
Each day we spent long hours in the studio, quietly working on projects, laughing really really loud, making plans and hashing out ideas, and sharing a meal together at dinner.
On Wednesday, we had our first weekly meeting of Drawing Club, where we all met in the classroom, and drew whatever the heck we wanted for a few hours. We held a contest to draw the new banner for our website, and Mary was the big winner. She is doing amazing work giving our website a makeover.

Her contribution to A Pleasant Evening will be illustrations of each line of one of Eijah's meadow songs. She was inspired by our field trip to the Shelby Gem Factory on Saturday, and has promised to draw a portrait of Larry, the gem scientist, and one of his man-made gemstones.
Natalie also knocked our socks off at the impromptu pizza-eating contest during our field trip to local curiosity, Country Dairy, and their all-you-can-eat/drink pizza and chocolate milk buffet.

Monday morning, Amanda visited the Pentwater farmer's market for the first time, introducing herself to the local organic farmers and making plans for the dinner she will serve in her bowls at A Pleasant Evening.

With time-based and ephemeral works, Elijah documents his findings in three small journals; he is also leaving his mark on our space in permanent and visible ways. He measured out and painted the lines on our parking lot asphalt, to turn it into a proper half-court. And he began a new project in the meadow with two dying birch trees. He has wrapped and braced them and is making a patchwork flag that will be hung from the brace he rigged up. He has also set up a few more zones around the studio this week- a painting zone on the classroom wall, and a recording zone where he is working out the music for his Meadowtations songs. He records the songs in the meadow, then again in the studio, and will make another more finished recording when he is back home. We are hoping he will leave us with a CD for our zine library and are looking forward to his concert in the meadow.

This is our third summer residency, but it is the first time I have seen fruit on the trees and the brambles in the meadow. It is serendipitous that we have a pie-maker in residence, and mulberries, thimbleberries, raspberries, blackberries, and chokecherries growing out back.

In his slide talk John shared work from college, and more recent explorations in paint, drawing, collage, video, and sound. He is always representing light and dark, the good and evil that are in everything; and working intuitively, he doesn't feel pressed to over-explain his art. We all got it.
For his community project, John DJ-ed a dance party for everyone after the slide talk. Our friend Mike was in attendance and they had some time to jam on a keyboard. John's freedom to work on whatever comes to him, day and night, is an inspiring force at the studio. Our group of residents have been so studious that they forget to make dinner. They have been flexible and engaged, and have brought out the best in our workspace. With our first group leaving this week, there is so much more to do.