AP3D Art Retreat

Hey:

Super fun time at the Art Retreat. We stayed in "the barn" which was really cool. Once we got there we immediately went off in exploration. A small group of people and I tried to find the river, and failed miserably. But we got a really fun hike out of it. Once we got back and learned a little bit about the history of Menucha we took a tour of the grounds with Amy.


We probably spent the most amount of time in the orchard which had the best apples I have ever eaten. I'm a little short though, so I had to find other ways to get to them. Haley helped me out with this. Once we got back we heated up the enchilada casserole that my mom made (my favorite food) and waited until Jacob Tietzie, our guest artist, got there. Once everything was all set up he started explaining how to make molds. It seemed like a really complicated and long process...and it was. But now that I know how to it seems really easy. Since we spent all that time in the orchard I thought it was only fitting to make a mold of a pear. It was a little frustrating but after the plaster was mixed and poured I felt very accomplished.

After going inside to warm up we spent a great amount of time hanging out and eating. You could say we bonded. That night we worked on our assemblages. That was fun. We took a bunch of different objects and assembled them so that they all worked together to make one piece. Everyone had some really cool things put together. I thought that project was really fun. Most people stayed up late, but I went to bed early because I was really tired from the busy day we had, and I wanted to make sure I was well rested for our final day of art adventure.

The next morning Amy made us a delicious breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, and fried potatoes. Jacob came back to help us finish our molds and to teach us how to use clay with the mold. It got really cold outside, so we moved all the furniture, set down tarps, and worked inside. When working outside you have all of the sounds of nature surrounding you, while working inside you have the sounds of Godzilla attacking a city behind you. The vote was between watching Godzilla, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...obviously Godzilla won.


We all said goodbye to Jacob and ate lunch, which consisted of everything that we hadn't already eaten. We then started work on our Andy Goldsworthy projects. After working on mine for a little while I decided to see what everyone else was creating. A lot of people had really great pieces. Olivia found a hole in a tree and filled it with twigs in a circular form. Tolley made an archway from branches of trees. Anna took apples from the ground, put them on a stick, and put them over by these pretty flowers. She did about six of them and they looked really cool. Then Ilya and Jackson found the flattened stones and made two leaning towers and a piece that was right next to a cliff like drop. After seeing everyone else's I went back to finish mine and found out that the wind had practically destroyed it! I tried to fix it the best I could and I think it turned out pretty good, but I liked it before the wind moved all my leaves.



After packing up our bags and taking one last tour of the grounds so that we could see everyone's artwork we hit the road back to Lakeridge. It was an extremely fun weekend and we all agreed that we definitely want to do another retreat together. Can't wait til then.