Arts and adventure in the mountains of West Virginia

Although I’ll be in Taos for a couple more weeks, my thoughts are turning toward home. And, among the things I’m anticipating, when I get back to West Virginia, is watching the progress of a new venture founded by my friend Michael Davis.

Water Gap Retreat is a brand-new series of weekend workshops at Michael’s Shavers Fork riverside property near Elkins, West Virginia. The workshops — led by artists that include Jude Binder, Doug Van Gundy, Anita Skeen, Ruth Blackwell Rogers, Mimi Kibler, Scott Weaner, Jim Van Gundy, Michael and Carrie Kline, Kate Long, Robin Kessinger, and yours truly — will focus on many topics, from mountain geology to mountain music, from writing poetry to baking bread, from origami to organic gardening.

Workshops will begin on Friday evenings and end Sunday after lunch. In between, the time will be filled with campfire gatherings, morning yoga sessions led by Irene McKinney, workshop sessions, field trips, and — this may be my favorite part — fabulous, healthy food prepared by some of the best cooks I know. Even the sleeping quarters are special: riverside camping structures designed especially for Water Gap Retreat by architect Bryson VanNostrand, featuring Michael’s shibori-dyed fabric and Laurie Gundersen’s handmade rugs.

The Water Gap website is brand new. Check it out if you have a chance and let Michael know what you think.

Here’s a picture of the river taken from Michael’s property. It’s a great place for swimming, floating, and fishing, too.

Origami pals

What with all the great paper stores in Taos, I have been making quite a few origami boxes. And people have been asking me to teach them. So today I gave an informal origami workshop at Mondo Kultur, my coffee shop of choice. Four of us appropriated the nice, big table in the corner, and we spent a couple of hours with one of my personal favorite designs, one of Tomoko Fuse’s modular square boxes. In the picture, that box design is the one on the left, orange and red, as well as all the boxes along the right side of the photo. The box with the eight-point star on top is a traditional Japanese masu box (elegantly simple and ingenious), and the hexagonal box at the rear is another of Tomoko Fuse’s modular designs:

I had three students: Toni, Tenney, and Deatria. All three produced excellent artworks. And this was a fine experience for me, too, because I began to learn to fold a box “up-side-down” so that I can sit across from my students, yet orient the paper so that it makes sense from their viewpoint. This is more difficult than you might imagine. Top and bottom, right and left get all mixed up.

If you want to learn to make some origami boxes like these, get Tomoko Fuse’s book Origami Boxes. Better yet, maybe you’ll consider joining me during the summer for a whole origami weekend at Water Gap Retreat, Michael Davis’s new “summer camp for adults” on the Shavers Fork near Elkins. WV. I’ll be telling you more about Water Gap Retreat soon. Stay tuned!

Origami

Now that I have discovered THREE places to buy beautiful paper in Taos, it’s pretty clear how I’ll be spending my spare time (and money). Last night I made a bunch of new cards and origami boxes. Does it go without saying that I am very glad I remembered to bring my paper cutter along?

Today I took a couple of small boxes downtown as a gift for the very sweet salesperson at Paper Day (she says she also has a “terrible paper habit.”) She was delighted, of course, and immediately asked if I could teach her to make them. So I have my first origami date in Taos.

By the way, that cute little teapot in the picture, which has five matching teacups, also came from the Goodwill in Santa Fe. This morning I was reflecting on how the perfect things have suddenly appeared, without too much expense or trouble on my part, just as I needed them. For instance, the window of great weather I had for driving here (I hear there’s a foot of snow in Amarillo now, though there has been very little snow here in Taos). The teapot. Vera’s cappuccino maker — okay, I don’t really NEED that, but I love it.

And, yesterday afternoon, I found the very pen I have been craving. It replaces a pen that Faith gave me a couple of years ago, and which I lost just a day or two before I left West Virginia. I was so annoyed that I wouldn’t be taking my favorite pen with me! I mean, it’s a writing retreat, you know? So, when I came across the very item yesterday, I took it as a sort of sign that The Universe is taking good care of me, and that Julia Cameron is right about abundance. I’m trusting that my writing will go the same way. If only I can stop making origami boxes for long enough to put pen to paper.