A Painting Workshop on the Camino

You feel the energy of the Camino right away at the retreat centre in the small village of Castrillo de los Polvazares. I've just returned from teaching a workshop in Northern

Spain with Rebecca Crowell. Even though the Camino is about walking a sacred journey, about contact with the earth, I felt an ungroundedness, a sort of lightheadedness, an open vulnerability. Basia Goodwin, one of the owners of the retreat centre, Flores del Camino, talked about the idea of the Camino being divided into three stages of personal growth, corresponding to the three distinct geographical regions. The first is the physical part, which is all about the difficulty of walking, the energy required, the blisters, the aching muscles. The second third is the mental/emotional part where the pilgrim is walking through the vast, treeless plains of the Meseta. There is much time for thinking about self, about life, about the reason for the journey. In this expansive place, doubts, fears, regrets and sorrows come up to be examined. The body is broken down and reformed. The last third of the journey is the spiritual part, where the pilgrim walks up into the mountains, literally taking an upward journey. Flores del Camino is located right at the transition between the mental/emotional stage and the spiritual stage. Pilgrims come to this little village in a very open, vulnerable state, ready for the final and more spiritual leg of their journey. These stages of personal growth on the Camino could be compared to Jung's concept that "The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it." I felt that same vulnerability, reforming and letting go, just by being present in one place on the Camino for 3 weeks.

With only one week at the retreat centre for the workshop participants to experience this place, I devised a couple of exercises to help them connect with the land more quickly than they would have if they had taken the time to walk the Camino. One exercise that I do very often in my workshops (only those held in beautiful places), is having the students do sit spots. I've written about Sit Spots before in a blog post I wrote about a workshop in Sweden, (as well as in other posts) where Mena Martini, one of the participants wrote a deeply felt poem about place. Sit spots involve choosing a place to sit outdoors in a quiet place and simply observing. Connecting with a place simply by being present in it.

Another exercise that I used was for participants to write a 'Word Painting", where they sit outdoors to write about what they see in a descriptive way, that a person reading it would get a good idea of what artist sees. I borrowed this idea from a book written by Linda Lappin, called The Soul of Place: A Creative Writing Workbook, where she gave this exercise to writers. I thought it would be a great way for visual artists to connect to place as well. And it was! The writings from the students were deeply beautiful, descriptive and poetic. It would help them take some of Castrillo and the area, home with them.

Of course, we also connected with the place through some lectures given by Basia and Bertrand, where they presented some information on the Camino, did a slide presentation about the Petroglyphs, and gave us a small workshop on sacred geometry.

Bertrand also led us on a day-long excursion in the area, where we walked quietly up a dirt road in a wide-open valley to see the sun rake over the nearby petroglyphs at dawn, clearly delineating the ancient carvings. Each person sat alone and silently to honour this sacred site

After breakfast, we collected some coloured soil beside the road, found rocks alongside a river that would easily grind up into pigment, and visited the Cruz de Ferro the Iron Cross, a sacred place and the highest point on the Camino where pilgrims leave stones or other objects they have brought from home. Some leave prayers, blessings, their names on stones. All are left in a reverential fashion.

In the end, and back at home, many of the students wrote to say how the experience of being in this tiny stone village on the Camino was life-changing, in ways they could not describe. It was the same for me. This experience will stay with me a very long time.

Meet the Owners of a Scottish Castle

Anne Tristine Nguyen, Ali Orr Ewing, their children, Ava, Atticus and their dog, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dunskey Estate, Portpatrick, Scotland Anne Tristine Nguyen and her husband, Alistair Orr Ewing are the owners of Dunskey Estate near Portpatrick, Scotland where I will teach a painting workshop in September. Dunskey is a splendid Edwardian castle on 2000 acres of ocean-front land with miles of walking trails. As well as daily workshop sessions in the studio on the top floor of the castle, our small group of artists will enjoy breathtaking hikes, superb accommodation and fabulous meals. Not having met owners of a castle before, I asked Anne if I could interview her to hear a little of their background story and that of the castle. Can you tell me a little of your personal story and that of your husband, Alistair Orr Ewing? Anne emigrated to America when she was ten years old, but it was at an art gallery in Saigon, her birthplace, where she met Al

The Importance of Silence in Art

Gathering Light 60x60" Oil on canvas © 2014 Janice Mason Steeves Michael David Rosenberg, the musician known as Passenger, sings, "See all I need is a whisper in a world that only shouts." In the workshops I teach, I find that one of the most common problems with paintings is that they shout. Most have too much going on: too many small shapes, too much texture, extremes of colour, too many lines, too much, too much. One thing I say most often as I walk around the classroom working with students individually, is 'make bigger shapes'. But not only bigger shapes. Quiet shapes. Where can your eye go and rest in the painting? That isn't a consideration in much of contemporary painting or much of contemporary life. Ours is a noisy world both visually and auditorily. Ours is a world that shouts. People are afraid of silence. I wrote a blog post 3 years ago about planning a retreat in my own home, where I shut off the computer and the phon

Liminal Time

The word liminal comes from the Latin, limen meaning threshold. an in-between place, a place of transition, a time of waiting and not knowing. Dawn and dusk are considered liminal places. Crepuscular animals, like foxes and coyotes are most active at this time of day, a time that is considered a magical time in Celtic spirituality and to Indigenous people which is perhaps the origin of their designation as tricksters. As I write this, the northern hemisphere has just passed the vernal equinox, where day and night are of equal length.We are in a liminal space between winter and spring right now, unsure if we will have one more storm or snowfall before spring finally settles in. We're also in a liminal place as we live through this pandemic with the anxiety and discomfort of not knowing. A time of great transition for the entire world, wondering what we've learned from this and what lessons we'll carry forward. Author and Franciscan friar Richard Rohr describes limi

Janice Mason Steeves

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