Monday, September 7th
I’m loving the slow start to this Camino, our choice to have a three-day retreat before we start walking our 100-km pilgrimage.
Yesterday, in our orientation session, I welcomed the group and we talked about what it means to be on a pilgrimage. Andre went over group ground rules rooted in respect, self-care, and self-responsibility, talked what it means to travel in a large group (there are 16 of us, including the three leaders), then led us in some group stretching. Brenda went over health and safety guidelines, handed out the art kits she’d put together for us, and we had our first group art lesson, playing with color, paint, and materials.
Today, after breakfast, we spent the morning in a long, leisurely first writing session.
Even after teaching writing for more than 25 years, the first time people read their writing out loud in a new class or retreat is still thrilling for me—each voice, each story, each response to the same prompt—so unique.
Yesterday, we’d all had a chance to introduce ourselves—where we were from, what we were leaving behind, why we’d chosen this particular journey. Each of us shared hopes for our journey—typical introductory questions.
But this morning’s session was different because we were meeting each other as writers. After I laid out the groundrules for our writing circle, I described several different ways we’d utilize writing on our pilgrimage. Then we entered silence, everyone set pen to paper, and we wrote to the prompt: “Since I’ve come to Spain….”
Rather than let our words fester in our notebooks, I encouraged people to read their work out loud. That led to a different level of personal sharing. Our writing voices revealed who we are beneath the surface, ushering a deeper level of truth and vulnerability into the room. It always works that way. Every time.
I loved listening to members of this group read their initial writings—windows into their inner worlds: “This is where I’m starting from.” “This is what I’m thinking about.” “This is where I am in my life.” “This is why I think I’m here.”
Each time a new group comes together in their first class—whether they’re new writers, published authors, lifelong journalers, or people who haven’t picked up a pen in years—reading their writing out loud, revealing their unique writing voices, is an intimate sharing that never fails to move me.
Andre put together a great lunch spread for us. And in the afternoon, we spent a couple of hours with Brenda, learning to use our art kits, and practicing basic watercolor techniques.
Each of us got a kit that looked like this:
My favorite item in the art kit is a new addition this year, a white cuff for wiping color off paint a brush before dipping the brush in a new color. As you can see, I’ve already made good use of mine.
Brenda is a remarkable art teacher for beginners and experienced painters as well. She’s taught me how to see!
Here she is giving an demonstration.
Brenda led us through several exercises. I especially loved the one where she gave each of us a square of watercolor paper that had a color or a gradation of colors painted on it. Then she sent us out in nature and asked us to match the color on our card with something that reflected the same color palette in nature.
Here’s a sampling of what we found:
In the next exercise, Brenda sent us out to try to mix the colors that we were observing in nature. This one was a lot more challenging for me.
I was trying to create the colors of this tree, especially its lichen.
I failed miserably. At least that’s how it felt to me. None of the colors I attempted to mix looked like the colors I was trying to create. I couldn’t replicate a single color. I didn’t even come close. During the twenty minutes allotted for this exercise, I felt frustrated and discouraged. My monkey mind was shouting at me: I’ll never be able to mix colors. I can’t learn this. I’ll never learn to paint. This is too hard. I can’t do it.
And, for me, that was a good thing.
I believe it’s essential for teachers to regularly be students as well. It’s important for me to put myself in a situation where I’m attempting something I’m not good at—and may never be good at. In adulthood, many of us spend our lives doing things we’ve already mastered. It’s liberating to try something new, to take the risk to be a rank beginner. Painting definitely checks that box for me. I don’t know what I’m doing or how to do it. Struggling to paint puts me in touch with how vulnerable my students feel, how often they want to give up, how hard it is for them to share their first drafts, how likely they are to compare themselves to others and come up short. It helps me realize how much my assignments challenge them.
It makes me a more compassionate teacher.
What Brenda and I Have Learned Teaching Art and Writing Together
This is the third time Brenda and I have taught side by side. Each time we sit in and observe each other’s classes, we notice how often we talk about the same ideas:
- We encourage students to see writing and painting as an exploration rather than just a means to finished product.
- We stress that writing and art are processes of discovery.
- We urge our students to approach the page with curiosity and openness, to embrace “beginner’s mind.”
- We see mistakes as something to be embraced and integrated into the whole.
- We ask people to think about the focal point in what they’re creating. In both mediums, the creator needs to consider, “What is the story I want to tell?”
After art class, we walked to a local restaurant for dinner. It was the first time we’d walked together as a group, and seeing our Camino pilgrims spread out before me took my breath away.
We were really doing this. This was really happening.
