 2022 NPR Tiny Desk Contest, has had music featured in film festivals and on TV, and is a frequent collaborator with others. She finds herself drawn to music because it unlocks a particularly organic flavor of humanity – one that fits the type of world she believes in.
Jeremy James Meyer: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Jeremy James Meyer is an artificer of song. A songwriter’s songwriter. He crafts redemptive songs full of woody rock ‘n’ roll tones. His deep, penetrating voice has a wide range, and is especially captivating in his droning, lower register. He spent the last decade drifting around, a tool belt troubadour, working carpentry by day, bringing folk music to the people at night. As with most well traveled songwriters it’s hard to tell where the road ends and Jeremy James Meyer begins. His songs seamlessly blend plain-language and poetic lyricism. They wander from personal truth to outlaw legends. He’s capable of cathartic protest songs, cosmic country canticles, and dive bar sing-a-longs. Whenever, and however your path crosses with Jeremy James Meyer’s (and it will) prepare for an enchanting, psychedelic trip through cosmic American music.
– Sean Jewell American Standard Time
The Apricots: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
The Apricots are an emerging indie-folk-rock band from Portland, OR that centers vocal harmony. At their core, they’re just a group of best friends that have found purpose in this band. They released their debut self-titled EP, The Apricots, in November 2023. They’re excited to return to the Sou’Wester for their second performance!
Karyn Ann Live at the Sou’wester
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Her songwriting and performance chops have earned spots at the Red Ants Pants Music Festival, Tucson Folk Festival and most recently honorable mention by the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival.
Her latest single “8 Hours” reveals Ann’s prowess as a singer-songwriter but also demonstrates her ability to turn personal tribulation into profound artistic expression. More at www.karynann.com
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
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?FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC MARCH 15-17
FRI, 6-10p @ ILWACO ARTWORKS
SAT, 10a-12p @ WAVE PRESCHOOL
SAT, 12-10p @ THE SOU’WESTER
SUN, 11-1p @ ILWACO ARTWORKS
Schedule and itinerary TBA
Lili St. Anne: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Elizabeth Margit-Anne is the frontwoman of Lili St Anne, a Santa Fe-based art-folk trio that combines the excitement of psychedelic rock with the groundedness of Elizabeth’s folk songwriting. When performing solo, Elizabeth shares the intimacy of her songwriting with grit and grace, exploring themes of love, loss, and grief with a heart-swelling verve. For fans of Laura Gibson, Big Thief, and Sharon Van Etten. Elizabeth grew up coming to Seaview many times a year, and the Sou’Wester holds a very special place in her heart. She is thrilled to be performing here again. Follow Lili St Anne on social media for shows and news of upcoming dual-single release, Water Songs, in Spring of 2024.
Eugenia Riot Live at the Sou’wester
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Portland, Oregon based songwriter Leigh Jones makes a dazzling turn with her latest folk creation: Eugenia Riot. The name was taken from her eldest-known female ancestor, who was born in the year 1205 in Yorkshire, England. An internationally touring musician with a background in theater, Jones delights audiences with her irresistible stage presence and enrapturing voice. She has spoken at the US Embassy in Ethiopia on Women in Music, was selected with her former band Crow and the Canyon for the American Music Abroad program, and has toured the US from coast to coast since 2010.
She grew up in North Carolina and went on to earn a drama degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her time immersed in the diversity of NYC’s music scene sparked a passion for songwriting, and she was eventually lured to the magic of the Pacific Northwest, where continued to maximize her versatility as a musician. With her former bands, bluegrass outfit Crow and the Canyon, and harmony-driven folk trio Five Letter Word, Jones moved easily from strings to percussion, occasionally throwing on tap shoes to round out a performance.
Her pandemic-born solo project, Eugenia Riot, explores the crescendos of love, heartache, and the human condition through infectious melodies and a self-examining pen. Featuring Abby Gundersen (Phoebe Bridgers, Noah Gundersen) on strings, Eugenia Riot’s debut album, Can’t Wait To Miss You, is both gentle and fierce, playful and romantic – an engaging blend of folk, rock, and pop.