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Creative Arts Camp was a wonderful week with fabulous people in a beautiful place. Everyone was busting past limits, all while being supported and loved. It was great to be with people who were positive and kind, and creatively working to glorify God in their own individual way. The many photos below, as well as the snips of conversations and vignettes only capture a small slice of what this lovely week was like. I’m so grateful to have been a part of it.

• One of the themes of the week was “Progress takes off human shackles.” (MBE SH page 256) and boy did we see this born out across the board. Everyone made progress and some made dramatic breakthroughs. It was awe-inspiring to be a part of, and exciting to see participants get their wings and soar free.
• In the zillion photos in this post, I’m sure I didn’t get everyone, and some of you are in here multiple times. These are posted in low resolution, so if any of you attendee/blog-readers want a copy of something for yourself, let me know and I’ll send it to you in higher resolution.
• All these photos were taken with my iPhone, since I was preaching that a smartphone was sufficient. It did pretty well, don’t you think, even under some very difficult lighting conditions?
• My photography class can now explain to you why each of these photos has merit and works as a composition. When I saw how many photos I had, I pulled the spectacular sunset photos and will posted them separately as a group (check them out here).
• The photo above is the group (whoever was at the last morning meeting) and the first photo below is the staff. It was an honor to be included in the staff this year.
• The week flew by without me getting a chance to even talk to everyone! But those conversations I had, I thoroughly enjoyed. I kept writing down little bits of talk, which I’ve included in these notes here.
• “The condition of my condition is I have no condition.”
• One participant’s Aunt Agnes said to a reporter on her 100th birthday that her secret of success was, “to have peace in your heart and see love everywhere.”
• It was fun to have two sets of sisters there this year, as well as two mother/daughter combos.
• I’m told to check out Billy Collins as a poet, and this note is to remind me to do it.
• “What part of ALL do you not understand?”
• “The belief and the believer are one.”
• “Every healing is realizing you are already well.”
• “Our goal is not to become better mortals, but less mortal.”
• “yes, AND…”
• Be spontaneous.
• Participants have used the following to self publish books of poetry: Lulu.com and blurb.com
• Direct yourself to what you know and the rest will reveal itself.
• God is the only Creator; we just reflect, express, and manifest that.
• “Jump right in!”
• Don’t worry; be happy.
• “There is nothing in God’s law that requires healing to be delayed.”
• “Don’t take yourself so seriously.”
• Mary Baker Eddy was way ahead of the world on gender issues.
• I enjoyed a memorial slide show of Glenn Felch who I took watercolor classes with at this camp in 2008 and 2009. He had been very supportive and encouraging of my work. I appreciated his thoughtful questions and his wholehearted validation of my approach to art. The slide show was lovely, and he will be missed.
• We had a presentation on fabulous poet Peter Henneker-Heaton, who was healed of a 9.5 year case of paralysis through dedicated Christian Science treatment. His writings were always informed by this healing.
• We had a concert of songs by Alex Cook, complete with poems of his (one of which I blogged here during camp). His class painted a mural in the public library in Harrison, Maine, which is close to camp. It came out amazingly well, especially considering how short a time in which they had to do it!
• We had an inspiring talk by Artist in Residence Karen Montanaro (see my blog post here), and playwright Joan read from her play. Visual artists collaborated on water media, and printmakers made tunnel books. There was an improv/comedy show one evening that I missed because I was doing spiritual healing work. I heard it was great though, and there certainly was a lot of laughter coming across the lake from the venue!
• People bared their souls in improv and comedy classes, sang their hearts out, and beginners learned to draw. Generally people crashed through barriers, applauded by those around them that wept at the triumphs.
• Photographers learned to see God’s thoughts everywhere, instead of matter. They learned to see that it is consciousness that makes a good photograph. They learned how and when to change focus and aperture on their Smartphones, and the power of cropping out what is extraneous. They learned the effect love and respect has when taking photos of people, and learned to look at things with different perspectives. See their photos of camp here.
• Sweet children’s books were written, and so were poems.
• “There’s not only a solution, there is a perfect solution.”
• We watched “Miriam,” an inspiring show utilizing a life-sized puppet that effectively dramatized the Bible story around Moses’ sister.
• We did Bible study and sang hymns in daily morning meetings and in church.
• I led the Wednesday evening testimony meeting where the comments from the attendees were mostly in the vein of the blessing of sharing Christian Science not only among family members, but out in their communities, including stories of sharing with those of transgender, as well as the local policeman.
• This program is largely women; we’d love to have more men! This program has a lot of return attendees (for to come means to want to come back) but also welcomes and easily integrates newcomers. Everyone is loved, and embraced.
• “Let us surrender our thoughts to the divine Mind that made us. Let us realize divine Love is actually–literally– thinking us.”
• “It’s not your job to make your human voice perfect– concentrate on expressing God’s perfect voice. Listen to God’s voice and reflect.”
• “Silence is violence.” (said during an unheated political conversation.)
• “It’s not what I I I want to say, it’s what You [God] are saying and want said.”
• “There’s a pre-existing Voice that we can be part of that we can connect with but that is not us.”
• We had an evening activity of going around the large circle and each sharing an example of how God had spoken directly to us. This was very profound. There were examples of God helping at those moments when needed most (like when being kidnapped and trapped in the trunk of a car!) and also being given clear directions into the unknown to solve something not at all important. God came to some people as a voice, clearly articulated, and to some as a healing idea, or an unexpected insight, or a compelled redirection. Sometimes God needed to repeatedly say whatever to get us to be obedient, sometimes God whispered in a still small voice a reassurance or an amazing solution. We all knew this voice as outside our thought and not something we had generated. We can extrapolate this to know that God is speaking to everyone everywhere in a way they can hear!
• I gave my PowerPoint talk on Abstraction: From Impressionism to Non-Objective Art (see blog about it here).
• The table full of expensive Coloraid papers offered to the Color Class to work with was drool worthy.  Thank you to the teacher for giving me some at the end of camp to play with!
• A highlight for me was swimming to Cherry Island and back (1/2 mile) with a lovely chat along the way. It was not an athletic event but an early morning lolly-gag on a beautiful, still lake, in misty sunshine. We were accompanied by kayakers, and both the water and the camaraderie felt sublime. This was followed by conversation and donuts in the sun. A perfect Saturday morning.
• See the products of my part-time Artist in Residence work here and here, while most of the time I was focused on teaching and on other people.
• It was great to see what can happen when you are in a supportive environment! It makes me want to encourage all of us to take that notion and go out into the world and create supportive environments everywhere.
• Scroll all the way to the end not to miss any photos!

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