((L to R) Sondra Holtzman, Kim Stafford and Ellen Waterston | Photos courtesy of PLAYA)
Join Playa for special online programming. Sunday, July 26 at 4:30pm, a special PLAYA Presents will feature readings by Kim Stafford and Ellen Waterston and music by Hunter Noack. On three weekends in August, online Master Classes that use the landscape of Oregon’s high desert for inspiration will be offered. Former Oregon Poet Laureate, Kim Stafford, author, Ellen Waterston and artist Sondra Holtzman will guide students in the creativity and expression based in landscape.
To sign up for Master Classes, visit playasummerlake.org/playa-events. To sign up for PLAYA Presents, visit docs.google.com/forms.
Master Class Overviews
Earth Verse for PLAYA
Instructor Kim Stafford
When trouble comes in the human world, there may be a little story from the wild that can offer consolation. From the Gnomic Verses in Old English, to the Tao te Ching and the writings of Dorothy Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver, we have cherished lyric remedies speaking the language of earth for human comfort. In this workshop, we will harvest close observations from the PLAYA landscape and compose an archive of consolations for use as our need comes.
Date: Saturday-Sunday, August 1-2, 2020, 9am-12:30pm and 1:30-4pm both days
Fee: $250
Maximum group size: 12
Online via Zoom
Making Real What is Remote
Instructor Ellen Waterston
Remote access, remote learning, fuggedaboutit! I don’t know about you, but I want to gather with other writers at PLAYA, in the presence of the remote and staggering beauty of Summer Lake. But not so fast. With the southeastern Oregon desert landscape as our muse, this two-day generative writing intensive will explore the job of writing to render actual what is remote, to transform what we see and feel into a real experience for the reader using imagination, memory, experience and language. We’ll work in short narrative “prosetry” (forgive me) drawing inspiration from supplementary readings to make the written thing evoke the thing itself.
Date: Saturday-Sunday, August 8-9, 2020, 9am-12:30 and 1:30-4pm both days
Fee: $250
Maximum group size: 12
Online via Zoom
To sign up click here: playasummerlake.org
PLAYA: A Painterly Exploration
Instructor Sondra Holtzman
Using photographs of the playa as our inspiration and guides, we will explore local color, patterns and rhythms, atmosphere, edges and light in this very special place using a variety of materials. Students are encouraged to work as intuitively as they can, as perfection is not a welcome guest. We will create a series of small studies or vignettes, along with a larger painting(s) each afternoon. Class will begin each day with a brief writing exercise that will be the springboard for our painterly endeavors.