Workshop Series at The Sou’wester
How We Share Nature: with Pete Brook, Dicky Dahl & Melissa Laurie
How do you share nature? What words and images do you use? Join writer, activist, and Pacific Crest Trail thru hiker, Pete Brook and the creators of Crazy Possible, a webseries about rebooting your life on the Continental Divide Trail, on a guided hike (likely in the rain); a warming communal sauna; a lively workshop about viewing and sharing nature; and some great food.
Re-balance your creative energies and find inspiration for 2018 on a hike, an artist talk and a meal. Workshop participants will reflect on how they share nature during and after the fact through words and images. Together, we’ll make art to explore the motivations that draw us to the wilderness, our experiences there and how we communicate these things.
We will close with with practical hiker tips (secret camp spots, backpacking gear, and how to poop in the woods), answer questions about long trails the CDT and PCT.
Participants will leave with new outdoor skills, new eyes for the images they see on social media, and new considerations for their own storytelling. Hopefully, too, we’ll all leave with that damn fine sense of good that can only come from time spent outdoors.
About Crazy Possible: Exploring the reality behind the fantasy of trading in your responsibilities and past failures for the freedom of the open road, Crazy Possible chronicles a Portland couple, Melissa and Dicky, who leave the city behind for America’s longest, highest, and (as they can dismally attest) hardest hiking endeavor, the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. A by turns soft- and hardcore-adventure story, Crazy Possible interweaves reflections from professional hiker, Whitney All Good LaRuffa, who thru-hiked the Continental Divide Trail in 2016, with footage from Melissa and Dicky’s own experiences conquering portions of the trail in 2015. From the peaks of Montana’s Glacier National Park to the New Mexico desert, they confront painful ascents, snowstorms, doubts and profound disagreements – and at least one bear – all in an attempt to reboot their lives. A five part adventure series on XRAY TV.
Dicky Dahl Co-wrote and produced The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack, a documentary portrait of cowboy folksinger Ramblin’ Jack Elliott that won the Special Jury Prize for Artistic Achievement at Sundance and received wide theatrical distribution. His hybrid narrative, “The Curio,” is currently showing on the film festival circuit and marks his feature directorial debut. He is the co-founder of Great Notion Creative/Collective, a Portland, Oregon-based filmmaker cooperative and creative services agency.
Melissa Laurie Prior to becoming a full time Crazy Possible dreamer, she was a dedicated public health practitioner. Called to respond to the HIV epidemic growing up in the 90s, she has worked on educational programs at private foundations, government agencies, museums, and community based non-profits. She has a degree from Columbia in gender, sexuality, and health.
Pete Brook is an independent writer and curator focused on prisons, photos and power. In 2008, he founded the website Prison Photography to look at issues of visibility, propaganda and agency within the United States’ prison industrial complex. Pete’s work has been featured by The British Journal of Photography, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Vice and ACLU. Pete has curated half-a-dozen exhibitions, most recently Prison Obscura (2014-16). His writing has been published by Aperture, The Atlantic, CNN, Huck, International Center for Photography, The Marshall Project, Medium, PDN, Polka, Time, Truthout and Wired. In 2016, he hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and thought a lot about distances, Instagram and water.
COST: $15 plus a $5 material fee (Please pay the material fee directly to instructor.)
BRING: All participants are asked to bring 5 pictures of nature with them, those registering on the day of will be provided with images to select from; shoes/coats etc good for rain, and to email ahead if there are any dietary restrictions. FOR LUNCH we want to make/have soup and traditional thru hiking snacks (think pop-tarts, snickers, and tuna in pouches). Instructors will provide the snacks and soup. Hot tea and coffee provided.
All workshops are open to the public.
All bodies and skills level welcome.
We will plan for hikes that can accommodate a leisurely stroll and a brisk stride. We can also come up with other activities if that isn’t a fit for you. Children are welcome on the hike and in the workshop, but could also be quite bored by the event. We trust caregivers know best about if this workshop will be a good fit for their children.
If you have question about the activities, please email us.
14 students max.
RSVP via souwesterfrontdesk@gmail.com or 360-642-2542
(All are invited to an event/film showing with these instructors on Sat Jan 20th from 8pm-10pm in the Sou’wester Lodge. Free and open to the public. Visit www.souwesterlodge.com/calendar for details TBA.)
The Sou’wester Lodge at 3728 J Place, Seaview, WA 98644
This class is part of the Fall & Winter 2017/2018 Workshop Series at The Sou’wester. Visit www.souwesterlodge.com/calendar to see the entire schedule of more than 28 artist-led workshops.
