Radiant Art Retreat: Fall in Florala
Curious as to what the most fun, creative and joy-filled week looks like? Let me show you!
Welcome to the second ever Radiant Art Retreat (formerly Get Messy Art Retreat) at the beautiful and historic Camellia Palms in the charming small town of Florala, Alabama! I spent 5 days here with the loveliest artists creating, exploring, laughing and eating.
How the retreat came to be!
A little back story, when I decided to dive headfirst into running RAR I had planned to take the summer off, gather my ideas and then begin working on 2020 scheduling in the Fall of 2019 - but as it turned out the internet had another plan in store for me!
An artist, the incredible Katie Smith, I had worked with before contacted me after I made the announcement and shared that her family had just purchased a beautiful, old home on a lake in a small southern town in hopes of hosting creative retreats in it! They asked if I would host a RAR there and I was SO IN! And they were ready NOW. So, the first official RAR got moved up to the fall of 2019 and officially became one of the best weeks of my life!
I gathered an incredible team of artists, put together a plan and asked who wanted in on the fun and 8 amazing creatives jumped in for a week of creating.
First, I flew into the USA from the UAE, bringing with me a suitcase full of hand-built looms, yarn, swag, and tons of art supplies. I slept off my jet lag, made a few stops along the way and then headed to Alabama! My miracle worker of an assistant, Erin and I, arrived early Tuesday morning and we scoured the city for art supplies, flowers, and snacks. Then we made our way to Florala to find a scene out of a Nicholas Sparks movie waiting for us.
Camillia Palms sits up on a hill, so you can see it right away. Its silver tin roof, the pink front door and all the detailed, old architecture of the house is stunning. Then you realize it's overlooking a beautiful, endless lake lined with tall trees and blessed with eternal sunshine. Its heaven and inside, it gets even better.
The house is full of quirks and charm. Original hardwood floors, tiny elf doors, fireplaces everywhere, light streaming in through giant bay windows, clawfoot tubs, vintage mermaids. It's a magical place to be.
But! We had guests arriving, so dove in and transformed the rooms to be craft havens. The next morning we were anxiously awaiting our lovely guests so we could begin the fun!
Here's what our week looked like day 1:
Guests arrived to a late lunch by our local chef, Annie, where she taught us that part of living a creative lifestyle was playing with your food to turn it into art! We learned to make avocado roses and had avo toast to die for.
Fed and fresh, we headed down to the dock to begin our first creative session. We sat out in the sun and enjoyed the fresh air and ducks paddling around us as we dove into our creative awakenings. Meeting new people, traveling alone, and taking creative risks is scary! So, we always start with some journaling and creative intention setting exercises to let go of the distractions, responsibilities of home and any fear or anxiety that is plaguing us. At the end of the week, many of the guests told me that this was such a useful activity as it really let them get out the distractions, focus and be present and if we hadn't done it they would have had a much different experience.
Creative Exercises
Next, we did a really fun creative movement exercise from Twyla Tharps book, The Creative Habit, that helped us loosen our bodies and warm up our creative minds.
Once, we were ready and laughing - we dove in - deep.
When I began to dream about the theme for this week, this vision came to me immediately. I knew Katie was going to be the artist in residence and her galaxy painting technique is otherworldly ;) but I wanted to dig deeper into our inner creative lives. I developed a creative visualization exercise to meld the two together.
We closed our eyes and pictured our creativity as a living ball of light and explored the galaxy in which it lived. We invited it to be a part of our week and a part of who we are.
Everyone saw the most amazing visual representations of their creativity! They were all so unique and so different.
We headed inside for our next workshop with Katie where she taught us her galaxy painting technique and helped us bring our creative galaxy to life on paper! Aren't these amazing?!
Dinner that night was divine and then we headed to bed early to sleep off the travel woes.
Day 2
The next morning local yoga teacher, Grace from Grateful Hearts Yoga, met us back on the docks and taught us about how creativity is connected to our spirit and our spirits to our bodies. She lead us through poses and stretches to invite our creative energy to flow through us and to ease our cramped artist's muscles. It was chilly, lovely and quiet - the perfect way to start our morning.
Annie fed us another amazing breakfast and then it was time for more learning!
At every retreat, I teach phone photography skills. Why?Because I believe that photography is one of our most powerful tools as creatives. It allows us to capture our craft. To capture the things that inspire us for later. It allows us to commune with the world around us through our creativity. It helps us remember.
This workshop was only planned to take about 30 minutes for the teaching portion but we were so into it and everyone had so many questions that we hung out and learned SO many cool things that our phones can do that we spent an hour and a half learning! This is also what I love about the retreats, lessons, and activities are malleable to how we're feeling and what we want to do and learn at any given time.
After a beautiful lunch, we headed outside to soak up the sunshine and put our new skills into practice. Armed with cell phones and a photo checklist, we explored the lake and all its nooks and crannies (like an airplane and a hidden walkway over the water in a lush green forest).
Armed with gorgeous photos that told the story of the lake, the dock, tree knees and light leaks we grabbed our art supplies and spent the rest of the afternoon learning the art of field sketching with artist in residence Katie.
Thanks to our incredible Sponsors, Tombow, we had everything we needed to make this workshop come to life! We used our photos to help with the details and then our surroundings to bring the scene before us to life. Katie taught us her tips and tricks for translating what you see into realistic sketches without getting too hung up on the details. I was amazed at how my drawing came out! Her approach and guidance were so helpful and I felt so encouraged and inspired to keep creating on location. It was such a gift to learn her technique.
While we were creating down by the lake we had a special visitor. Chip the adorable giant pig! The owner of Camellia Palms shares her home and her heart with this cutie and it made our day to get to play with him. Such an unexpected, but favorite part of the week.
After another jaw-dropping meal, we set up in the living room and played art games into the night and laughed loud enough to wake the whole town. These ladies are funny and competitive and it was by far my favorite night and the exact vision I had when I set out to create these events.
This is also why I choose to host retreats in homes like Camellia Palms, so we can have a common space to lounge and share and laugh and wear pajamas and not worry about waking other guests.
Day 3
Another beautiful, but chilly morning of yoga on the dock, yummy breakfast and fun conversation lead us into our full day of weaving. As you can tell, the workshops varied wildly at this retreat as our theme was about meeting and expanding our creativity. I wanted to create a curriculum that pushed and stretched our skills to include things each guest may not normally do on their own at home so that they would at least attempt new art forms so they could stretch their minds and hands in new directions.
Weaving is one of my favorite creative hobbies and I loved watching these ladies dive in. Their skills and vision for their projects was so inspiring to watch how they mixed colors and carried out their designs.
Once our hands and eyes needed a break we took a walk the 2 blocks away to the most Hallmark worthy downtown in Florala. We had lunch at the local restaurant - hand-spun milkshakes for everyone. We spent the afternoon exploring the craft store, antique markets, handmade shops and finding secret parks and posing at all the murals. There, of course, was a scavenger hunt list!
We finished our weavings, had dinner and chatted in the living room for the evening swapping paper scraps and funny stories.
Day 4
We woke up to rain the next morning - but never fear, Camellia Palms and Lauren always have a backup plan! We moved all of the furniture out of the living room and Gracie lead us through a meditation and stretches for artists yoga class this morning. It was so relaxing and helpful to learn some specific to artists ways to take care of our bodies after all those long hours of hunching over our artwork in focused concentration.
This brought us to our last major workshop of the week (yep, we packed it in!) where I taught my signature course - how to translate the inspiration from the world around you into art. Armed with so much inspiration from downtown Florala we made photocollages of things that inspired us and I shared my 3 step process to pulling out details to create an abstract painting that tells the story of their experiences.
One of my goals with these retreats is to support programs that are creating good in the world through art. I adore the ladies at Art Feeds and what they are doing to bring art and healing to kids around the world through FREE art therapy curriculums in schools and special places, like a healing center in Cambodia for girls who have been trafficked. 10% of registration fees of each guests goes to Art Feeds and, because they're awesome, they sent us some fun gifts! And we got to create collaborative handprints to celebrate Art Feeds Day. You can read more about the project here.
For our last bit of creative time together I gave everyone giant sheets of watercolor paper to create a final portrait that represented what they learned this week as a reminder to themselves. We spent the rest of the afternoon creating and chatting and snacking - so many snacks!
To wrap up, we returned to our original activity and made new Radiant Art Retreat hearts to compare to how we felt and all that had transpired at the end of the week compared to the beginning. It was incredible to see the change, even in my own heart. To start I was ravaged with anxiety over how things would go and all the plans, but by the end, I was so full of joy at the relationships formed and the art that was created and the adventures that were had.
For our final dinner, we had the newly renovated train station all to ourselves as we dined on steak and shrimp and fried southern food. It was one last night of selfie inceptions and fun.
Day 5
Our final morning together was FULL of celebrations! We celebrated two birthdays with breakfast panCAKES and then I gave out awards to the Radiant Artists based on their gifts and growth that week. We did artist photoshoots and said goodbye and it was so bittersweet.
Creating and connecting and adventuring are my favorite things to do, so seeing all the new friendships formed and how much joy each woman took home with her in her suitcase full of new art supplies made my heart sing.
A giant thank you to our sponsors!
A giant thank you to our sponsors who sent us the most amazing supplies that allowed us to create with such high-quality paints, pens and more. Tombow sponsored Katie's workshops and it was AMAZING all that you can do with Tombow brush markers. Art Philosophy sent us these fun Confetti watercolor sets. StencilGirl sent us some fun stencils to level up our art game.
Do you want in on your own Radiant Art Retreat?! We'll you're in luck!
Are you green with envy reading this? But, you know, in a good way?! Is this your dream way to spend a week? I would LOVE to have you join me for a Radiant Art Retreat where I can pamper you with delicious meals, watch your creativity soar with incredible workshops and laugh a ton together. The next retreat is being hosted here at Camellia Palms again and I'd love for you to join us.
Get all the info and sign up here.
And last, a GIANT thank you to my staff. These ladies made this week so magical with their amazing creativity and I could not (nor would I have wanted to) do it without them. Check them out: