Sarah Shriver

Colors & Patterns of France

We’ll begin our week by going on a treasure hunt through the charming local area, collecting fragments of color and texture to be used as inspiration for a distinctly “southern France” polymer clay cane composition. We’ll create patterns in multiple variations that can be laid onto a surface as a veneer, into a surface as inlay, or formed into a variety of bead shapes for jewelry. With this small class size there is plenty of time for one-on-one instruction and each student can move in a personal direction.

Some half-day trips to historical nearby towns, a visit to one of France’s most delightful open air markets, meals prepared by our wonderful cook, a well-designed studio, and the incredible charm of La Cascade itself… all make this an ideal artist’s retreat.

• Cost: $1,800
• Visit www.sarahshriver.com for more information — and to learn more about Sara and her work.
• Contact Sarah at sarah@sarahshriver.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Susan Lenart Kazmer

Objects & Elements

Each day class begins after breakfast cooked by our own French Chef! After class and lunch on the terrace, there will be time for exploration of the French countryside. Dinner is tres gourmet with candlelight and the wonderful wines of the region.

For those who are obsessed with their creativity, the studio is open 24 hours a day. Weekend flea and farmer’s markets offer opportunity to find materials to create your very own artifacts.

Classes will incorporate all of Susan’s best classes and also techniques from her new book — Making Connections: A Handbook of Cold Joins for Jewelers and Mixed Media Artists.

Plan a side trip to Paris on the way home!

• Cost: $2,900
• Visit www.susanlenartkazmer.net for more information — and to learn more about Susan and her work.
• Contact linda@susanlenartkazmer.net with questions or to reserve a space.

Dayle Doroshow

Capturing Ancient France:
A Mixed Media Journey

In this spirited workshop let's explore Artist Journals, Jewelry and small Sculptures to capture our week in the French countryside. The region is rich with medieval villages, artists, flea markets and fairs, which we will draw on for inspiration and ephemera gathering. Start the week making a multi-signature journal covered with beautiful French fabric and polymer clay elements - an idea collector to hold your week of inspiration and techniques. Next we'll create Jewelry, small artifacts and figures (art dolls) that tell a story inspired by French medieval village life, the Renaissance court and your imagination.

Techniques will focus on integrating polymer clay with textiles, papers, flea market treasures, and Market finds. Instructed studio, delightful field trips. Open studio at night, new friendships, and exquisite food from our personal chef. Live and work at La Cascade where time relaxes and creativity flows.

• Cost: $1,700
• Visit www.dayledoroshow.com for more information — and to learn more about Dayle and her work.
• Contact Dayle at dayledoroshow@hotmail.com or 707-962-9419 with questions or to reserve a space.

Linda Privitera

The Spirituality of Art

This week long workshop intensive will allow artists to think in a contemplative way about art-making, how we access the soul, the unconscious, and our experiences in the zone of creativity. We will give ourselves time to integrate our spirituality and explore how that engages us and others. We will pay attention to the quiet, the mysterious, the soul work of imagination and creativity using the senses, the season, and the spirit of southern France.

Our art making will make use of a number of creative exercises that focus on sensory meditations. We will use the poetry of Hafiz and Rumi in addition to other texts. We will visit some spaces that invite our response to faith and creation and share our insights in the group.

"You wish to see, listen. Hearing is a step toward vision."
       —  Bernard of Clairvaux

"You wish to hear, look. Seeing is a step toward hearing."
       —  Linda

Linda Privitera is the author of Restoring the Contempative Gaze, published by Alban Institute's Congregations Journal, and Practicing Healing: Body Maps, for Episcopal Times in Boston MA. Her doctoral work focussed on Art as Transformation in religious community. She has led numerous retreats in museum and church settings in the United States. She is a priest of 20 years in the Episcopal Church; she now resides in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

• Cost: $1,900
• Linda is represented by the Foyer Gallery in Ottawa. Visit the Artists section of www.foyergallery.com to learn more about her.
• Contact lprivitera@rogers.com with questions or to reserve a space.

Barbara Roth

Watercolor + Ink
Travel Painting & Journaling

This week long workshop at La Cascade is designed for beginning thru advanced painters. You will spend the week combining watercolor painting with ink and pencil sketching to capture the beautiful scenes all around you. Plus you will make paintings from photographs you have taken earlier in the day. You’ll keep a Watercolor Travel Journal filled with your daily scribbles, doodles, paintings, notes, observations and thoughts as we explore this inspiringly beautiful region. In addition you’ll be guided to find the techniques, materials, and inspiration you need to continue painting when you return home.

We will work in the large studio at La Cascade for a few hours every day where you’ll see demos of painting techniques and have plenty of time to practice. Then we will venture out to explore the fabulous surrounding areas: the farmer’s market in Revel, the bakery and the chocolate shop in Soreze, the monastery at En Calcat which has an incredible book and postcard shop, Montolieu a village dedicated to old books, see the incredible Cathedral St. Cecile and the Toulouse-Lautrec museum in Albi, the Sunday flea market a few miles away and much more. You will have the flexibility to go out and explore or spend the day at La Cascade, sketching and painting leisurely in the studio or from the terrace or meandering around the village. We will paint with watercolor + ink, gouache, ink wash, watercolor pencils and discover color mixes perfect for our French subject matter. You will learn lots of methods to take the stress out of drawing. You will try out different methods and materials that allow you to paint anywhere, anytime from restaurants to airports to fields full of sunflowers.

Your instructor, Barbara Roth, has taught students of all ages and has seen from experience that everyone can learn to paint and draw if they so desire.

During the week we will dine on delicious food prepared for us by local chef, Nese Pelz. Cost for the week includes all meals except 1 lunch and 1 dinner when we dine in local restaurants, lodging in a double occupancy cozy room decorated with local furnishings by Gwen, field trips, and art instruction. Airfare is not included. Students often share the cost of the rental car which will be approximately $75-150 per person.

• Cost: $1,800
• Visit www.barbararothart.com to see more of Barbara's work. Check out her Blog while you're there!
• Contact Barbara at rabjsl@pacbell.net or (916) 624-7572 with questions or to reserve a space.

Anne Bagby & Lynne Perrella

The Visual Vagabond

Take your art journal on the road with two award-winning artists, and savor the incomparable unspoiled landscape of Durfort in the Southwestern region of France.

We will spend time in the well-equipped and welcoming studio at La Cascade, plus use our surroundings to prompt and provoke work in our art journals. We’ll explore lots of low-tech ideas for creating elegant layered surfaces, as well as methods for getting the most out of visual elements and shapes. The weekend market at Revel, with its lavish fresh flowers, produce, gourmet food and antiques; where all the senses are stimulated and the opportunity for on-the-spot journaling, sketching and writing is ideal. Walk the aisles of the outdoor market, as people have done for ages, or just take a seat at a café on the square and experience a visual feast for the eyes and heart. Then, we will make a trip to nearby Montolieu, the so-called antique book village, where one is surrounded by winding streets spilling over with books, collage material, and ephemera. The ultimate paper chase! At the nearby ancient fortress of Carcassonne, we can explore the aesthetics of another time and place. All of these experiences will be woven into a visual memoir of your trip; plus all of the techniques that we explore can easily be translated into your future work in collage, assemblage, and mixed-media artwork of all kinds.

• Cost: $2,500 … Very limited enrollment!
• For more information, and to learn about Lynne & Anne and their work, please visit:
  • www.lkperrella.com
  • www.annebagby.com
• Contact Lynne at lkperrella@aol.com or Anne at annebagby@bellsouth.net with questions or to reserve a space.

Tory Hughes

TBA, and will revolve around 'Perception, Play and the Creative Process'

More details to come, but…
Point of the class is to investigate how we see, as an active process… then how to expand from that to personalizing our creative actions: object-making, writing, moving, designing, connecting. Et cetera. We will be taking pictures, talking about what we collect visually, and making things, using a variety of media. (…yup, …nope, this is not just a polymer clay class.)

• Cost: $1,900
• Visit www.toryhughes.com for more information — and to learn more about Tory and her work.
• Contact Elaine Clelland at elaineclelland@yahoo.com with questions or to reserve a space in Tory Hughes' class.

Nese Pelz

L’art de bien etre
…The Art of Well Being

Nese has been La Cascade's much loved chef for years. As the name implies, her workshop is about much more than cooking. It is not being held at La Cascade, but at a nearby farm.

Nese lights the way through the darkness of self-limiting beliefs that keep us stuck in a pattern of discontent. With infinite compassion and unconditional love, she skillfully teaches us to clear the false self image that blocks our true perception of ourselves and the world around us.

Working one-on-one with body consciousness techniques, Nese teaches us how to dispel malaise and tap into the source of our natural state of health and well being. By the end of the weeklong retreat, your heart, mind and body should sense transformation, or what Nese calls the “click” experience; a deep inner knowing where everything falls into place.

“We are all magic,” says Nese. “We just forget it. Using a variety of techniques, I help you discover your own inner lamp, so you always have a light in your hand to show you the way.”

We will work in the kitchen with Nese and learn how she makes the delicious meals she’s cooked for us at La Cascade.

The workshop will take place at a secluded farm on the Black Mountain. The Black Mountain has attracted healers for centuries.

Nese (pronounced Nesha) studied sports science and sports medicine at the University de Goethe in Frankfurt Germany. She has taught self-healing techniques at her health center, Centre Melisse, in Soreze France since 1996. She teaches yoga and mind-body awareness in German, French, and English

• Cost: $1,900
• Space imited to 10 students.
• Contact Gwen at gwen@gwengibson.com or 415-454-3246 with questions or to reserve a space.