SOU’WESTER EVENTS!
See what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!
4th Annual ARTS WEEK!
During Arts Week The Sou’wester hosts 30-35 artists and art collectives for a week of residency work culminating in a weekend (Friday and Saturday) of music, studio tours, performances and installations.
Over the past 9 years we have held an event around this time of year to highlight the creative process and the experiential nature of the Sou’wester Residency Program. Each year this event brings amazing artists to this neck of the woods and shines creative light into the darkest heart of winter.
The focus of Arts Week 2023 is SHIFTING CYCLES:
“Our reliance on a known occurrence has been disrupted. This shift is replacing existing patterns and problems. Collective action and individual insight paving our path forward.”
On the weekend, Friday and Saturday March 17th and 18th, 2023 the public will be invited, free and open to all, to tour the grounds and surrounding areas for a weekend full of installations, music, performances and open studios.
(The Sou’wester has regular residencies offered year-round in addition to residency events such as the annual ARTS WEEK. Applications for the Sou’wester Standard Residency are separate from ARTS WEEK and accepted on a rolling basis.)
Thank you to our Arts Week 2023 Sponsors!
“Portraits, Men in Ballgowns, Sound, We Will Be Heard” by Scott Braucht
Sou’Wester Arts is thrilled to welcome filmmaker Scott Braucht whose program Portraits / Men in Ballgowns // Sound / We Will Be Heard will be featured in a special exhibition celebrating Pacific County Pride in our Red Bus Microcinema.
On view at The Sou’Wester’s Red Bus Theatre
May 29 – July 14, 2023.
Opening reception Monday, May 29 6-8p with a special acoustic performance from musician Khaelo Dé.
Portraits is a collection of film interviews shot both on super 8mm and digital formats. It includes a selection from the series Men in Ballgowns, exploring ideas of masculinity and femininity in the LGBTQ2SIA+ community. This work-in-progress highlights men wearing gowns in different environments filmed on super 8mm with audio interviews detailing how growing up LGBTQ2SIA+ reflects in their art. Portraits concludes with the short film Mel & Kate about letting go and moving on. // Sound is a collection of music videos featuring the short documentary We Will Be Heard about rappers that identify as LGBTQIA+.
Curated by Nikki Cormaci
Grief Retreat with The Portland Grief house
Two night retreat with guided meditations and sound healing
Who/How much: w/Julia Francis and Laura Green of The Portland Grief House $498-807 includes lodging
What: We will spend the weekend in conversation with the non-human world; asking what medicine we can offer and what we can take. Except for grief spills and vocalizing during sound healing, we will keep conversation with humans to a bare minimum. We’ll use guided sound work, yoga practice and meditation to let spoken language shift away from the center of our attention. We’ll listen deeply, and talk sincerely with the world around us, and believe what we hear and learn. Retreat pricing includes various Sou’Wester lodging options. Full event details and itinerary found here: https://www.
Email: info@griefhouse.org
Exhibtion opening in our Art Trailer Gallery
No Lo Tenia Escrito / It Wasn’t in My Plans by Jade Mara Novarino
No Lo Tenia Escrito showcases a short film, Mi Abuela La Hormiga / My Grandma the Ant (40 minutes, 2023), and several prints and works on paper. The footage and the work are from a trip to Argentina in February of 2023. This work was made in order to remember—my grandma, us, a place, and a time. In a sense, it is a small archive, a document that marks a special moment in our relationship. Initially, for the film, I had set out to ask my grandmother many questions, and in some cases succeeded in receiving answers—but in the still and quiet moments of the footage, when the camera was just another piece of furniture and not someone to act in front of, was where I learned the most. The film is conscious of its own form, and the camera itself is acknowledged multiple times. Even so, the main subject—my grandma—doesn’t seem shy or to change before its presence. The prints and works on paper are reflections, journal entries, and photographs made within the year leading up to the show.
Jade Mara Novarino is a first generation American artist, educator, farmer, and community member born and raised in San Diego, California. Her work draws on inspiration from her family and the seasons, personal narrative, site-specificity, songs, and attempts to highlight the everyday as sacred. Her multidisciplinary work spans from socially engaged projects to imaginary restaurants to calligraphy to video to collage, photography, painting, and found sculpture. She runs an artist space and farm from her home in Milwaukie, Oregon. Her birthday is in February, her favorite month is September, and she looks forward to planting garlic every October. She is always looking for new pen-pals.
Curated by Nikki Cormaci
FREE Public screening in The Sou’wester Lodge
12/1/23 at 7 p.m to open our Winter exhibition in our Red Bus Theatre featuring
Wide Blue Yawn – An experimental documentary film by Eva Knowles
The idea for Wide Blue Yawn occurred to Eva after observing a UFO while alone on the beach in October 2020. She always had a powerful relationship to the Long Beach Peninsula, having grown up coming here for family getaways since she was a child–and so, after her mysterious encounter she decided to embark on deeper research of this place and make a film about it. Wide Blue Yawn attempts to capture layers of history at the mouth of the Columbia River and to honor the specific feelings evoked by the rugged pacific northwest geology, the spiritual presence of the first human inhabitants (the Chinookan people), and all that has unfolded since Lewis and Clark hit the scene in 1805. Wide Blue yawn spans centuries and wonders at how we ended up here, in our strange present reality.
Eva Knowles was born in 1990 and grew up in Bonney Lake, Washington. Her films are shot with a handheld digital camcorder and have an intimate and personal feeling. As an artist Eva is concerned with the mysterious, the sublime, and the mundane. She has worked as a teacher, a farmer, and also practices reiki. She has many projects in the works about fascinating topics.
Contact: email: eeva.knowles@gmail.com / instagram
Curated by Nikki Cormaci
Contemplative Rest Retreat
Contemplative Rest: Our Basic Peace Work
A weekend-long retreat with M Freeman
Fri, Feb 9 @ 7:00pm – Sun, Feb11 @ 11am
In-person only at:
The Sou’wester Lodge
3728 J Place
Seaview, Wa 98644
The Brief
Explore, savor, and rest in the numinous through this weekend-long retreat with contemplative guide, media artist, and writer, M Freeman. Inspired by decades of heart-centered contemplative practices and by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness teaching that rest is our most basic peace work, Freeman’s Contemplative Rest cultivates engagement in the mystical realm and nurtures awe as a profoundly fortifying resource.
We’ve all had unforgettable experiences of awe. Maybe it was on a hike, or holding a newborn, or watching a flock of birds. Maybe it was in moonlight, or with your cat, or in a hospital room. This spacious weekend features practice sessions in which Freeman will lead participants through exploring and honoring recollected moments, and will then guide folks into reverent, somatic, contemplative rest. Participants will be invited into reflective writing, to share reflections and insights, and to enjoy lots of solo relaxation time. All this wonder happens along the stunning Washington State coast at the Sou’wester Lodge and Vintage Travel Trailer Resort.
How much: Retreat fee is sliding scale, starting at $325 – Tickets
Lodging is additional. The Sou’wester has set aside select lodging options for retreat participants. Book lodging directly here with the Sou’wester.
Event details at marilynfreeman.com
About M Freeman
Media artist, writer, contemplative, spiritual director, and independent scholar, M Freeman works at the intersections of reckoning and resiliency, queerness and film, and contemplative, creative and social art practices. Author of The Illuminated Space: A Personal Theory and Contemplative Practice of Media Art (The 3rd Thing, 2020/winner of the Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal for Creativity & Innovation) and creator of Cinema Divina (short films for contemplative practice), Freeman is the founder of Contemplative Rest: Exploring, Savoring & Resting in the Numinous; and co-curator of Good Symptom: A Serial Anthology of Time-based Disturbances. Their text and media arts essays have been published in or at The Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, TriQuarterly, Blackbird, Rolling Stone, Abbey of the Arts, and Good Symptom. Their films are screened on PBS and in galleries, spirituality centers and festivals worldwide. marilynfreeman.com.
M Freeman photo by Anne de Marcken