By Gathering, We better ourselves and Our Art – March/Apr 2009

Pick up a newspaper; listen to the news whether on radio or TV. Another year has passed, and OH! What a year for our country. Words describing the economy seem to only start with letters at the front of the alphabet, words like abyss, bankruptcy and corruption. Well, I won’t go on, it all seems a little too Shakespearean.

Let’s say we go to the other end of the alphabet: stone, sculpture and symposium. Now these are within our control. When we think of what these words evoke, the waters quiet down from tsunami to golden pond. On Golden Pond we can spend wisely on that which sustains us and nurtures our souls. We can come together in a place without sanction, a place not only to survive, but to thrive. We call it a symposium.

Your tribe awaits you at Camp Brotherhood this summer. A place of shared hearts where creativity flourishes, bounces off the meadow, mingles with dust and dreams and ends up on a pedestal in the grass; a cup when filled that will sustain through the many months when we might be working alone. It’s a place where we can fill up our pantry with the ideas and the wonderfully shared fellowship that can sustain us for the months in between.

There are surely those around the circle on the last day who possess the resolute strength to endure without others in their pursuit of Art. But even they would admit that their cups get filled at the symposium and they come home with renewed vigor, strength and joy to approach their art. It’s about regeneration and the only pharmacy I know that carries that prescription is the symposium.

Yes, it is easier to stay in your studio all set up in your space. There’s no packing, you have a good bed, and you don’t have to spend any money. But the tribe misses you. We need you. If you seek a life full-filled, the answer might lie in the gathering of kindred spirits for purposes that only they understand; spirit worlds that even our partners do not fully realize. Failure to provide the gathering is not an option, and we who gather, make up the over-soul that comes to life, at one time, in one place. Plan to come to Camp B this summer and renew yourself.