A Post from Family Camp

We’re finishing up a week at Family Art Camp in Idyllwild. It’s a treat to be overwhelmed the time, means, and instruction to create. It’s especially great to be instructed by teachers that work as professional artists in their fields, on a campus that is a year round arts and performing arts school.

The selection of classes varies from year to year slightly but are plentiful. The options are maddening because there is so much to do that is interesting. We huff and puff (Idyllwild is at altitude – about 6000 feet) from class to class trying to take in all we can. It happens only once a year and it is truly magical.

This year’s workshops were:

Advanced Digital Imaging and Photography
Appreciating Shakespear
Bach to Blues: How to Understand Music
Batik and Tie Dye
Bear Making and More
Cast, Carve, Create
Ceramics
The Children’s Musical (Summer School House Rock!)
Collage
Comic Book Journals
Singing
Folk Instruments
Harmonica
Hikes
Jewelry
Life Drawing
Mosaic Madness
Pine Needle Baskets
Silk Painting
Stone Carving
Strawberry Creek Journal
Writing the Memoir
Yoga

Lest this sound like a marketing post for Idyllwild, let me say definitively that I am getting no remuneration.

In fact, don’t come. There are mosquitoes and biting flies. Lodgings are in barebones dorm rooms (bunks anyone?). Happy Hour includes children running underfoot. People break into song spontaneously. The food is strictly cafeteria fare and includes a non dairy frozen dessert product. Family Camp doesn’t happen but once a year, and we’re signed up for eternity according to my children, so we’re picky about who else comes. And I do not want anyone getting in the way of getting my projects done or showing up my kids at the talent show.