Poetry and Visual Art with Sarah Green and Michael Dowling

You are invited to step out of your day-to-day life and to be part of one of our artistic retreats. The retreats ask you to recognize that the role of the artist is meaningful enough to nurture. They revolve around bringing the creative into our daily lives, permitting life to revolve around the creative self.

Too often we accept daily life as a distraction rather than an invitation to our work as artists to reveal the deeper, often hidden meaning of our existence. Participants will be invited to be mindful that each moment in our lives offers us the material for creation.

During studio time artists work alone or near one another. During the retreat individual conversation will be held as the facilitators visit the artists. The surroundings provide magical settings within which the artist may work with the subject and in the style and form that most engages them. Opportunities abound to consider the landscape, architecture, figure, still life or simply the light as a subject. Artists work in many mediums on our retreats including painting, mixed media, drawing, or sculpture.

Guided conversations are held on two afternoons (Dialogues with Art) and several evenings after dinner (Artist Vision), where the facilitators weave the community of artists together with elements of story, poetry, and the experiences of the day. These conversations may examine issues dealt with by artists such as: experiencing art, learning to talk about each other’s art, our role as artists in our society, accessing and recognizing our vision, special needs we have as artists, and talking about our work with others.

For inquiries about the retreats, please contact us at: info@spokeart.org

Italy – April 27-May 13 2025, Poetry, and Visual Art
– Last two Nights in Venice!

Our 23nd Italian retreat will be held at a monastery in San Gimignano, a medieval Tuscan village filled with towers and surrounded by rolling hills. The Benedictine Sisters who offer their hospitality have become dear friends during our previous retreats.

In San Gimignano, you will find many beautiful places to work outdoors. The monastery offers their private walled olive garden for working as well. Cafés, restaurants, and shops are all within a short, if hilly, walk. The views are breathtaking, and the light is magical.

San Gimignano is several weeks ahead of our late New England Spring. While evenings and mornings may be cool enough to require a jacket or layers, the afternoons can be warm enough for short sleeves. The grass is green, flowers are blooming, and trees are leafing out.

Fees $3000

FEES DO NOT INCLUDE AIRFARE ESTIMATED AT $1000.

FEES INCLUDE:

Individual and group instruction
Lodging, double ensuite rooms with single beds.
Continental breakfast, lunch, and seven dinners.
Transportation between airport and lodging, upon arrival and departure, available for selected flight only

Key dates

Sign-up opens: July 24, 2024
Deposit due: $1500 November 15, 2024
Flight booked: to be determined.
Balance due: February 1, 2025

Facilitators

Sarah Green is the author of THE DELETIONS (2025), the most recent Editor’s Choice pick for the Akron Poetry Series. Her poems have appeared in the Paris Review, 32 Poems, Copper Nickel, Gettysburg Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize winner and former Vermont Studio Center fellow, she is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at St. Cloud State University. She has over 20 years of teaching experience in both grassroots and academic settings, and her teaching style is generative, intentionally structured around craft, strengths-based, and relational.

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Michael Dowling is known as one of the Commonwealth’s most innovative and courageous artists who produces visually stunning, ambitious public works of art that serve and inspire communities on many levels. His work stems from his heartfelt desire to beautify and make life better for all. Michael holds a BFA and MFA from Boston University, where he studied with Philip Guston and James Weeks.

Leading these artist retreats has become a natural extension of Michael Dowling’s work as a visionary artist and educator, where he has inspired and guided communities and artists of all ages for over thirty years.

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Artist Retreat to Italy, April 27-May 13, 2025