POWERFUL DESIGN AND PERSONAL COLOR WITH PAMELA CAUGHEY
Oaxaca City, Oaxaca - Mexico October 18-26, 2019
We learned so much with Pamela Caughey, that we have asked her to teach again, this time in the beautiful UNESCO city of Oaxaca in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Be prepared to learn a lot, not only about color, but composition, balance and saturation.
This workshop is for beginner through advanced artists who would like to learn how to create “their best art” through powerful design and personal color. These techniques can be used by artists wanting to learn how to paint using cold wax, encaustics, acrylics and oil media.
Students will learn how to mix and apply a wide range of colors, grays, and glazes through short, explorative exercises.
Pamela will take you through the Nine Stages of Creativity to discover your personal voice. You will start out as a child, playing, then grow into the rebellious teenage stage of messiness and confusion, and finally, the adult stage where you will make your final edits to your painting.
Student work
Through demonstrations, presentations, and working one on one, each student will be able to approach a painting at any stage of development and understand the “when” and “how” to pull their paintings together to create art they “love.”
Pam shows Pilar how to use masking on her painting
Deb works on adding color to her painting
The majority of workshop time will be devoted to painting, with helpful demos and exercises to nurture the creative artist within! There will also be time for individual critique and discussion of each student’s personal artistic goals and progress.
It is a testament to Pam, that many students repeat her course because they feel they learn so much from her that it takes a few times to assimilate the lessons.
Below are some of the work created by our artists in San Miguel de Allende.
This itinerary may change due to weather, new opportunities or the whim of the group.
Seasons of My Heart Cooking School
SETTING
Set at the nexus of three valleys flanked by high mountains, Oaxaca City is surrounded by fascinating archaeological sites and colorful traditional villages and small towns with bustling weekly markets.
Oaxaca is a state of sixteen indigenous groups speaking twenty-seven different dialects. From 500 B.C. to 700 A.D., long before the Spanish arrived, Oaxaca City had been a center of high civilization, producing sophisticated masters of art.
Today, artists and artisans alike are inspired by the area’s deep-rooted indigenous traditions and by its bright, clear southern light. The lighting may be what draws many an artist to the colonial city of Oaxaca, but the culture, its people and community of artists is what entices them to stay much longer than originally planned, sometimes forever. Everywhere you walk in this pedestrian-friendly city, art abounds, in the galleries, churches, plazas, mercados (markets), to the corner where a weaver from the outlying village of Teotitlán del Valle, has spread her rugs for the day, to the huichole that she is wearing rivaling the design of her weavings.
Throughout the art that you will find in Oaxaca, you will see a culture which reveres myths, using it as a catalyst for images of place, both internal and external. The work of local artists links us to a world of life and death, dreams, ritual and magic. Of course, there is the marriage and tension between religion and indigenous beliefs reflected as well.
We will also be on the shoulder of the Dias de Muertos celebration so you will see altars being constructed and other preparations taking place throughout the city.
This workshop is full and a waiting list has started.
THIS ESCAPE INCLUDES
8 nights at Hostal de Noria or equivalent, double occupancy
Welcome reception and fiesta
All breakfasts, five lunches and 3 dinners (one lunch and one dinner on your own)
Visit to markets
Two Cooking Classes, including one with Susana Trilling at Seasons of My Heart Cooking School
Free time to explore
Visits to local artisans
Farewell dinner at Origen with Rodolfo Castellanos, Top Chef
A new art tribe
Price: $3,500, limited to 12 people based on double occupancy, limited single rooms are available for an additional $500.
A $1,000 non refundable deposit is due upon registration with the final payment due June 1, 2019
Price does not include airfare to/from Mexico
Accommodations: Located in a colonial building just two blocks from the zocolo, Hostal de La Noria has free wifi, a restaurant, a pool (miniscule), and rooftop terrace. It is located across from the Textile Museum
Hostal de la Noria
Airport: Xoxocotlan International Airport is an international airport located in Oaxaca City, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The Airport has only one terminal that handles domestic and international air traffic. Code: OAX. There is a United direct flight from Houston that leaves around 6:15 p.m. and arrives in Oaxaca around 8:30 pm. The return direct flight leaves Oaxaca around 8:30 a.m.
ITINERARY
Day 1, Friday, October 18. Participants will arrive and we will meet this evening for introductions, a margarita and some appetizers before sending you off for a good night’s rest.
Day 2, Saturday, October 19. All breakfasts are in the hotel’s restaurant. You can eat at anytime before class starts at 9:30 A.M. in our studio. Pam will begin her lessons today with a break for lunch at the hotel, then we will resume and work until 4:30. We will leave for a quick walking tour to help orient you to the city. Tonight will be a welcoming fiesta at La Olla where our friend Chef Pilar Cabrera and her staff will provide a beautiful dinner on their rooftop overlooking the city. It may be chilly so wear a wrap!
Day 3, Sunday, October 20. Breakfast and then class at 9:30. We will break for lunch and then work until 4:30 when Pam will give her artist’s talk. Then there will be free time before dinner this evening at Tierre del Sol at 7:30.
Day 4, Monday, October 21. Breakfast, class at 9:30, break for lunch and resume until 4:30. There will be free time before this evening’s cooking class with Chef Ana Elena Martinez at 7:00.
Day 5, Tuesday, October 22. Breakfast. Be ready to leave at 9:30 as this is a travel day. We will visit our favorite family of black potters, Carlomagno Pedro Martinez and his sister who makes the angels that we all covet. We will continue on to the village of San Martin Tilcajete where the alebrijes, those colorful animals are made. This is always a favorite activity. We will have lunch at a nearby local restaurant, just outside the village. Dinner is on your own tonight and the studio will be open for anyone interested in painting.
Day 6, Wednesday, October 23. Breakfast and then in the studio by 9:30 where we will continue to wrangle our paintings into submission, breaking for lunch. Class is over at 4:30 and there is free time to wander and shop before dinner tonight at 7:30.
Day 7, Thursday, October 24. Breakfast and then another travel day, this time out to San Agustin to visit the Centro de las Artes (CASA). We’ll tour the facility and see a paper making demonstration before stopping in the shop to buy paper (oh boy!). Then it’s off to Etla for Susana Trilling’s Seasons of My Heart cooking school for a mole class. It’s a foodie’s dream.
Day 8, Friday October 25. Breakfast and back in the studio at 9:30 to finish up our projects, clean up and have a show and tell. Lunch will be on your own today as you have the afternoon off to explore and shop. Tonight will be our farewell dinner at Origen with Top Chef winner Rudolpho Castellanos.
Day 9, Saturday, October 26. The trip is over and it is time to leave for home or on to other destinations.
Pam teaching glazes
Pamela Caughey grew up in Wisconsin, where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from UW-Madison in 1983. After moving with her family to Hamilton, MT in 1986, she began her serious study of art, and in 2010 received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Montana School of Art. She works in many media, with special interest in cold wax/oil, encaustic, mixed media and acrylic.
Her work is in the permanent collection of several museums and public buildings nationally and internationally. After teaching foundations courses at the University of Montana, Bitterroot College, Montana, she is now a full time studio artist and teaches workshops from her Hamilton, Montana studio and around the country.
Pam is one of the artists included in the newly published book by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin, “Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts, Conversations.”