Turtle Art Camp with Susan Shie
Five day fine arts painting workshop / retreat for
adult students, with artist / instructor Susan Shie,
in a Biosphere-like living and working situation. Helping people find their instinctive and joyful aritist's voice since 1994. Specializing in drawing, painting and writing with airbrush and airpen, but also with regular drawing tools and brush painting.
TURTLE MOON STUDIOS
Wooster, Ohio. Read what Wikipedia says about Wooster.
Read local info about Wooster.
Above right: Jimmy guides Nancy Matthews through working on a fabric doll with leather.
New! List of Turtle Art Camp listings for 2009:
All camps have a Wednesday travel-in day, followed by five days of class, then a Tuesday travel-out day.
Feb 4 – 10
March 25 – 31
May 6 – 12
June 3 – 10
July 1 – 7
August 26 – Sept 1
Oct 14 – 20
Nov 4 - 10
Above dates are the scheduled Turtle Art Camps for 2009. Camps can have from 2 to 5 students, five only if two students know each other well enought to be willing to share the bedroom that has two twin beds in it. Otherwise, we can have four students max, with each one having her own bedroom. I can also teach a camp for your group at your location. Let's talk.
Come here to learn to open up to your very intuitive inner self, the self you were coonected to well, when you were a child. Within a six-hours-per day, structured class schedule, you'll learn spontaneous drawing and painting for storytelling, and making intuitive diary work on fabric. You'll make one fat-quarter sized painting on fabric a day and machine quilt at least one of the fabric paintings into a finished piece. You'll use marker, airpen, brush painting, and airbrush, but don't have to try all of these processes if you don't want to. Camp fee includes all art supplies for basic projects, tuition, room, and partial board (breakfast, lunch, and snacks). Also my husband Jimmy makes one airport trip on each of the two travel days, to pick up students and take them back.
Students’ expenses are: flights or driving expenses, personal incidentals, and five evening dinners out together.
Camp fee is $1,000. per person for full, five-class-day camp, and $200 per day per person for mini camps made when two or more people who know each other decide to create a camp together.
Students must be at least 18 years old. The studios are in the basement, so it’s very important that all students can go up and down stairs comfortably. If only one person signs up for a given camp, they will have the choice of moving to another camp or getting a refund of their deposit. This is the only reason that a deposit will be returned.
We have four student bedrooms and one student bathroom which is shared by all students. There are two other bathrooms that can be used when needed. Our home and studios are smoke-free. We have cats, but keep the house and studios very clean.
Thank you! I hope you can find time in your schedule to come study with me in Wooster. Please read the full information about Turtle Art Camp, before you contact me. Thank you!
All camps are from first Wednesday of each month to the next Tuesday, including the two travel days and five actual class days in between travel days. All Turtle Art Camps are held at our home and studios in Wooster, Ohio.
Regular full time camp costs for each student are $1000 per person, with a half payment made to reserve a space. Please make all checks payable to Turtle Moon Studios. Your student fee includes: tuition, art supplies for basic projects, room, and partial board (breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.). All students are responsible to pay for personal incidentals and their own dinners each night, as we choose one local restaurant and eat out together each night. (Students may attend less days of camp, prorated at $200 per day per person, plus dinners.) All part time students who fly in must pay for land transportation, when not flying on our regular travel days. So they may need to rent a car.
Also if TWO or more students want to take a short class that's not part of an already scheduled camp, we can have a camp of any length, any time we can agree on the scheduling for it. This is extra nice for Ohio students, who can drive here in a short time. Again, shorter classes are $200. per person per day for tuition, room, basic art supplies, and partial meals. When you have a shorter camp, you will have less processes to study, based on time. Similarly, if you take only part of a regularly scheduled camp, you will be studying the part of the syllabus that the full camp has for the given days you've chosen. In other words: less days, less learned. I hope you can attend a full camp, but sometimes that doesn't work.
Before you sign up, be sure you read all the camp information here, pleases. Then call us or email, to make sure we have space for you in the camp you want. After that, send your deposit of $500. in a check made out to Turtle Moon Studios, and we'll sign you up and start sending more information, including how to schedule flights, driving directions, etc. Thank you!
Come here to study and open up to be a lot more free in your art making, to be able to bring your inner creative instincts out into your work.
Work with my techniques for: drawing, writing, painting on fabric, airpen, airbrush, and crazy grid machine sewing. I used to teach a lot of hand sewing techniques, as well, but the focus now is on painting and writing on the fabric, to make paintings for diary art quilts. I teach most of my painting methods when I teach at other places, but I only teach airbrush here at home. I use Aztek double action airbrushes (supplied), which are extremely user friendly.
You must be 18 or older to be a student here, and we accept 2 - 5 students per session. A fifth student may attend, if two people come together and are willing to share the bedroom with two twin beds in it. With less students, each has her own bedroom during camp. All bedrooms are on the main floor of the house. The workshop studios are in the basement, so you must be able to go up and down stairs comfortably.
Camps are held at Turtle Moon Studios, in Wooster, Ohio, for both living and studio work, making this a very holistic experience. You will be part of our family for a week! Ya gotta like cats, but we promise that it's very clean here. References are available from former campers.
Come and take a five day diary painting class in a warm and friendly setting. We began teaching at home this way in 1994, and although Jimmy used to teach a little during each camp with me, I now teach by myself. If you want to know more about us and our home, browse through my online Turtle Trax Diary, which I began in 1997, and for which all pages are still here on the site, with lots of pix and stories, some from Turtle Art Camps.
Costs of Turtle Art Camp:
You pay $1000 tuition for the class. For that you get me teaching for six hours a day, every day of the main five day class. During the class time and evenings, you can always take a break for your own quiet time and space. Art supplies for the basic projects are provided in your fee, but you can still shop locally for special things you want, like specific fabrics for your dream project (or for stashing.) If you want to do more than the basic projects of five fat-quarter paintings and quilting one of them, then you can buy extra supplies from me or shop locally.
You pay for your own evening meals, and we eat suppers out together, like a big family. We'll eat breakfast and lunches here, with you making your own breakfast, when you're ready, and us making lunch together. Students help with kitchen cleanup. Thanks in advance!!!! Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are included in your fee, along with your lodging.
We ask for a $500. (one half) deposit, sent as soon as possible, to hold your place in camp. This is not refundable, but if you have to cancel, it will apply toward your rescheduled camp, or toward buying some of my art. (A refund is made only if you're the only person signed up for a camp that I'm cancelling, and you are unable to switch to another scheduled camp, so I can have at least two students.) When I receive the deposit, I'll send you more information about camp, including flight time planning, driving directions, etc. The second $500. will be due at the end of your camp. Please make all checks payable to Turtle Moon Studios.
Possible evening activities include: local shopping, such as going to Pat Catan's for art supplies you may "need," JoAnn Fabrics for adding to your stash, walking in the neighborhood, and of course, working in the studio after hours, as late as you want. We take one morning to go downtown and have breakfast there, before touring some special stores that only Wooster has to offer! (That evening we work in the studio late, with me teaching, so we can make up the time we spent in town.) I really love our downtown, with its food co-op, fabric and bead stores, and antique mall. Also, for full time camps, not mini camps, I'll do an astrology lecture during class if you like, and can set up students' birth charts, if you send ahead your birth date, time, and location. I'm not really good with Tarot cards, but own some nice decks.
At left, students Jane Roberson and Jan
Cabral with Jimmy and our sweet old dog who's gone now, Hattie Spooler, at our
Turtle Art Camp, August, 1997
Fly into Cleveland Hopkins Airport by 4:30 pm on the first day of camp, and fly out shortly after 12:00 noon on the last day. We'll coordinate one pick-up and one return airport trip per class. Jimmy meets you at the baggage claim. Or drive and arrive at 6:00 PM on the travel-in, first day of camp.
Bio:
I've been making art in many media all my life, but mostly drawing, painting, and writing, since early childhood. All I ever really planned to be was an artist, since art was what I was totally passionate about. Jimmy and I met in 1976, and I used to help him in his leather shop, besides making my paintings. I made my first art quilt in 1981, as part of my senior project at The College of Wooster, And by 1989, Jimmy started helping me in making what I call Outsider Art Quilts. We've received two NEA Individual Artist Grants as well as many Ohio Arts Council grants. I have an MFA from Kent State University School of Art, BA from The College of Wooster, and received the Quilt National "Best of Show" award in 1987. We've taught at many national schools and workshops, including Q/SDS, Haystack, Arrowmont, Worcester, Penland, CraftSummer, Peters Valley, in China and Ireland, as well as doing residencies in museums and universities around the US. We've also taught a lot with school children. Now Jimmy's not teaching with me at all, but I teach many workshops "out," as well as my Turtle Art Camps here at home.
Our kids: Gretchen, Mike, and Eva (our granddaughter) live in Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland, an hour north of us. I took care of Eva when she was a baby, til she was one and a half, and during that time, I didn't teach anywhere, since I lived in Lakewood part of each week. But I kept my artmaking going at night and continued to show my work throughout my nanny time. The time constraints of this period, along with acquiring numbness in my fingertips, helped push me toward emphasizing my painting and writing and moving from hand sewing to machine work for my quilting. GEM is the acronym I use to reference my kids, and they continue to show up in my art, with Eva now going on four years old. It's a very exciting time to be grandparents!
In my life, my work has evolved from me working alone with mixed media painted quilts, to adding Jimmy as a collaborator and co-teacher, to going back to me making art by myself and teaching solo. And with the addition of airpen to my processes (along with the time and hand issues I mentioned above), I've shifted my work style to much more written-on, unembellished, painted and machine sewn diary quilts. I expect this current format to be my focus for many years to come, but you never know...!
Jimmy is very involved in his fly fishing case making. There is no one in the whole world doing what Jimmy is doing with leather. His cases are made from scratch, all by one artist (though I still consult on painting and help make up drawings and lettering.) He's known as the world's foremost maker of fine status-symbol, collectible fly fishing cases, custom ordered by devotees of fine workmanship. Each case is signed, numbered, and dated, and there is a long waiting list for getting one of Jimmy's rod cases, flasks, fly cases, reel cases, or other custom work. We still help each other with our work, but Jimmy stopped teaching out with me some years ago, and now, with the revival of Turtle Art Camps, he is not doing any teaching.
TURTLE MOON STUDIOS:
We're located one hour south of Cleveland, in the wooded suburban north end of Wooster, a pretty nice and safe city of 30,000 or so. We have The College of Wooster and a branch of Ohio State University, The Agricultural Technical Institute. There's a lot of rolling farmland and a really good Art Center here. Our community includes the largest Amish settlement in the world, so the scenery and cultural mix are fascinating! Wooster has Matsos - the best Greek restaurant we know of! And a wonderful Mexican restaurant, El Canelo. We have plenty of places to eat that are not chains, all within short drives. Yea!
This is my Medicine
Wheel out in the backyard. Peaceful
place to meditate.
Our home and studios are nestled in a large Jetsons style 60's brick ranch with five bedrooms and three full baths, fully air conditioned, when needed. The studios are in the basement. We don't allow smoking in the house. If you have cat allergies, let's talk, because we have cats. Some cat-allergic students have come anyhow and survived well, taking their allergy meds.
SO WHEN CAN YOU COME??
After reading the information above, call or email to set up your camp experience. A one-half deposit locks in your spot and starts our communication.
Let's do it soon! Hope you can come!
Turtle Moon Studios
Susan Shie and James Acord
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Web site created by Susan Shie and Jan Cabral ©1997. All subsequent website work done by Susan Shie ©1997 - 2008.
This page updated by Susan Shie, November 20, 2008
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