Hosted by Britt Boles & Iris Sullivan Daire
(not a Sou’wester Arts event)
Join us where the sea meets sky for our annual Indigofest Retreat: August 10th-14th at the Historic Sou’wester Lodge in Seaview, Washington situated on the magnificent Long Beach peninsula, the ancestral lands of the Chinook peoples. This immersive retreat is a celebration of indigo past, present, and future, featuring hands-on workshops and in-depth demos with Britt Boles & Iris Sullivan Daire. We’ll experience fresh Pacific blues, from leaf to pigment to vat with local fiber, paper, paint, and more. Subscribe below to receive updates and registration info. Registration will open May 5th 9am PST.
Learn more and register
Workshop Highlights:
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Vat creation & relationship with pigment contributions to the Community Vat made with local Salal berry and oyster shell lime.
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Resist techniques and botanical pattern play with paste & shape resist -with our custom wood and 3D printed shapes.
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Fresh indigo processing techniques- beyond the blender.
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Fresh plant pigment extraction and indirubin exploration.
View Retreat Schedule: Click Here
Retreat Dates: August 10th-14th, 2023
Registration closes on July 17th, 2023.
Location: Sou’wester Historic Lodge & Vintage Travel Trailer Resort
Address: 3728 J Pl, Seaview, WA 98644
Early bird Retreat Ticket: $675 includes all supplies, fibers, and instruction. Retreat ticket does not include lodging/meals, see lodging info below. Early Bird pricing ends on June 1st: Full retreat ticket pricing will be $750 for registration from June 1st – July 17th.
Lodging: Please ensure you purchase a retreat ticket here on the Indigofest site first, prior to securing your lodging with Sou’wester.
*A lodging discount for participants staying at the Sou’wester is included.
Long distance travelers: The PDX Portland International Airport is located approximately 2 hrs from our venue. PDX airport has rental car options and we will be in contact to arrange rental/ride sharing with participants.
Please View Cancellation Policy
Mask Policy: Please bring masks to the event as policies are dynamic and ever shifting. Masks will be necessary for specific class activities(mulling/grinding fine powders, etc.). We encourage participants to utilize masks to your comfort level, within the respective state guidelines at the time of the event.
“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+.
Instagram
Vimeo
Blair Borax: Presented by Sou’wester Arts
Blair Borax is a singer-songwriter who writes tender folk-pop songs to make you feel less alone.
With vocal stylings reminiscent of 1920s jazz, songwriting that is unafraid to tackle the taboo, and pop melodies that stay with you for days, Blair Borax has something special to offer. She conjures a vocal charm somewhere in between Regina Spektor and First Aid Kit, wordsmithing inspired by folk songwriting greats like John Prine, and moody vulnerability like Haley Heynderickx and Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker.
After releasing her first EP ‘everything is light work’ in May of 2021, Blair released her debut album “Keep Walking” in June 2022. “Keep Walking” will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, through the stages of anger, grief, and joy beyond trauma and heartache. It is the perfect companion to help you keep walking too. She is working on her sophomore record, “Tender Lately” this year.
DIY Screen Printing with Azenath and Ian
Screenprinting is a hands-on medium that allows students to reproduce any artwork they want in multiple colours and on many mediums. Our workshop, aimed at beginner students, will show how to undergo the entire printing process using a combination of recycled, homemade and a few purchased tools. Students will leave with the handmade screens and prints they made in the workshop, a booklet of historical art and propaganda prints from our collection, and inspiration and understanding to help them start screenprinting on their own.
July 11th-13th
Working with the beautiful dune grasses of Discovery Trail, we’ll discuss biodiversity, invasive species, and land protections. We’ll responsibly harvest dune grasses, then work together to shape the grasses into poetic sculptures.
June 27th-29th
This summer camp week is currently full. Feel free to register for a different summer camp week.
Who says you have to animate alone in the dark? Each student will build their own puppet with organic material, then the group will play a collaborative game outside where we create a stop motion animation together. Students will receive a copy of the final animation, and can bring their puppets home with them.
Sou’Wester Arts is delighted to welcome artists Lindsay Costello & Erika Callihan whose exhibition What Else is Here? will be featured in our Gallery Trailer & Red Bus Microcinema April 14 – July 6. We hope you will join the artists for an opening reception with coffee and galettes on Friday, April 14 from 11:11 a.m. – 1:11 p.m.
What Else is Here? will be the culminating body of site-responsive work created by artist-friends Lindsay Costello and Erika Callihan during a week-long residency at the Sou’Wester. They’re thinking about rest, play, trust, the writing of Annie Dillard, and nature as a resource in healing C-PTSD. The exhibition will include a textile piece, soundscapes, paintings, and process drawings, plus a separate activation of the Red Bus Microcinema with Lindsay‘s diaristic 8mm nature films. Visitors will be invited to engage with the exhibition and the surrounding landscape through various creative and somatic prompts.
For more information please visit the exhibition’s pages on our Red Bus and Art Trailer Gallery websites. And please, feel free to write back with any questions.
Intro to Handbuilding with Clay IV with Mariam Matheson
Learn handbuilding techniques and create an object. This half day workshop includes all materials and tools needed to create a piece of handbuilt pottery. Pieces will be glazed fired and can be shipped to attendees. Can be taken as a series or independently of other Intro to Handbuilding classes.
Mariam Matheson has been a potter since 2018 and an artist her entire life. Mariam is the ceramics studio manager at Ilwaco Art Works. She lives in Seaview, WA with her husband and dog.
Register
Intro to Handbuilding with Clay III with Mariam Matheson
Learn handbuilding techniques and create an object. This all day workshop includes all materials and tools needed to create a piece of handbuilt pottery. Pieces will be glazed fired and can be shipped to attendees. Can be taken as a series or independently of other Intro to Handbuilding classes.
Mariam Matheson has been a potter since 2018 and an artist her entire life. Mariam is the ceramics studio manager at Ilwaco Art Works. She lives in Seaview, WA with her husband and dog.
Register
Intro to Handbuilding with Clay II with Mariam Matheson
Learn handbuilding techniques and create an object. This all day workshop includes all materials and tools needed to create a piece of handbuilt pottery. Pieces will be glazed fired and can be shipped to attendees. Can be taken as a series or independently of other Intro to Handbuilding classes.
Mariam Matheson has been a potter since 2018 and an artist her entire life. Mariam is the ceramics studio manager at Ilwaco Art Works. She lives in Seaview, WA with her husband and dog.
Register
Intro to Handbuilding with Clay I with Mariam Matheson
Learn handbuilding techniques and create an object. This all day workshop includes all materials and tools needed to create a piece of handbuilt pottery. Pieces will be glazed fired and can be shipped to attendees. Can be taken as a series or independently of other Intro to Handbuilding classes.
Mariam Matheson has been a potter since 2018 and an artist her entire life. Mariam is the ceramics studio manager at Ilwaco Art Works. She lives in Seaview, WA with her husband and dog.
Register
DIY Screenprinting with Azenath Lizárraga and Ian Greer
This class is currently full.
Screenprinting is a hands-on medium that allows students to reproduce any artwork they want in multiple colours and on many mediums. Our workshop, aimed at beginner students, will show how to undergo the entire printing process using a combination of recycled, homemade and a few purchased tools.
Students will leave with the handmade screens and prints they made in the workshop, a booklet of historical art and propaganda prints from our collection, and inspiration and understanding to help them start screenprinting on their own.
Asenath Lizárraga is a multidisciplinary artist currently living in Olympia, Washington. Their colorful, emotional works draw from personal experience, dream worlds, and family history, expressed as drawings, paintings, prints, fiber arts, and music. Asenath is also a compassionate and experienced teacher who believes in the transformative power of community art-making, and who aspires to one day help create a community arts space of their own. Asenath is @asleepingmemory on instagram.
Ian Greer is a multidisciplinary artist currently living in Olympia, Washington. They are an experienced illustrator and tattoo artist, and have also worked as a journalist, poet and editor in the United States, Canada, and Ecuador. Their work is detailed and expressive, focusing on sociopolitical issues, nature, and magic. Visit iyanstattoo.com for more info.
$55
Working with the beautiful dune grasses of Discovery Trail, we’ll discuss biodiversity, invasive species, and land protections. We’ll responsibly harvest dune grasses, then work together to shape the grasses into poetic sculptures.
Ana/Anu is a poet, multi-media artist, author and educator. Her work focuses on ecofeminism, collaborative art, and herbalism. Her two poetry books, “Noon” and “Mona Mona Mona”, explore intimacies of the PNW. Anu received an MFA in Poetics from Naropa University and is a postgraduate candidate at Tisch, NYU, focusing on Art and Public Policy.
$60
Register
Who says you have to animate alone in the dark? Each student will build their own puppet with organic material, then the group will play a collaborative game outside where we create a stop motion animation together. Students will receive a copy of the final animation, and can bring their puppets home with them.
Aarica North is a freelance stop-motion animator, currently based in Portland, OR. Recent credits and affiliates include Henry Selick’s Wendell & Wild, KidSuper’s 2020 Paris Fashion Week runway show, and various projects for Mystery Meat Media and Stoopid Buddy Stoodios.
Raised internationally, she brings a unique perspective and adaptable nature to her work. She thrives on collaboration and community building. She has a BFA in Film & TV from NYU Tisch and has continued to travel, working as an animator and as a teaching artist in NYC, Portland, Richmond VA, Oakland CA, and LA. For more information visit aaricanorth.com or @urrcanarf on instagram
$70
Register
Clay Teacup Making Workshop with Midori Hirose
Explore clay and create a one-of-a-kind tea cup with Midori Hirose. All levels and fun clay making tools are welcome!
Midori Hirose is a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist. In Hirose’s work, physical objects and materials are interchangeable with community bonds, recognizing space as a necessary part of the generative process through collaborations, historical narrative, perception (physiological and psychological), and storytelling.
Hirose’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, and Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (now called Oregon Contemporary) for the Portland Biennial. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Lumber Room in Portland, OR; East/West Project, Berlin, Germany; Newberg Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland; and Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden. For more information visit midorihirose.info/ and instagram.com/midorihirose/
This workshop is full.
Intuitive Multimedia Embroidery with Chloe Jacobson
Learn 5 basic embroidery stitches while experimenting with expressive abstract multimedia techniques. We will play with stitching on top of watercolor washes on canvas fabric or fabric of choice.
I grew up in the dry, oaky lands of Southern Oregon and headed north to the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest to pursue a major in Visual Arts and Psychology from The Evergreen State College. I chose to pursue the healing power of the art process professionally through getting graduate degree in Transpersonal Art Therapy at Naropa University, and now practice as full time art therapist with the LGBTQIA population in Portland, Oregon. I am a multimedia artist specializing in embroidery, painting, and collage to express sensations, feeling spaces, and to tell stories of empowerment and liberation. I walk the edge of fine art and craft to explore the natural world through my lens as a queer art therapist. I blend media to reframe and re-contextualize, while offering simple messages. I especially seek narratives of natural perseverance, adaptation, justice, and resilience in the face of adversity or human constructs. My background in art therapy informs my process as being a platform for healing self-reflection, through making the latent, blatant. For more information visit chloekjacobson.wixsite.com/pdxemb
$60
Register
We Hold the Light: Cyanotype Quilts with Cordy Joan
In this workshop we will use two practices that ask us to interact with natural light to create miniature “secret” quilts. First, participants will be guided in making cyanotypes out of gathered natural materials from the land. (That is, cyanotyping as a method of sun-printing that requires us to relate to the light). These will serve as their mini-quilt tops. Second, participants will be guided through a series of writing prompts to find words that they will cut into quilt batting to create the middle of the quilt. This interacts with light in that when your finished quilt is held up to a light source, your batting-cut words will be revealed like secret messages. Quilt backs will be provided and we will complete our pieces using a simple hand-tie method.
Cordy (they/them) is a white artist and educator living on Ohlone land (Oakland, CA). They wish to find where poems and quilts hold hands and they are interested in what we will leave behind. They think that making communal objects together can be an act of relearning how to be together. For more info visit corduroyjoan.com or @coanofsilence on instagram
$65
Register
This class is currently full.
Learn the basics of handbuilding with clay and experiment using “nerikomi” techniques – the process of pressing or folding multiple colors of clay to achieve unique surface designs. This class is beginner friendly and includes all the tools you need, clay, glaze, and firing of one or two finished pieces.
Ally Bruser is a former elementary school art teacher, artist, and mother living in southwest Washington, on the unceded territory of the Chinook Nation. Most of her ceramics are handbuilt using nerikomi techniques — the process of pressing and folding multiple colors of clay together then rolling them into slabs. When not making pottery, Ally is working towards making the arts and arts learning experiences more accessible as the Program Manager for Sou’wester Arts. Visit albepottery.squarespace.com or follow @albepottery on instagram to learn more about Ally and her pottery process.
$70
