Squam Art Retreat

As we told you in our last post, Lyle and I went to New Hampshire to attend classes at the Squam Art Workshops. We did, we are long since back and now I’ve got a few gems to share with you.

On our way to New Hampshire, Lyle and I spent several hours in the small berg of Clinton, Massachusettes. It is a lovely town with a wonderful town square, complete with beautiful fountain and grand old trees. (no pictures until I get my film developed!) People were walking the square with walkers, dogs, babies and friends. The square is surrounded by Bank Street, the police station and this wonderful museum call the Russian Icon Museum, (http://russianiconmuseum.org/). Please take a look at their site. If you are into the arts at all you will love what one man and his organization have brought to Clinton. It is a wonderful spot, the Icons are just beyond your wildest dreams, the folks that man the museum, including Mr Lankton, were available to answer questions and were interested in your thoughts. If you get a chance to go see the museum—-do it! It was great!

On to Squam!

Squam Lake

The Lake was absolutely beautiful. We had a great cabin that sat right on it and could hear the loons singing every nite, saw a beaver swimming his way to somewhere and delighted in the chipmonks (bigger than the NJ chippies) and the red squirrels, (we don’t have them in southern NJ).

Livingroom window

Our cabin livingroom

Kitchen Icebox

from the side of our cabin

Lyle and I took some wonderful classes while we were at Squam. I haven’t taken pictures of Lyle’s final products but I will get them on the blog in the coming days. Lyle’s classes were with Elizabeth Bunsen, MaryBeth Shaw and Sarah Ahern. I had classes with MaryBeth Shaw, Elizabeth Bunsen and Andrea Jenkins. The pictures that follow are from my class with Andrea, “through the viewfinder”. It was great fun, I learned alot about old cameras and I learned how to make things work! When you take a look at the pictures below, you will see a grid. That belongs there. I was taking pictures with a digital camera thru the viewfinder of an old fliptop Yashica TLR camera. Fun!

Flower pots on the steps

A classmate sitting amongst the flowers

Blackeyed susans thru the magnifier

Classmate working hard to get it all to work the way she wants it!

Looking down the path towards “home”

chairs reflected on the stage floor, (can you say wax?)

I took a ton of pictures. It’s so much fun to experiment!

I think this needs to be it for the moment. The animals would like to be feed and it’s now almost light out!

We had a great time at Squam—cold at night (brrrr) beautiful during the day. We thank Elizabeth and her group of friends that did all the legwork. It must truly be a labor of love because who else could keep 150 something men and women all traveling in the same direction at the same time?! Thanks, Elizabeth!