Are you ready to release your inner farmer? Free Range Arts is a no-glamour, no-coddling approach to rekindling the love of place by engaging in rural land issues and the role of landscape in the face of global environmental change.
Do working landscapes have a place in contemporary notions of beauty? Does land use affect the beauty we behold? Come tackle these questions with
- organic farmers, gardeners, and CSA members
- community organizers and small businesses going green
- researchers in Environmental, Landscape, and Rural Studies
- visual artists turning to landscape studies
- literary adventurers drawn to nature writing.
Here’s how:
Free Range “Hoof & Eye” Scholarships for Emerging Artists
We’ve partnered with Alternatives: Canadian Environmental Ideas + Action (www.alternativesjournal.ca) and The New Quarterly: Canadian Writers and Writing (www.tnq.ca) to bring fresh voices and visions to the public eye. Successful candidates will work with the magazines on a writing/illustration project that springs from the FRA experience—plus enjoy a break in FRA retreat fees. See FRA Scholarships.doc for more about this wild opportunity to leap onto the printed page.
Mini-Workshops & Retreats
Enrol in one of our small-scale weekend intensives at a 100-acre wooded retreat centre in the heart of Southwestern Ontario. Or choose from half-day studio-gallery sessions in drawing, printmaking, writing or editing. We can also help you combine retreats and workshops to develop integrative arts projects or grassroots initiatives that enrich your practice or research and that speak to your community. See options, below.
Mini-Workshops @ the Wesley W. Bates Studio-Gallery
$135 half-day (15% discount for Free Range alumni)
"We focus attention on the radically mundane and the outrageous abundance of life in the soil."
Susan Scott
Are you looking for creative guidance and critique? Would one-on-one time with professionals help you work the bugs out of that dream project? Visual arts: book studio time for lively instruction and critique in drawing and printmaking. Writing & editing: book in-depth consultations for jump-starting new initiatives, ruminating on thorny projects or ploughing through writer’s block. Mini-workshops are tailored to the needs of small groups and individuals. Contact Wesley or Susan to discuss the possibilities.
2009 Weekend Arts Retreats @ Glen Tara Centre
June 19-21; October 16-18
Fee: $385
I want to bring people together to explore the countryside through the frames of pastoral and rural, cultivated and wild, nostalgia and contemporary attitudes, realism and fantasy.
Wesley Bates
Rural arts retreats are often packaged as “away time” to treat your inner child. Free Range Arts retreats are less about fleeing than seeing. We work with local landowners who are open to people walking, talking, writing, drawing and freely documenting their impressions, in other words, conversing directly with wetlands, woodlots and working farms. Our aim is to cultivate a living vocabulary for rural and aesthetics—a vocabulary that is grounded in creative practice, sustainable thinking and an ethics of place.
Retreat schedule:
Friday: gathering & orientation; house concert with singer-songwriter Juanita Wilkins. (Check out our guest diva at www.juanitawilkins.com.)
Saturday: Birding and country-style breakfast; travels, writing and sketching in the Queen’s Bush historic district* bag lunch, free time, and one-on-one guidance followed by supper at the Queen’s Bush Bistro in Mt Forest and a glorious campfire at Glen Tara.
Sunday: Sunrise hike and mimosa breakfast followed by group reflection and critique. The retreat wraps up at Wesley’s studio-gallery in the nearby town of Clifford.
What you can expect:
- small group instruction, reflection and critique (retreats are capped at 10)
- 2-nights’ accommodation
- 100-acre rural retreat setting with bush and trails; see: www.glentaracentre.ca
- carpooling to a variety of local sites, meeting local landowners
- homemade meals and snacks. Gluten-free meals available also.
- Saturday’s a la carte dining at the Queen’s Bush Bistro in Mt Forest
- arts supplies
- sketchbook-journal
What you should bring:
Sensible travel wear (hat, jacket and boots), a folding chair, backpack, water bottle, sunscreen and bug spray, plus your favourite pens, camera, binoculars, musical instruments and any networking tips and resources you’d like to share.
*The Queen’s Bush refers to the last of Ontario’s great forested tracts—the million acres opened to settlers and “improvement” in the mid-1800s.
The Old Goats
Wesley Bates is a painter, printmaker and author active in rural planning and promotion in Minto, Southwestern Ontario, where he makes his home. His wood engravings are featured in distinguished letter press editions and the works of Wendell Berry, W. O. Mitchell, Don McKay, Peter Sanger and Robert Bringhurst. Gaspereau Press released Wesley’s memoir, In Black and White: A Wood Engraver’s Odyssey, in 2008. Click here to read more.
Susan Scott combines a rich history of community arts service with teaching excellence in and out of the classroom. She is an editor with The New Quarterly: Canadian Writers and Writing, a contributor to Alternatives: Canadian Environmental Ideas + Action and a writing instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University. An alumna of Orion magazine’s Wildbranch Writing Workshop at Stirling College, Vermont, Susan lives in Waterloo, Ontario. Click here to read more.
The Herd
Free Range Arts is a member of the Orion Grassroots Network (OGN) (www.oriongrassroots.org) that “connects and strengthens grassroots groups so they can do their good work better.” Click on OGN’s “Member Groups: Arts and Culture” for more listings in the US and Canada.
How to Join Us
Each gathering is capped at 10 participants; to reserve your spot, email us your registration form at least 10 days prior to the retreat of your choice. Click here for the Registration Form.
Are you eligible for a “Hoof & Eye” Scholarship for emerging artists? If so, be sure to submit an application with your Retreat Registration Form. Click here for more info.
Contact
It’s easy to track us down to learn more about Free Range Arts, or to book Mini-Workshops and Retreats: simply email Wesley Bates (wesley@wesleybates.com) or Susan Scott (sscott@wlu.ca).
We’ve also posted these documents on our site:
An intro to Wesley’s publications, exhibits and teaching stints. Click here to read more.
A list of sample publications, teaching posts and artsy initiatives by Susan Scott. Click here to view.
Free Range Arts Resources - What we’re reading to stay sane. What about you? We’d love your input and suggestions. Coming soon.
Some sample projects and publications. Click here to view. Click here to view.
