Dan re-worked the Gathering in Warwick somewhat this year. There was less of the "Make and Take" than previous years. He had come to suspect that with emphasis on the projects-to-make, one original purpose was getting lost. The Gathering was to be a time of re-charging, re-balancing.  It was meant as the restful, quiet part of the picnic and not so much all the activities and games.  So this year, in Warwick, the schedule was put together with spaces left for things to develop; there were not several workshops scheduled against each other; Workshops, ("seminars" he started calling them) went on for longer than just 90 minutes.  They might have started with a 90-minutre presentation...just the length of a Dream Cycle... but they were left set-up and people could wander away, come back and again as their energy and interest allowed.  So there was really nothing "to miss".

Here's the ways he put it on the original announcement:

A new feature of this Gathering is that Dan's studio will be open and set-up for exploring and work throughout the event. Dan will present introductions to this feature every two hours starting at 1pm on Friday:   Self-Guided Buffet Workshops Based on Dans new book, The Wayward Artist  One old purpose of the Gathering has been to help people get better at saying and doing things with natural materials. This year, in addition to many step by step workshops, I am adding a slightly different approach: the Woodlander Buffet. YOU can decide what, when and how long to stay with a certain new area of Woodlandering. This is for the Butterflies among us who want to sample and light on as many different areas as possible. It's a learning style that many of us share.

Start in any of several places; or several at once: Go over this list and mark what catches your interest. There are literally hundreds of combinations of each of the following ways to work. Combine one or more together and see what happens.

Exploring MATERIALS: Big Dry Sticks, Medium Dry Sticks, Small Dry Sticks, Green Wood, Driftwood, Barks, Stone, feathers, bones, metals (iron, copper, lead), leather, fur, corn silk, shells

Getting acquainted with different TOOLS: there’s a shop full of old and new tools: Chain saws, carvers, shapers, grinders; What grammar do each of these tools give you? each alone? and then in sequence with each other?

Working SLOWLY: what's a project that might take weeks? Or years. Look at some of Dorothy Gill Barnes's long-term projects.

Working CASUALLY

Go HUNTING in the creek beds, the uplands and forests around here for an hour or so

Be alert to ANIMALS

Exploring LAND ARRANGEMENTS: make some pattern on the land with stone, earth, water; though trimming, pruning. Look at Crop Circles and the book on Land Art. The Medicine Wheel is related to this. So is gardening and particularly memorial gardens. Go to the Warwick cemetery an see what's there.

Work with TEXTURES , SMELLS, SOUNDS

Start with SOMETHING OLD: Indian finds, fossils, stone, antiques, shards

Start with the BROKEN/FIX SOMETHING

Explore ALCHEMY: the operations of burning, reducing, fusing,

The metals, the equipment, the sayings

Start with a container: a BOX or a VESSEL

Something to finish in TEN MINUTES

Something that takes a DAY TO FINISH

Trying different TECHNIQUES:

JOINERY Hot glues, Mortise/Tenon, Knotting, Lashing/Tying, Hot Wax, Woven

SUBTRACTION: carving, lathe work, chainsaw work

Trying different FINISHING TECHNIQUES: burnishing, glazing, charring

Working within certain SIZES: Smalls, Big Logs and Branches

Making FUNCTIONAL things
INTERIOR: Chairs, Tables, Fencing, Shelves, Beds,
GARDEN ITEMS: Trellises, Benches Stools. Accessories

Exporing different SHAPES: spirals, circles, squares

Making IMAGINAL things: wands, fetishes, totems,

Make GIFTS

Make PERSONAL EXPRESSIONS; Work with WHAT POSSESSES YOU: your weaknesses, addictions,

Fine OTHER WAYS to make order, pattern, statement:
  HAIKU , IKEBANA , KUBA CLOTH , ESKIMO ART: transformation objects
  BAULE ART: to glimpse, WABI SABI

Go VISITING

It was a risk because the schedule was a bit "organic" Almost everything got done... But sometimes the next day.

The reactions are coming in:

8/20/07

"Last year, as a first timer barely a month past my first rustic workshop, I felt only partially connected to the group. My focus was on making things and raiding the swap pile. This year, after having spent a year of growing on my own, making chairs for children, sculptures, oddities, after having developed a comfort level with tools and the mysteries of joinery, I really felt like a member of the tribe and wanted to rub up against everyone, absorbing the way they make. The butterfly approach worked for me and I think for many of us because the workshop leaders got to be participators, too. Last year, when Matt did his flutemaking, he was so keen on giving everyone a finished flute that we were manic in our making. This year he relaxed into being himself, so curious and full of questions, so eager to share his own knowledge and discoveries, and to let us play with the lathe. I just wanted to feel what it was like to turn a piece of wood, to balance a cutting tool in my fingers and lay its bevel up against a spinning spindle of wood. I got to do that.

I loved the availability of the latex printmaking, the healers, the woods. I liked the organic pace, with discovery walks, visits to studios, and time to focus on projects. Without thinking or being manic, I made a print, a wand, a turned burl, a garden trellis, a giant grapevine ball. I talked with Claudia about gourds and Cynthia about root sculpture. I listened to Rob and Claudia talk about websites and Mary read from the Medicine cards. I kept an eye on Sean as he moved quietly among us, listening, and saw how so many of us reached out to him. When he brought out his guitar, I knew he had joined us. I imbibed Louis’s wine and Rick’s names of plants. I am filled with wonder and will walk forward with it, wayward artist that I am. And of course, the poems are already spinning around in my psyche, birthing themselves.

Thanks for all—and see you soon.

Nancy "