Slow Stitching July 2020 with Chawne Kimber, Jessica Marquez, & Youngmin Lee
Sunday afternoon, July 19th through Saturday late morning, July 25th
Medomak Retreat Center, Washington, Maine
$1,700
Please note this cost reflects the addition of a day (from previous years) to our retreat together.
Sadly I have had to cancel this retreat due to the Coronavirus. It is my intention to return in 2021, but due to the fluid nature of the pandemic, any decisions will be delayed until at least the beginning of 2021. If you are interested in staying up to date with any developments I recommend you sign up for the newsletter.
A small group of just thirty stitchers will spend five full days in exploration of line, color, and stitch at a contemplative pace. Surrounded by the woods, on the edge of a lake, with the rustic beauty and charm of Maine as the backdrop. Small groups, individual pacing, natural inspiration-this will be a week for unwinding and exploring....
As an expansion from previous years, an additional day has been added to this year’s retreat. We’ll have even more time to unwind, connect, and stitch…
Would you like to slow down and spend some quality time with your stitching? Maine is a beautiful place to turn down the volume, shut off the email, leave the phone in your room, and spend some time with a needle and thread. This year three world class sewists and makers: Chawne Kimber; Jessica Marquez; and Youngmin Lee, will share their time, their stitches, their color, and their spirit with you for five days in Washington, ME, come July.
Join Chawne, Jessica, Youngmin, Katherine, and I at the Medomak Retreat Center in Washington, ME where you can relax, unwind and dive into your stitching practice. You will sleep in a modern yet rustic cabin, eat three meals a day with the community, and spend as much time as you like with color, needle, and thread. Each day will be spent with Chawne, Jessica, or Youngmin, learning their techniques and tips, and practicing new skills or sharpening old ones. The emphasis here is on settling into your Making practice and letting the rest of it float away....
~Chawne is an integral part of the Slow Stitching retreat, having been a founding instructor. This year she returns to teach Prairie Points: Let’s get sculptural! Using the prairie point (just a folded square of fabric), you’ll explore the possibilities of this traditional quilt embellishment. You’ll make experimental pine burrs and fish scales and then improvise and discover new ways of feeling triangles. The emphasis is on play here.
~Jessica is joining us from the world of garments to share her skills in Visible Mending and Sashiko stitching. In her workshop you will learn artful and practical skills to mend, patch, repair, and embellish your clothing and textiles, inspired by time honored Japanese Sashiko techniques. You will learn about the history of Sashiko and see many inspiring examples of Sashiko patterns used for both embellishment and functional visible mending.
~Youngmin will share with us beautiful traditions from the Korean textile universe: Bojagi and Jogakbo. Bojagi, Korean wrapping cloths were used to wrap, cover, carry and store objects. Bojagi were used not only for daily life but also for special occasions and religious rituals. Many Bojagi in the traditional society were made for practical reasons as well, with specific utilitarian purposes. The act of making Bojagi also carries with it wishes for the well-being and happiness of its recipients. Labor of love and prayers as memory are infused into each Bojagi. During the rigid Confucian society of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), women were taught to be patient, frugal, while allowing few intellectual activities. Making Bojagi must have been one of the few creative outlets permitted to women, resulting in beautifully composed works. Jogakbo, or patchwork Bojagi, embodies the philosophy of recycling, as they are made from remnants of leftover fabric. Thoughtfully arranged shapes and colors in Bojagi often show very modern and abstract compositions as well as Korean women’s creative sensibilities. Youngmin will share techniques such as Gamchimjil, Ssamsol, Settam Sangchim for Jogakbo construction. Mosi (ramie) and Oksa (slub- textured Korean silk) will be introduced in her workshop.
You will spend a day with each teacher, with plenty of time for inspirational wanderings. On the fourth day we will have a small field trip to the coast, and a couple of fabulous local fabric stores. Or if you prefer, you can go for a swim, take a hike, do some stitching, some reading, or whatever your heart desires. This year we are tacking on another day for play, rest, discovery, or whatever your heart desires...! The fabric swap has proven itself in years past, so it’s returning. In the interests of both consuming less and moving fabric through the community outside of the world of commerce. The primary focus will be on slowing down, taking time, connecting to your practice, the community, and your inner voice. Evenings will be open for more stitching, conversing, knitting, star gazing, cricket concerts, Loon appreciation, and anything else you might like to do in Maine in July....
Chawne Kimber
Chawne is a quilter and embroiderer known for detailed pixelated stitch portraits and for her use of bold colors in her original improvisational quilt designs. She has never shied away from a challenge due to tedium and has never met a color she didn't think had potential. Hand piecing, hand quilting, and very, very, slow machine stitching are just her speed. When not stitching, Chawne can be found knitting, teaching math, or proving theorems. You can see more of her work on her blog, Completely Cauchy.
Jessica Marquez
Jessica is a life long maker who found her way back to textiles while working on an MFA in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. After countless hours working digitally, retouching images and staring at a computer screen she longed for hands-on analog making. She taught herself embroidery and then never stopped stitching. In 2008 she started a creative handmade business, Miniature Rhino, named after a young cousin's imaginary friend, a dentist she called Dr. Rhino. Miniature Rhino became a symbol of creativity and imagination and seeks to inspire and teach hands-on skills through a line of embroidery kits, patterns, classes and books. She's taught through out the country, internationally and online through Craftsy classes in embroidery and photography. Her work has been featured in publications including, Grace Bonney's bestselling book, In the Company of Women, Real Simple, Bust, Country Living, and InStyle magazine. She's written two books Make and Mend (Ten Speed, 2018) and Stitched Gifts (Chronicle, 2012), and a regular contributor to online and print publications such as Mollie Makes and Design*Sponge.
Youngmin Lee
Youngmin is a textile artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her interest in textiles led her to major in Clothing and Textiles in Korea. She worked as a fashion designer for 2 years in Seoul and received MFA in Fashion Design in Seoul Korea. After she moved to California with her family in 1996, she started creating textile art by hand stitching and sewing. She chose Bojagi (Korean wrapping cloth) as her creative medium and presented workshops on Korean Textile Arts including Bojagi workshops at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Oakland Museum, Richmond Art Center, Mendocino Art Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh PA, Textile Art Council of de Young Museum and numerous textile guilds and quilt shows including Festival of Quilts in Birmingham U.K. In addition to teaching in person, Youngmin created the DVD Bojagi: The Art of Wrapping Cloths in 2013 to reach people from afar. Teaching Korean traditional stitching art and sharing Korean culture take an important part in Youngmin’s life. She founded the Korean Textile Tour in 2017 to introduce Korean traditional textile art and culture. She leads the tour annually. Youngmin’s bojagi works have been exhibited and collected throughout the United States and abroad.
If your time in Maine opens up even more pathways to creativity, our good friend, Katherine Ferrier will offer up her workshop, Making, Being, and Being Made, Contemplative Writing for Makers, again this year. Folks who are interested can sign up for this two hour workshop on site.
Katherine Ferrier is familiar to those who have spent any time at an AGOS event, but for those new to this forum, she is a poet, dancer, maker, teacher, curator, and community organizer. Her research grows out of a deep practice of paying poetic attention to the world, and lives in the intersecting communities of movers, makers, writers and activists. A self-taught quilter, she has improvisationally designed and constructed nearly 100 quilts, drawing on her studies, both formal and independent, of movement, poetics, painting, and architecture, among other forms. She is the Director of the Medomak Fiberarts Retreat in Washington, Maine, and has recently expanded her fluency as a maker by embracing felting, weaving, and natural dyeing. She regularly teaches and performs throughout the US and abroad, and believes in patchwork as a radical practice of being patient, saying yes, and making space for everyone at the table.
Registration includes lodging in a cabin with one roommate, all meals, and all instruction for six days. The cabins are rustic and spare, but modern and comfortable. Please do note that many of the cabins are in the woods, and require an uphill walk. If mobility is an issue for you, please contact me when you register. There is a limited number of private cabins available for an extra $200. Let me know quickly if this is your preference. If you are coming with a friend, just let me know when you register and I'll put you in the same cabin. There are even a few cabins for three people, if you’re coming with friends. We can accommodate most dietary restrictions within reason, just alert us to your needs in advance.
A supply list will be sent out at least a month in advance of your arrival in Maine.
Otherwise, all you have to do is get yourself here, I'll take care of the rest. I will send out recommendations for what to wear and bring in advance. I send very detailed emails about how to get here, what to bring, how to prepare. Read them when they show up, most everything you could need will be in there…
Our fabulous massage therapist, Lori Cressler will return to further assist in slowing us all down.... Massages can be scheduled on site.
The food at camp is simple, wholesome, and satisfying. Please notify me of food allergies, or if you are Vegetarian (specify if you do/do not eat dairy, eggs, fish, etc…) , but we suggest that unless you have a specific condition, you will find plenty to nourish you during your time at camp.
Medomak Retreat Center is in Washington, Maine, about 80 minutes from the Portland airport, 3 hours drive from Boston, 7 hours drive from NYC. Washington is only 30 minutes inland from Camden. The campus has 250 acres of blueberry fields and forest, with trails for hiking, tennis courts, and lakefront where canoes and kayaks are available. The cabins are clean but spare and you have two choices of arrangements. Share a cabin with one other for the $1,700, or if you'd like a more intimate experience pay another $200 for a private cabin, just let me know your preference in the form and I will adjust your registration fee. Do note that there is a limited number of private cabins available.
In order to give you plenty of time to check, and double check, your schedule, and confer with partners, bosses, children, parents, and pets, to make sure this will work for you, I delay the opening of registration. This year registration will open Sunday March 1st at 3:00pm EST. I will send an email to my newsletter group when registration opens. If you want to be notified when registration is open, you should sign up for the newsletter, spots have gone quickly in the past….. You will need to pay a non-refundable deposit to register, and then arrangements can be made for how to pay your balance.