Taos Spring Newsletter, Art, and Upcoming News

Greetings from Taos,

The spring weather this week has gone from sunny 8o degrees to rain, sleet, and wind in a manner of seconds.

My transition from April into May brought quite a bit of movement and a few delays.

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My three-month art fellowship at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation ended with a few finished pieces and many still in progress. Here is a link to the work being produced here: The Work

I packed up  my studio/home and fit all contents into the front, side, trunk and top of my car and carried myself and belongings an hour down the road to Abiquiui New Mexico to facilitate a week long workshop on the creative process and paint at ghost ranch, the once home of Georgia O’Keeffe. Our group was talented and lively, all responding in their own authentic way’s to the land and the sky.
 You can visit Ghost Ranch images:
 
Ghost Ranch Images

  

One flat tire and time belt later on my journey back to Taos I  have landed an art studio at the The Arroyo Secco Community Center which is a bike ride through spotted ranches, gardens and horses which merges onto  dirt road mesas, coyote dodging sage to my little rented  casita for the summer.  I find the quietude and vast landscape healing. For the first time in a long time I can actually hear my thoughts with clarity. This is a place where the astral plane literally conjoins with  earth. The mountain sits at 7,000 feet meeting the river gorge which plunges to mysterious depths.

                                         Highlights:


Hollyhock Retreat and Learning Center Center has published one of my article on process vs. technique: 
http://www.hollyhocklife.org/

Molokai Hawaii Painting Retreat, March 2012, Aug 30th deadline for deposit on early bird special!   Register workshop
Hui

Muir Beach Community Center,  Muir Beach Cal, Aug-24,25,26  Registration: workshop

Sitka Center For Art and Ecology Sep 12-14
sitka

Hollyhock Retreat Center, Cortes island, British Columbia, Sep 24-28 2012

http://www.hollyhock.ca/cms/

New CD: Four Creative Visualizations Series  CD

For more info, registration,viewing of work visit website at:

www.laurenmantecon.com

Cortes Island Workshop/ Hollyhock

The Art Of Mixed Media

Sep 23-28,2012,  Cortes Island, Vancouver , 

At The Hollyhock Learning And Retreat 

www.hollyhock.ca

In the spectacular setting of British Columbia's  wilderness coast of Cortes Island we will explore mixed media techniques, painting and your own individual process. There is no experience necessary, just a curious mind. 

Plenty of time will be set aside to walk the land and hold group discussions on the practical, outrageous and philosophical. 

Hollyhock Canadian Learning Center offers a vast array of programs that inspire, nourish and support social innovation. For pricing and lodging visit:

HollyHock Registration

 Register before May 12th and receive $200.00 discount

For more workshops visit Lauren at www.laurenmantecon.com

Holly Roberts Workshop in Arroyo Secco

I have been a fan of Holly Robert's bizarre and sometimes twisted
imagery since I was an undergraduate student of photography in the 80's.
www.hollyrobertsstudio.com/
So when Jill Rounds jijibags.com/about_the_artist.html
invited me to partake in a workshop she was hosting for Holly in her studio
I jumped on board.

The collage to the right was a bit surprising to watch emerge.
Home on Wheels. Quite to the point as I follow my nose to my next landing place I might call home.
Still pondering the smaller symbol of the cart doing all the pushing and pulling with added weight to boot.

Taos is plentiful with talent and I am getting to meet and know some incredible people.
I am about to embark on a three month journey May- July stay in beautiful Arroyo Secco at the base of the Taos mountain. I have found a studio and temporary home for the time being.

The Santa Fe Art Institute Residency that was to be my summer work space is postponed
for a further date within the year as I focus on some recent current challenges that need all my attention.

In this land of sun I have been finding myself working further into the late of night, just so I can be outside all day for the magic changes of light, and what light it is.

Taos, New Mexico/ Art Residency In Progress

After four day's of traveling through snow, rain, wind and all, I finally arrived to Taos, Jan 25th 2012.

On the journey here, coming over the Oregon pass into California was sheer torture. 20 miles an hour for three hours, and even Redding California had snow.Since my arrival it has truly felt like spring.

Ten aritists will settle here for three months at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. http://www.wurlitzerfoundation.org/ 3 visual artists,

6 writers and a film maker. I have taken in a few sites- and plan on focusing in on a new adventure of small scale paintings.

Upcoming News And Events

I will be in Taos, New Mexico the end of Jan-April for three months at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation

May-July I will be at the Santa Fe Art Institute

The latest on upcoming Workshops and Retreats are as follows:

Claiming The imagination Through Reflection and Paint

Abiquiu, New Mexico GhostRanch April 23-29, 2012

Alchemy Of Mixed Media

Otis,Oregon Sitka Center For Art And Ecology September 12-14, 2012

The Art Of Mixed Media

Cortes Island, Canada Hollyhock Learning And Retreat Center September 28-October-3rd

Alchemy Of Mixed Media And Ideas

Sun Valley, Idaho Sun Valley Center For The Arts October 15-18, 2012

Honoring The One's We Have Loved Through Paint And Process

San Miguel De Allende, Mexico Life Path Retreat Center October 30-November-5th, 2012

Celebrating Mexico's Week Festivities Of "The Day Of The Dead"

For detailed workshop and retreat descriptions visit:

lauren's workshops and retreats

The Workshop Itself.....

The Workshop
What happens in a typical workshop day


The structure is to formulate, create images from “nothing”.
To build a sense of trust in oneself that initiates a belief system in the process of “making”. (Doing and thinking simultaneously, thinking and doing concurrently.) To understand search with the intention to “find” the invisible links.

Anne Dillard – “Teaching A Stone To Talk”


Today, we are going to generate the authentic, through processing ideas, many ideas.
We play by trying the new. Random drawing, eyes shut, the left hand, right hand, cut it up; paste it up, faster, faster. Now paint over everything you just did. All this to get the workshop participant not to “think”.

I believe we are our own worse enemy when it comes to the creative process. If we could just eliminate the “ego” while we create we could achieve authenticity with blazing speed.

Creativity itself is often thought of as “belonging” to the “other”. That “other” is usually defined as The Artist. Creative energy is actually innate and spontaneously present in everybody. When we think, speak, and act out of natural creativity and it’s expression, we are not talking about something separate from our own mind and experience. The trick: not to let insecurities rob us of our trust.

During a workshop week I encourage participants to write down dreams, report ideas (if only to the self) and not to listen or read the news. In other words ….tap into your own language of ideas and play.

I find the news can be a major distraction to our emotional well being, dictating our moods and swaying us away from our own innate biorhythms. Make it up!! Rely on your own power of imagination. Push your boundaries. One simple way to test your boundary and push yourself is to try the new. For instance, if you know you can paint colorful shapes, try a figure. If you paint or draw figures, do an abstract. And by all means, let it look BAD, UGLY, NAIVE, and UN- PROFESSIONAL. !!!!Now, you are really getting somewhere. And remember, even this to will change.

I once took a five-day workshop entitled “Painting From The Source” with Aviva Gold.
The boundaries she set up in class were 1. A painting is rarely done in her five-day class.

TED TALKS: Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert: On Nurturing Creativity

TED Talks Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html