Heartsong Studio

Summer Art Retreat on Pender Island

Do you long to draw or paint with heart ?

Do you know these key steps to reach beyond borrowed solutions to a wealth of original expression ?

You long to make art that comes from your heart, but it doesn’t flow as easily as it seems to in others. Even if you have taken art classes, someone else’s instructions don’t feel natural to you. You long to follow your creative urges, and make art the speaks of your deepest self.

Whether you’re a seasoned artist, a newly emerging artist, or someone who has yet to find the courage to start, you may be bored, unsatisfied, or fearful. You may feel as though you’ve been sitting on your creative egg forever, but it never quite hatches.

What’s the secret to hatching your full creative potential and letting yourself fly free as an artist ? ?

The secret to giving birth to art that can fly:

For living art to come to life, it needs to grow in the same way as every other living thing.

Trying to produce art with only theoretical knowledge is like trying to take flight before your wings have developed. In spite of your enthusiasm, it’s a long fall from the branch.

So how do you grow wings ?
If you want your unique creative spirit to soar, these three steps will help you:

• Incubate your egg of potential in a safe nest. Discover your own, unique visual language that lies dormant within, in the breathtaking, natural setting of Pender Island, off the Pacific Coast of B.C.
• Hatch your natural responses with a willingness to be surprised. The cracking open of your dormant creativity, releases your authentic self, already there.
• Nurture and strengthen your artistic confidence so you begin to respond more fluently. Your prime motivation for making art will shift to being your own personal responses from your heart. Allow your new found skills to absorb during afternoons of beachcombing, golfing, sailing, disc park, hiking, bird watching, or visiting artists’ studios and markets.

It’s as natural as one, two, three.
Once your egg is incubated, hatched, and nurtured, you are ready to learn to fly.
Then you’ll have lift-off !

“There are no words for the biggest things I got from this class. Just that I feel GOOD ! I’ve told lots of my distant artist friends they’d get a lot out of your tele-classes or summer retreats. I’m sending them to your website.” Jan Ede, textile artist, graphic artist, accountant, dressmaker, Pender Island, B.C.”

Introducing a creative course:

Journey into the Heart of Art.

In 5 sessions, find the doorway to your heart, and allow your creative spirit to emerge and take flight.

Journey into the Heart of Art will help you to:

• open your connection to your inner resources of expression
• become a partner in the creative process, instead of trying to create it alone
• find your natural visual language, without the pressure of producing art
• broaden your horizons of appreciation and acceptability
• develop a deeper sense of belonging and empowerment

These heart-centered processes will help you to incubate your creative potential:

• A 5000 year-old heart-centred practice, that helps you access your deepest self, so you can leave the struggle and self-doubt behind, and begin making more meaningful art from your very core.
• A non-threatening encounter that helps you physically find your natural rhythms and stroke patterns, so that you can feel more self-confident in your natural expressions.
• A meditative experience which allows the knowledge residing in the deep musculature of your frame to guide your hands, letting your eyes only witness what your hands uncover, recover, discover.
• Specifically designed exercises which circumvent the mind, pulling authentic images from deep within.
• Rule-breaking experiments that unblock you and give you access to your own powers of improvisation.
• Fun challenges that relax the struggle, that unchain your confidence to create.
• Using timed constraints in specific ways to break you free of old habits and discover new ones.
• De-training techniques, which loosen unhelpful prior learning so you can recapture your original potential for visual language.
• A progressive process that leads you to select undeveloped but promising new ways of working, and push their development further.
• Using the creative stress of confrontation to remove strong prejudices and reconsider opinions so that you can access many more artistic tools than you had before.

Your creative potential will hatch when:

• A palpable shift occurs, when the light goes on – the “Aha ! moment” – and you realize you are making art in an authentic new way.

Your creative talents will be nurtured during:

• Innovative exercises that help you find ways to naturally express what is happening within you, that reveal to you the surprising meanings that reside in your work.
• A clarifying encounter which avoids illustrating what is already created in your mind, causing a desirable parntership between the roles of your hand and your mind.
• Supportive feedback which describes new features you’re too close to see, so that you can see them too.
• A simple exercise through which you acknowledge the abundance of anonymous gifts in your life that frees up creative potential to give freely of your gifts.
• A empowering ritual which leads you to let go of a qulaity you no longer need in your life and work, and make clear a new quality you intend to develop.

How close are you to giving up ?
Many artists struggle to be more spontaneous. With mounting doubt in their own talent, they eventually edge towards intimidation. I’ve seen many artists shift into neutral, repeating the same technique, then give up the quest altogether.

In the past month, if you have hesitated at the prospect of starting yet another art project, then you could be on the brink of giving up.

Once you convince yourself that you “just don’t have it”; that talented artists are “born with something special”, you bury the urges to unique artmaking.

What a colossal waste not to discover the knack for releasing your own unique, authentic creativity ! Your crying need is to find access to the wealth of dormant expression already within.

How the classes work:

“Journey into the Heart of Art”

Classes with no more than 5 participants over 5 weekdays:
9:30 – 11:30 Monday through Friday
Classes take place in Heartsong Studio, Pender Island, B.C.

Class sessions are a combination of teaching, hands-on exercises, and guided internal processing through questions and observations. The exercises are carefully sequenced to gently challenge you.

The afternoons are yours to explore the wonders of this Gulf Island, and to absorb your insights from the classes in this pristine natural setting.

 

A list of great places to lodge appears below so that you may make your arrangements early. These places vary in price to give you ample suitable choices. Many wonderful restaurants and cafes abound.
A website to help you get here by ferry is included in this list. Some form of transportation while on Pender Island is a must.

There are art maps sponsored by TCAC on all major ferries, maps at the Realty office at the Driftwood Centre, as well as maps on the websites below. The hosts at your place of lodging are also a wealth of useful information.

Small supportive group:
Working in a small, supportive group powerfully enhances the creative energy. Often others can see qualities in your work that you do not see.
Value: $ priceless.

Here are selected bonuses to nurture your
continuing growth throughout this journey.

Regular Bonus:
All materials you need will be provided for you.
Value: $ 50.

Premium Bonuses:

“101 Inspirations for Art Projects” pdf booklet contains 101 ideas for a rainy day, when you need an
inspirational boost for your artwork.

Value: $ 60.

“Art as a Healing Process” pdf booklet
An invitation to breathe life into the creative process.
This guide is a culmination of many years experience,
and will assist you in your ongoing growth as an artist.

Value: $ 75.

You have a unique gift, and the world needs it to shine more fully.

What gives me such confidence in you ? My own long road to intrepid flying, by trial and error, convinces me that if I could navigate it alone, I can help to light your path as I have many others.

My Story:

I consider myself somewhat of an expert at holding on with my mind at the wheel. I once repeated an image 60 times instead of improvising, so I have lots of empathy for others. Having always been an artist at heart, I have learned, by now, how to free myself from the vice-like grip of the illusion of control. I also delight in breaking the rules, and have turned this into an advantage.

After 34 years as a practising artist, I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everyone who wants to, can participate in unique, meaningful, creative expression.

“All Good Eggs” Guarantee:
After participating in the exercises, and taking part in the processing of all 6 classes of Journey into the Heart of Art, if you still have not hatched any new creative skill or confidence, then I will refund 100% of your fee without a peep.

	Regular	Premium
5 – 2 hour class sessions - “Journey into the Heart of Art”	√	√
All materials supplied	√	√
101 Inspirational Ideas PDF Booklet	Â	√
Art as a Healing Process PDF Booklet	Â	√
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Prices are in CDN $
Paypal will convert other currencies.
You don’t need to have a membership to use Paypal, but may pay with credit card through them.  Be sure not to miss the first question on Paypal about what country you’re in.  There’s a pull down list, which then converts the other questions to suit.
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Tried and True Lodging Suggestions, and other helpful websites:

*** Marje Bryan is offering a B&B excusively for Pender Art Retreat participants, at an economy rate. Would be especially suitable for two friends coming together. Marje is an artist who has twice participated in art classes at Heartsong Studio. Her house is located on Boundary Pass Drive on South Pender Island, with a lovely garden setting on an acre with close access to a wonderful, interesting beach. Just a 2 minute stroll away is a view of Saturna Island, Mount Baker and the San Juan Islands.
John and Marje Bryan can be reached at (250) 629 – 6527, or by writing her at jmbryan@telus.net.

*** Hummingbird Hollow B & B is a Bed and Breakfast on Buck Lake, 3 minutes walk from Heartsong Studio. Doreen and Chuck’s phone number is (250) 629 – 6392. Their website is:
http://www.hummingbirdhollowpender.com .

*** Inn on Pender is located on a main road, Canal Road, and serves food in their Memories Restaurant. Their phone number is (250) 629 – 3353, and e-mail address is http://www.innonpender.com.

*** Gnomes Hollow B&B is located at the end of Cutlass Court. Their website has some good pictures of Pender :
http://www.gnomeshollow.com . Phone number is : (250) 629 – 3844.

*** Prior Centennial Provincial Park is located on a main road, and has some tent sites with an artesian well water. Check for opening dates and regulations on the Gulf Islands Vacation Rental website.

*** http://www.gulfislandvacationrentals.com for a wealth of general information. Phone: (250) 629 – 6040
Fax : (250) 629 – 6123. Or phone toll free: 1-866-472-7982.

*** Indispensible for reaching Pender Island, with a vehicle, is a ferry ride. Be sure and check out:
http://www.bcferries.com —
Look under — travel planning / Vancouver Island, Victoria and the Gulf Islands / Southern Gulf Islands / Pender Island.
Or, look under — Routes & Schedules / Southern Gulf Islands / Departures from Vancouver, or from Victoria.
There is a great map there to give you a picture of where Pender Island lies in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of British Columbia, sheltered by Vancouver Island. The Southern Gulf Islands are geographically an extension of the San Juan Islands in Washington State.
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Still not sure ?
Ask me a question

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