I recently had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Mount Gretna School of Art for the Fall Interval artist residency program. This program is two weeks long, but the weeks are spread out with over a month in between. The first week was September 18th-23. I will return for my second week this coming Sunday, in only four days!
In the weeks since I was last at Mount Gretna, I have been trying to process the experience. It was such a rich and full week that it feels impossible to distill it into a blog post. But I’ll try my best to at least give you a glimpse.
On Sunday, September 18th, I packed my bags and drove out to Mount Gretna, PA, a rural town about 40 minutes north of Lancaster, and less than two hours south-west from my home in Easton, PA.
When I arrived at my cottage in the early afternoon, it was empty. I was the first one to arrive. I went in, and found the bedroom with my name on it. It was called the “Chagall” room which felt like a good omen, because Chagall is my favorite artist. I immediately loved my room and the quaint cottage. It was so full of tempting art books and beautiful original paintings left behind by students from residencies past.
settled into the Chagall room with my teddy bear on my pillow—she comes with me when I travel alone
I had some time on my hands, so I walked around to explore the funny little village of Mount Gretna. I was surprised to discover such a unique place. It was adorable, shabby, cozy, woodsy, and intriguing. There were lots of little pathways weaving in and out through dozens and dozens of quaint little gingerbread-type houses. There were gardens filled with gnomes and fairy tea parties and wind chimes and statues and funny little signs. I was delighted by everything I discovered, and almost felt like I had landed in some other world.
walking through the little village of Mount Gretna
Later that afternoon, I met my two wonderful housemates, Sheri and Natasha. They were both very warm and friendly people. Others started to arrive. In total, we were nine artists at Mount Gretna School of Art, spread out amongst a few different cottages within walking distance of each other.
That evening we all gathered on the deck of the community building for a delicious meal of vegetable soup. I was nervous to meet a bunch of new people, but everyone was very kind, and I soon felt right at home. I had a hard time sleeping at night; I woke up several times out of sheer excitement.
The next day we met at 9 am in the community building. Thus began a very full week of art-making, learning, and playing. We worked on our art from 9am to 5 pm every day, with communal dinners, art talks, and presentations in the evenings.
The community building that we used as a classroom space was spacious and reminded me of a pavilion. There were tall windows open floor to ceiling all around the building. The sunlight and beautiful autumn colors seemed to fall right into the building, and the wind blew all around. The instructor, Ken Kewley, asked us not to talk excessively or have conversations, so we worked in silence. We followed different instructions for a series of art exercises involving pens, paper, glue, paint and scissors. At first, I was unused to so much quiet, but after I got into the flow, it became like a meditation.
Our classroom had a piano (on the left) and I came early most mornings to play the piano, which helped me relax and feel grounded.
We started out by painting paper. We painted countless sheets of paper (regular computer printer paper) each with a different color we mixed. We could mix any color we desired. I mostly used full body Golden Acrylic paints.
It was blissful to get lost in the process of painting colors and suddenly look up and realize that hours had gone by. But it was exhausting and overwhelming too! That night, and every night, I had dreams about colors and I would wake up in the middle of the night out of pure excitement. I wrote a poem about it: Dreaming in Colors.
some of my painted papers, spread out to dry on the floor
We did so many different exercises that involved filling up squares with different compositions. Each exercise built upon the one before. One of my favorties was this:
Fill square with base color (I used gray)
Three shapes of one color (I used green)
Three shapes of base color (back to gray)
Three shapes of same step 2 color
Back and forth between step 2&3
(there was a timer, 15 minutes I think, so we had to just keep going back and forth until the timer rang.)
Here is my collage from that exercise, using two colors back and forth.
Painted paper collage, 3x3 inches
Another fun thing we did was work on each other’s painting. Ken distributed a piece of paper with small black-and-white reproductions of all our paintings, one painting per student. (Mine is the top center.) Then we had to play around with collage, responding to each one, using gray, black, and white.
I learned so much having to simplify these paintings into colors and shapes. It was also incredibly valuable to see all the other artists’ versions of my own painting. It made me think about the possibilities of my painting in ways I never would have considered before!
student paintings (reproduced small in black and white)
My collage versions of the student paintings.
We also did exercises working with our own paintings in color. Below you can see three of my oil paintings, which I had submitted via email before the residency. Below each one, I made a collage of the painting, simplifying each one into five colors. We were allowed to make small modifications to the original image and play around a little, so it wasn’t an exact reproduction. To me it felt like having a conversation with the painting. The painting could “talk” to me, and it could tell me different ways that it wanted to be, different possibilities.
I got so much out of doing this! It was very liberating, fun, and useful. Going forward in my studio practice, if I find myself stuck on a painting, I will definitely do some collages of the painting and see what comes of it.
Three of my oil paintings with corresponding collages beneath them.
This is the only photo I have of myself at my work station. I love it because I was so happy and I was laughing so hard when my artist friend Judy took the photo. The seltzer cans are part of a silly inside joke…you had to be there.
Another fun thing we did sometime during the week was built little “stage sets” out of cardboard, tape, and paint. The sets were representations of our painting worlds.
Here is my artist friend (and housemate) Natasha, hard at work on her “stage set.”
This is my onw “stage set,” built out of cardboard, tape, and paint
After we made our cardboard stage sets, we did little collages of them, turning them to different angles. That really was cool, because you can’t do that with a two-dimensional painting! We did collages in black and white first, then later in color.
This is my favorite collage that I did from that exercise. I was responding to my friend Aleeza’s “stage set.” It is 2x2 inches.
Below are three collages I made of my own “stage set.”
painted paper collage, 2x2 inches
Around the middle of the week, we were visited by the Israeli artist, Rotem Amizur. She was the guest teacher for the day. She had us to paint our papers with two layers of color, rather than one. Ideally, the colors were to be two “opposites.” For example a cool light color over top a warm dark color.
One thing that stands out to me is Rotem’s advice to think about colors in “pairs.” We spent a lot of time putting two colors side by side to see if they were the right pair.
“The right pair is magic,” Rotem said. “You should have a sense of place just from the color pairs.”
We worked outdoors with collage, using pins on a foam board to move shapes around.
“Mount Gretna Landscape” painted paper collage, 8 1/2 x 10 7/8 inches
work in progress
“Green sun, pink sky” painted paper collage, 5 3/8ths x 8 1/2 inches
We did a lot more during the week than I feel is realistic to describe here. When the lass class finally ended Friday evening, I was exhausted by happy, as if I had eaten a very, very full meal that I needed to digest. Even though the other artists left Friday night or early Saturday morning, I stayed through the weekend, resting and trying to process everything I had learned. I also enjoyed some quiet time in my cottage and walking around in nature. I finally got to read some of those art books and reflect on what I had learned.
I wrote in my journal that weekend:
Sept. 23, 2022: “It has been such a week! My head is spinning with colors as I fall asleep, beautiful sheets of painted paper. Some colors are so exciting, it’s hard to fall asleep. Even in my dreams, I am making collages, cutting and pasting color shapes. My fingertips are rough with dried glue. Every morning I wake up early. It’s too exciting to sleep!”
I am very excited to go back for week two! I hope to write about it here when I return.
Continue with Mount Gretna School of Art Part 2
“Invented Landscape” painted paper collage, 3x4 inches
All of the collages in this blog post are my own original work. These and other collages from the artist residency are available for sale, and I can have them framed upon request. Pricing varies. Please email me for more details: lauren@laurenkindle.com