The Workshop Begins

The first day of the "Tapping Into The Flow" workshop with Teesha and Tracy Moore in Portugal began two weeks ago today with a delivery of fresh bread and rolls and a copy of our itinerary for the day.  Here's Linda holding the bag she found on our doorstep (kind of like getting tree mail on Survivor, left for us by a lovely lady named Rosa). 

We took taxis almost everywhere we went.  Here is Maxine, Laurie, Taylor and Linda waiting outside our accommodations for the cabs to arrive on that first morning:

Our first stop was the tile factory, where we were shown how ceramic tiles are made.  We also left the tiles we had painted the night before there to be fired, to be picked up later in the week.

It was quite fascinating to see the process and to realize how labour intensive it is.  They also had a large collection of very valuable, very beautiful antique tiles which have been recovered from old buildings before they were torn down.  Here we are being shown how the mosaics patterns are numbered on the back so they can be re-assembled easily. 

This handsome young man demonstrated various steps in the process, including the use of this machine to polish off the rough edges on the tile.

Once our tour of the tile factory was finished, we headed to the studio (a 5-10 minute drive from our accommodations) for our first workshop session.  We started by painting the pages of our journals and binding them together.

Tracy and Teesha

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch.  We were invited to lunch at the home of a clay artist named Cuca who lives a few doors down the street from the studio.  It was a beautiful, warm sunny day and we sat outside on her patio and enjoyed a traditional Portuguese stew, followed by a lemony rice pudding for dessert, followed by a quite delicious (but potent!) cherry liqueur served in chocolate shot glasses - yum!  Here you see Steve and MaryAnn measuring out portions verrry carefully!

Later, Cuca showed us her studio and gave us a demonstration of how to make a chicken out of clay, after which she surprised us by giving us each a finished piece to take home.  A very talented, very generous lady.

Cuca, Maxine and MaryAnn

After lunch, we went back to work in the studio, adding borders to our journal pages.  Here are some of my classmates, engrossed in a lesson (and looking a little sleepy after that liqueur!):

and here's what one of my pages in progress looked like:

When our afternoon workshop session ended, we visited a couple of stores looking for art supplies and then took cabs to the beachfront in Cascais:

and walked along the promenade to the restaurant where we had dinner, served by the adorable Rodrigo (shown here with Jane and Elisabeth) on only his 3rd day on the job.

We continued walking along the promenade back to Estoril and home to bed after a very long but lovely day filled with adventure, excitement and new experiences with new friends.
P.S. Guess what?? This is my 1,000th blog post - amazing!!  Thanks for reading along and sharing this experience with me.

Not Spring Yet

Even though the calendar says spring officially arrived a few days ago, Old Man Winter clearly hasn't got the message just yet.  We'd been warned to expect snow this morning and sure enough, there it was.  What I didn't realize was that it was going to snow all day, that fine, light snow that doesn't look like it's going to be a problem but over time, adds up to a mess, especially if there is a strong wind blowing it into drifts.  Those who left the home this morning without boots, hats, gloves and/or snow brushes (what were they thinking?) got a rude surprise going home at the end of the day as they slogged through the heavy piles of snow and slush.  No sign of any snow plows on any of the routes I drove today, which meant slow and slippery going.  Transit buses are running half an hour to an hour late tonight and several schools have cancelled night classes.  It's just too darned wet and messy out there.

All of which combined to tip me over the edge into deciding that I definitely want to go to the "Tapping Into the Flow" workshop that Teesha and Tracy Moore are holding in Portugal this June (details here:  Art Paradise in Portugal.  Because on a snowy day like this, I'd much rather look forward to visiting this fabulous looking beach resort town:

than have to deal with this!

Teesha and Tracy

No discussion of Journalfest is complete without mentioning the two people who are responsible for bringing us all together.  Journalfest is organized by the husband and wife team of Teesha and Tracy Moore.

I had been following Teesha's blog (Teesha) and loving her artwork for a while now (more on that subject in a later post), and although she mentions Tracy quite often in her blog posts, I didn't quite realize the extent to which Tracy is also a journaler and blogger (Tracy) in his own right.  Nor did I know that he makes the most amazing journals with covers made out of metal and repurposed items.  I hope he doesn't mind me showing a couple of photos here of some of his books, they are so fantastic:

The funny thing about this book - notice the word "Electra" at the top? A couple of weeks ago, when I was at the Flamboro outdoor antique market, one of the vendors had a whole box of car name plates just like the one Tracy used for this book.  I wish I had that box now!!

This one was my absolute favourite:

Check out the phone dial, which actually turns, and the scuba diver in the centre of it.  Incredible attention to detail.  Tracy told me he is going to be teaching a class on making these journals in Cleveland sometime next year, probably June, and I so want to be there!

But back to the point of this blog:  Teesha and Tracy did an AMAZING job of organizing this retreat.  Everything was so well thought out and put together.  Not to mention the fact that they are just the cutest couple.

From the first afternoon when we arrived to check in to the last morning when they waved us off on the shuttle bus to the airport, they were just so friendly and welcoming and helpful.  I would like to say a big thank you to them both for providing me and my fellow Journalfest attendees with such an amazing opportunity to make art and new friends, learn and play.  It truly was an exceptional experience and I loved every minute of it, and it was all the more special because of their presence and involvement and attention to detail.  For that, I am most grateful.