9 am to 5 pm each day. Lunch included.  Maximum: 10 participants

Cost: Both weekends (4 days) $375+50 materials / or (2days) $275+$25 materials for one weekend.   Call Sandy Weisman 617.515.3401 if you have trouble signing up.  The website system does not like multiple dates!

This workshop is intended for beginners and more advanced book makers, as well as writers, poets, and those who love it all!

In a world marked by constant flux and uncertainty, this retreat invites participants to explore the concept of “surrender.” Together, we will reflect on what it means to let go of control, trust one’s process, and enjoy the products of this exploration.

Through writing and art making we will create artist books that embrace our impermanence and our individual ideas of beauty. Participants will leave not only with handcrafted books but also with a deeper understanding of how art can mirror and mediate life’s complexities.

Join us as we work with layering writing, batik, natural dying, and stitching to create loosely bound books – of paper or fabric or both –  centered around the theme of surrender. Simple book binding skills – pamphlet, accordion, Japanese stab binding—as well as more complex bindings, will be included as needed.Participants will engage in tactile, meditative processes, allowing for calm and well-being. This retreat offers a sanctuary for the soul, and a space to create meaningful art infused with purpose and care.

CharleneLutz is an artist and educator with over 20 years of experience in multiple school and nature-connected settings. She hopes to hold space and empower others by inspiring creativity in emergent and collaborative ways. Offering workshops in her studio, across Maine and beyond, Charlene supports children and adults in finding their authentic, creative voice.

She is a teaching artist with Waterville Creates in Waterville, Maine and at The Orchard (Katahdin Children and Families Foundation) in Patten, Maine.Charlene works with various organizations including Antioch University, New England and Inside-Outside Nature Based Educators to inspire art making and connection. Charlene wrote and illustrated a children’s book titled Fox’s Winter Journey (Maine Authors Publishing) inspired by her life in northern Maine and sets intentional time.  See: www.charlenelutz.com

Sandy Weisman is an artist and a poet, owner of 26 Split Rock Cove, an artist residency and studio space in South Thomaston. Combining images and words, ideas and materials, she loves the process of bookmaking, which is technical yet filled with the possibilities that a container for an artist’s ideas must be. Paper and paint, lines and words – these are the raw materials of her work. Her current work concentrates on geology, and the concept of Deep Time, coined in the 19th century, but popularized by writer John McPhee in his book, Basin and Range. Weisman thinks that embracing deep time is an antidote to our current political milieu, and hopes that understanding our current dilemma is but a dot in the phenomenal earth’s history, one that she believes will carry us to the future of the planet. See: www.sandyweisman.art