This workshop has been cancelled.

Located in the stunning alps of the South Island in New Zealand, visitors from around the world are drawn to the Wanaka region by its outstanding natural beauty. This amazing scenery will inform our paintings this week with Pamela Caughey in her Powerful Design and Personal Color workshop.

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, 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.

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.”

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.

ITINERARY

Day 1, Oct. 18. We will meet at 9:30 am at the Pembrook Pavilion to begin our day with Pamela. After settling in, introducing ourselves, off we will go with exercises with Pam. We will break for lunch (on your own) at 12:30 and return at 1:45. We will continue working this afternoon and finish up around 4:30-5:00. Dinner tonight will be together at a nearby restaurant.

Days 2-4, Oct. 19-21 The schedules are the same, with all meals on your own.

Day 5, Oct. 22. We will meet at 9:30 am for our final day together. We will finish our paintings this morning, break for lunch and then put any final touches on our work after we return. Then we will clean up and have our show and tell, sharing our work from this week. The workshop will be over at 4:30 and then you can start your holiday weekend!

THIS ESCAPE INCLUDES

• Five days of instruction by Pamela

• Welcome dinner

• Some art supplies

• A new art tribe

Price: US$1400, limited to 12 people

A US$600 non refundable deposit is due upon registration with the final payment due June 1, 2019

Price does not include airfare to/New Zealand. Please do not make your plane reservations until notified.

AIRPORT

The nearest airport is the Queenstown Airport located in Frankton, Otago, New Zealand. The Airport code is: ZQN.

Driving from the airport: The route that takes you from Queenstown to Wanaka via the Crown Range is approximately 67 km (42 mi) long, which should take close to 1 hour to drive. You can catch a bus that leaves 5 times daily that departs Queenstown Airport and arrives in Wanaka. The journey takes approximately 1h 35m and costs $14US.

LOCATION

Class will be held at the Pembroke Pavilion Wanaka at McDougall Street

A supply list will be provided at time of registration.

We will provide:

• Latex gloves

• Oil paints: basic colors of white, black, red, yellow, and blue

• Baby Wipes (for cleanup)

• Baby Oil (for cleanup)

• Newsprint

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.

This event has been cancelled due to the Covid epidemic. We want to thank the teachers and participants in their support of the event. We wish you good health as you navigate this very fragile time.

IslandWood on beautiful Bainbridge Island, WA will be the site for twelve very talented artists gathering in this wooded 250-acre site to teach mixed media for a 4-day mixed media Art Escape. From left to right, Bridgette Guerzon-Mills, Carla Sonheim, Christina Romeo, Cori Dantini, Graceann Warn, Lendon Noe, Morgan Brig, Leslie West, Raymond Papka, Shannon Weber, Tory Brokenshire and Pamela Caughey.

For more information and to register, visit the Islandwood Art Escape website here. We hope to see you in the Pacific Northwest August 12-16, 2020.

Please note, as of 3/24, this workshop is still taking place. We are monitoring all advisories and if this changes, we will immediately notify everyone as to the status. Thank you and please stay healthy.

Questions? Please contact us.

San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato - Mexico

February 14-22, 2020

We love taking artists to San Miguel de Allende, a UNESCO heritage city that has been home for artists since the 1930s. Cobblestone-lined streets, art galleries, colorful doors that open into mysterious courtyards, alleyways filled with beautiful plantings, centuries-old buildings and, of course, the bells of the pink Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel in the Jardin. You never know what or who you will find in the Jardin, day or night. 

Morgan Brig and Geoffrey Gorman loved it in San Miguel so they committed to teaching again in 2020. Casa de la Noche, where we hold our workshops, has a wonderful studio and attached outdoor balcony that is perfect for this class.

ITINERARY

Day 1, Feb. 14.  Everyone arrives and we will meet for introductions and walk to our favorite taco stand on the street nearby if everyone is up for it, otherwise, it’s off to bed after a full day of traveling. 

Day 2, Feb. 15 Each morning breakfast is served either outside on the patio or inside at the dining table. Your choice. 

9:30 We will meet Geoffrey and Morgan in the studio where they will share some of their work and discuss how to allow the surroundings of San Miguel, the color, the patterns, and found objects to become an inspiration for figurative and animal work. Both will talk about their different approaches in conceiving and creating forms and also how each uses human, or part human, part animal or animal to create a finished piece. 

We will break for lunch and then Geoffrey will demonstrate how he carves and utilizes foam as an armature for a finished sculpture. Class will work along with the demos. At 4:30 we will break for a quick walking tour and then dinner will be at 8:00 this evening. 

Day 3, Feb. 16 Breakfast and then into the studio at 9:30. Geoffrey will demonstrate how to cover the foam with a variety of materials, including canvas or a colored fabric, bike tires, inner tubes and using wire and nails to attach the material to the foam.

Lunch, then Morgan will teach how to use the mapp gas torches to enamel copper and how to attach a photo decal to it. Each participant has the option to use that as part of the face, or a talisman, or perhaps an image on the body to convey a story or an internal body part. Class ends at 4:30. Free time until cooking class this evening with Chef Ana Elena Martinez. 

Day 4, Feb. 17 Breakfast and then studio at 9:30. This morning Morgan and Geoffrey will give a demo showing how to make appendages/parts:  noses, ears, etc. Morgan will also show how these appendages could be made with copper, either brazing and/or hammering them. Participants will start to build their forms.

After lunch, Geoffrey will talk about carving wood, using different types of glues and the use of other types of ephemera to complete a sculpture. He will also demonstrate how he rusts and creates a weathered finish on each piece. After class ends at 4:30, there will be free time until dinner at 7:30. 

Day 5, Feb. 18 Breakfast We will work in the studio until noon. Then lunch is on your own and you will have the afternoon free to explore San Miguel. At 3:30 we will walk to our friend Hermes Arroyo home/studio and his merry band of mojigangas. You will love them all.

We'll walk down to have dinner near the jardin. 

Day 6, Feb. 19  Breakfast and in the studio at 9:30. This morning Geoffrey will talk about how Mexico and its amazing history of dynamic art and artists has influenced and affected his sculpture. It's a full day in the studio with Morgan and Geoffrey assisting when needed. Lunch and dinner. 

Day 7. Feb. 20  Breakfast and another full day in the studio. Lunch and dinner. 

In this workshop, Morgan and Geoffrey will share their techniques of creating spectacular mixed media sculptures. We're huge fans, we admit it. 

First of all, there's torching, rusting, wire wrapping, metal, enameling, sewing, adding bits of this and that - what's not to love?!

We will focus on heads so that they fit into your suitcase. In our last workshop, everyone made 2-3 sculptures.

This Escape Includes

• 8 nights accommodation, double occupancy at Casa de Noche

• beautiful studio to create in

• aiport pickup/drop off at designated time at Leon airport

• five days of workshops with Morgan and Geoffrey

• all meals except for two lunches and one dinner

• Special class with local mojiganga master (the large puppets)

• farewell celebration

• cooking class

• new art tribe

Price: $3,500, limited to 12 people based on double occupancy. A limited number of single rooms are available for an additional $500.

Local Residence Price: $2200, includes lunches, workshop and last evening’s meal -

A $1,000 non-refundable deposit is due upon registration with the final payment due November 15, 2019

Price does not include airfare to/from Mexico or alcoholic beverages.

Airport: Leon International Airport, Guanajuato, Mexico. Code: BJX  United's Flight 6091 is a direct flight from Houston that leaves at 6:05 p.m. and arrives in Guanajuato at 8:26 pm. We will have a driver pick you up and deliver you to the hotel which will take about 1.5 hours. Return: We will leave at 9 a.m. on February 22 for the 12:55 pm United flight 6227 to Houston.

Casa de la Noche, is owned by Barbara Poole, also an artist who supports the arts in San Miguel de Allende. Her beautifully renovated B&B is ten minutes from the jardin. 

Day 8. Feb 21  Breakfast and then in the studio. Morgan and Geoffrey will lead a discussion on finishing the work including ideas on how to display work. You have time to finish your projects. Lunch and the rest of the day is free before we meet for our very special dinner celebration this evening at our friend, Paco Cardenas's home. 

Day 9. Feb 22 Trip is over and the vans will leave at 9 a.m.for Leon. 

This itinerary may change due to weather, new opportunities or the whim of the group.

Morgan Brig is a mixed media artist from Vashon Island, WA. She loves to capture emotion in her sculptures using multiple layers of media that bring the subtlety of expression to each character. Her layers include etched metal detail, enamel patinas and found objects that suggest the old and familiar, but ask to be viewed in a new light. She often uses language and occult symbols in her designs to support her belief that there is always guidance to be found from external and internal sources as we go through life. There also is playfulness in her design inspired by her love of old metal and tin toys and her desire to lay humor next to truth or fear in her work.

Geoffrey Gorman breathes life into what might be considered to be the detritus of our culture. He constructs both real and fanciful animals using sticks, rusted screws, washers, bicycle tires, old tools, bailing wire, discarded canvas, and other things that are housed in cluttered garages or the backs of closets suffering from neglect. An intense physical process goes into making each work as Gorman builds from a series of elements layer upon layer. He explores the shared identity between animals and humans. 

Gorman shows his work at the Selby Fleetwood Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico along with other galleries around the country. Gorman's work is in numerous public and private collections around the United States.