Mixed Media Workshop with Lorna Crane and Pamela Caughey
This workshop has been cancelled.
“Brush making speaks both ‘of the land and from the land’.”
Have you ever walked along the shore or along a riverbed and picked up a piece of driftwood or a small branch, and wondered what kind of mark it would make? Or perhaps you walked on a beautiful fall day in the forest and spied dried moss hanging from a tree or clinging to a rock and similarly wondered, what kind of mark would this make?
Now is your chance to find out. This mixed media retreat in beautiful New Zealand is pairing two internationally known artists whose practices center around mark making. We are so thrilled that Lorna Crane, from Pambula, Australia, who is known for her hand made brushes, and Montana artist Pamela Caughey, known for her instruction in the cold wax/oil medium, will be co-teaching at Camp Glenorchy on New Zealand’s South Island - a bucket list destination for many artists.
We will land in Queenstown for a brief stop before we head to Camp Glenorchy which is a beautiful 40-minute drive to the upper shores of Lake Wakatipu.
Glenorchy
TIME Magazine has named Camp Glenorchy Eco Retreat in the World’s 100 Greatest Places of 2019. Featured in its September issue, Camp Glenorchy is the only New Zealand accommodation chosen to make this list, and one of only 44 of TIME Magazine’s “must go” accommodation destinations in the world.
How lucky are we that we know the owners/developers of this incredible zero carbon footprint facility. It’s the perfect place to gather, not only artists but material to make our own brushes in this beautiful setting which we will have all to ourselves.
SCHEDULE
Day One, Friday, October 9. 7:00 We will gather at our hotel for introductions and our first meal together.
Day Two, Saturday, October 10. Breakfast is on your own. Late this morning, we will board the vintage steamship TSS Earnslaw for a 45-minute ride to Walter Peak Country Farm where we will enjoy a barbecue lunch and some farm demonstrations (you may prefer to stroll through the gardens). After lunch, we will return to town where you will have a couple of hours of free time before we head up the Skyline Gondola for our dinner overlooking the city. It should be a stunning sight.
Day Three, Sunday Oct. 11. This morning you have time to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast. Then it is time to have your bags in the lobby for our noon bus to Glenorchy.
We will check in, find our rooms and unpack. Lunch will be served and then the rest of the afternoon is free for you to explore the Camp and surrounds until we meet this evening for dinner. Be sure to check out Mrs. Wooley’s General Store. We will talk about the schedule and perhaps score some S’mores outside by the fire, weather permitting.
Day Four, Monday Oct. 12. We will meet for breakfast and then we will start the day with Pam and Lorna who will talk about their approaches to mark making. Then the fun begins!
Lorna will begin her class on how to make brushes. The brushes and mark making are a great way to let go of pre-conceived ideas and opens up new possibilities. This will entail walking the grounds to gather materials as we take in the landscape and the sense of place that Glenorchy offers.
Brushes and marks made by students
Brushes and the marks they make
Lunch will be served and this evening after dinner, Lorna will give her artist’s talk.
Day Five, Tuesday Oct. 13. Breakfast and then we will continue with Lorna, finish our brushes and then, oh boy, find out what kinds of marks they will make. We will have the opportunity to work outside and in books that we will create to further explore our mark making. Or as Lorna says, we will build our own lexicon using ink, acrylics and other drawing materials to add different dimensions.
Student work
Pam and Lorna will guide us through exploratory mark making on pages that we will turn into artists books. We will work, weather permitting, inside and outside on a communal background using our new brushes. Both Pam and Lorna will discuss how they move to the next stage of using their marks.
Lunch and dinner. After dinner, Pam will give her artist’s talk.
Pamela Caughey
A little barbecuing at Camp Glenorchy
Summer, Pamela Caughey
Lorna with one of her large brushes
This Escape Includes
Two nights accommodation in Queenstown hotel
Six nights accommodation at Camp Glenorchy
Five days instruction from Lorna Crane and Pamela Caughey
All meals except for two breakfasts in Queenstown
Some art materials
Lake cruise and barbecue
Gondola ride and dinner
Transportation to/from Queenstown
New art tribe
Price is based on double occupancy and does not include airfare to/from New Zealand. Your investment is US$3700 with a non-refundable deposit of US$1000 due with your registration. The balance is due May 9, 2020. Class is limited to 20.
Accommodation
Queenstown: Copthorne Hotel and Resort or It’s Sister Hotel, The Milennium
AIRPORT
The Queenstown Airport is located in Frankton, Otago, New Zealand. It is five miles or 8 km from the city. The Airport code is: ZQN
You need to arrive by October 9 for our 7:00 pm introduction and dinner. You may leave anytime on October 17 after 12:00. Please do not make your plane reservations until notified.
Days 6-8, Wed-Friday, October 14-16. The goal of these next three days is to develop a second book that is based on color mixing, creating shapes, texture and marks.
Today starts with Pam. Be prepared to learn a lot, not only about color, but composition, balance and saturation. Students will learn how to mix and apply a wide range of colors, grays, and glazes through short, exploratory 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.
Roundabout, Pamela Caughey
On our journey over the next couple of days, Pam and Lorna will guide us through the progression of mark making to creating a painting using ink, acrylics, paper, fabric, stitching and cold wax.
Lunch and dinner will be at the Camp each day with a special last meal on Friday evening.
Entertainment one evening will be Pam and Lorna demonstrating how they go from mark making to creating a painting. Our own paint off!
Day 9, Saturday, October 17. Today is our last day at the camp. We leave at 10:30 a.m. for the 40 minute ride to Queenstown. There, we will say goodbye to our new art tribe as we return home or onto the next destination.
artist book - Lorna Crane
Pamela Caughey
Artists Books, Lorna Crane
Pamela Caughey
More About Camp Glenorchy
Camp Glenorchy offers visitors a unique opportunity to experience a holiday in harmony with nature.
Nestled among some of New Zealand’s most spectacular scenery, it reflects and celebrates its natural and cultural environment through buildings designed with non-toxic construction materials, native plantings, and creative touches from New Zealand artists and craftspeople.
The buildings provide guests with a comfortable, rustic aesthetic experience while using both simple and state-of-the-art technology to help reduce water and energy use.
Complimentary yoga is available Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings.
STUDENT SUPPLY LIST
sticks, deconstructed pre-loved brushes (max size 30cm)
pre-cut or torn cotton strips, old muslin scarves are great (recycle/repurpose)
crochet cotton, yarn, jute, coloured string or embroidery cotton.
scissors
PVA glue
Black Ink 500 ml - Art Spectrum, Chromacryl or Sumi ink
Assorted tubes of your favourite acrylic paint with limited palette (4 to 5 colours)
Small bowls to dip into ink and a water bowl
Paper and cloth fragments that carry a memory for you (e.g., book pages, maps, postcards, rice paper, ephemeral papers etc.)
pencils, oil crayons and markers (limited palette of your choice) remember ‘less is more’
double sided tape
Apron
A3 Sketch Book 150 gsm to be cut down to a panorama size bound artist book
Glue stick
Assorted needles including ones that can thread binding cottons and maybe to stitch into your artist book
Waxed linen thread
Limited number of acrylic brushes
Palette paper
Painting rag
One Roll of artist’s white tape or one role of painter’s blue tape
This itinerary may change due to weather, new opportunities of the whim of the group.
Lorna Crane’s work has been represented in many group and selected exhibitions – regionally, nationally and internationally. Over the past few years, her work has been about the landscape of place. To her the most important aspect of being an artist is to be authentic through the act of mark making. To be able to create a narrative about the places she inhabits is an essential part of this process. Her abstract landscape inspired works speak about moments of time where narratives are formed through her own visual lexicon in an experiential and gestural manner. It is from a place deep within where shapes form and are distilled into fragments of past and present merging together in an abstract form. It is about seeking questions and revealing an intimate personalised glimpse into her inner landscape – both physically and metaphorically – known and unknown.
Pamela Caughey 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 (Missoula Art Museum, Holter Museum of Art, Nicolaysen Museum of Art) and public buildings nationally and internationally and her work appears in the newly published book by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin, “Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts, Conversations.” After teaching foundations courses at the University of Montana, Bitterroot College (Hamilton, Montana), she is now a full time studio artist and teaches workshops from her Hamilton, Montana studio, throughout the country and abroad.