past STONE BOAT ARTIST RETREATs
Highlights, faces, and voices from past SBAR participants
Andrea Werhun (Author, summer 2019)
I was three months fresh from a concussion when the five days of SBAR arrived. Quote Unquote Collective’s artist’s retreat was exactly what I needed to prove to myself that while I was brain damaged, I was still a writer. For those five days, I set a nearly impossible goal for myself: the completion of the first 50 pages of my debut novel. Locked in my very own private cabin and surrounded by a roaming pack of cows, I got to work. The days followed a rigorous schedule: optional morning yoga led by Norah (which, for the record, we all chose to opt-in), four hours of morning work, a communal lunch, followed by four more hours of work in the afternoon, capped off with a mandatory cocktail hour, and finally, dinner. This structure meant I could write five pages in the morning, and five more pages after lunch. To my own surprise, the 10 by 10 by 10 of pages began to add up each day, and by Friday, there I was, leaving SBAR with the first 50 pages of my novel.
Besides the sheer volume of content produced, I had the opportunity to not only share my work with my SBAR peers, but to be influenced by their works-in-progress as well. One cherished evening, I cast characters and together we all read an excerpt from the novel, as the artist’s voices brought my work to life. In that moment, I felt supported, encouraged, and inspired to continue writing, long after our magical time at SBAR had come to an end. A lively unrelated conversation even gave birth to my protagonist’s full name: Nicoletta Wintergreen.
My novel is slated for completion at the end of April 2020, and I am convinced to my core that without SBAR, “I’ll Take Care of You” might not exist. The structure of the days, the camaraderie between artists, and the glorious natural environment of SBAR showed this unsure, post-concussed writer that she could still write, and for that I will be forever grateful.
bad luck woman and her misfortunes (fall 2017)
It’s incredible what a little fresh air, space, time, and outdoor oven pizza can do for creativity and productivity. We’ve been a band for over two years now, learning covers and old favourites, always talking about how we’d someday buckle down and work on some originals, and never getting around to it. For me, my Toronto pace of life makes writing an impossible task...I’m not someone who so easily scribbles a few lines over morning coffee and then finishes the song that night over a nightcap. I need time. And space.
Before embarking on our little SBAR getaway, I was so anxious that we wouldn’t have enough time to get anything done. I thought “no way will four days be sufficient…”. At the same time, I was worried that four days was too long for my bandmates to be together in the middle of nowhere with no Netflix….I feared they’d get bored, stir-crazy, uninspired. I was wrong! It was the perfect length of time.
We arrived casually on Monday afternoon, instruments and supplies in tow. I felt so proud showing my bandmates the grounds and the house, knowing my way around from previous visits. I pointed out pictures of Amy on the fridge and explained the mysterious letters hanging around the kitchen. I wished that we weren’t having that unexpected bout of September heat, because I’d been so excited to fire up the wood stove...my favourite part about the farm! I explained about the ghost, and the rule of not locking one of the bathroom doors and leaving out the other.
After goofing around a bit, daring each other to venture into the basement, and struggling to get the record player working, we got to work. We quickly moved the furniture out of the parlour to the side porch, and got ourselves settled into our new studio. Drums, keyboard, bass, and guitar all set up, we were ready to make some noise.
We spent the better part of that night jamming, experimenting with various ideas, drinking, and laughing. Coming from a lifestyle where minutes are so precious, and urgency, stress, and pressure constantly rule over my workflow and stifle my creativity, it took me a while to relax into this new method of work. We were there with a goal, yes, but in order to achieve it, we had to take our time and allow the creative process to unfold organically. This is something I feel I “never have time for” at home and precisely the reason why I had suggested we go to Stone Boat.
Over the next couple days, we slowly found our rhythm. We spent mornings at the kitchen table (over coffee!) writing lyrics, afternoons dispersing to work individually, evenings coming together to finesse the ideas of the day, and nights jamming and coming up with new ideas to be explored the next day. Though we had come with a rough schedule in mind, we were flexible and allowed our needs to dictate the day. We took breaks, went for walks, made pizza in the pizza oven (singed a few hairs in the process!), watched movies, read decade-old entries in the guest books, and looked at the stars.
We came away with a start to what could be our next record: ten songs, some completed, some nothing more than an idea or a riff, and several in a half-done state, to be finalized and polished back at home.
A remarkably experience for us as a band. I, for one, dream of returning to Stone Boat daily.
CELIA GREEN (SUMMER 2019)
Dreaming dancing eating good food, exploring, loving. Dancing late night in the barn, magic hour dancing hour.
All of these people are powerful artists, I can tell, but also very humble, lovely, generous people.
Doubting. Is it healthy? Is it? I’m not sure.
The power of people giving me energy. Part of me feels I wouldn’t have been able to go as deep this week if it weren’t for: the lightness and support of nine other people working alongside
the sunshine at lunch
laughing with others
easy togetherness
giving me strength in so many ways
Now I actually never want to leave here.
Celeste’s work coming to life looking more and more body-like. Spread out on the grass. How nice to really SEE their progress.
Is this communal living? Everyone gently looking out for each other? This week is flesh and connective tissue beginning to form. Somehow I am not bone tired. Every morning I rise with lightness. Every night I don’t want to go to sleep.
Pascal shared a story that felt alive. Read to us aloud to us outside in the sun and the breeze with cocktails in hand. What could be sweeter. Little girl killing a rabbit.
Shared Bilal and I’s work from the week and there was loaded silence afterwards. It felt....weighted and powerful.
Danced late last night but not even that late. Dancing inside the barn AND right outside so I can still hear the music but be under the stars. Some wild animals screeching right after we spoke about wolves- sounded like an opera.
The sacredness of the piggery when Norah and Amy were sharing songs. The pitter patter of the roof.
Whispers in the barn. How do we all be together and see each other and listen and share all at the same time?
Reading Andrea’s novel out loud in the living room and being able to feel and taste the world so strongly.
Final morning scraping the last bit of Nutella from the jar. Getting up early to walk the property. Wearing kind of a funny outfit of rainboots and my sleep shirt. I take a self portrait in the giant field in the morning light. Flies buzzing around me like they want to tell me something.
Cleaning out the barn space that held us for the week.
Hugs and goodbyes.
Feeling so thankful.
sandy Carson (fall 2015)
And rather like a dream, five days at the Stone Boat Artist Retreat drift together in my memory. A hazy mosaic, an oneiric collage. An unstructured meditation on the pastoral, and the possibilities of new friendship... Seated at the kitchen table, a warm stove at my back. Outside, the sound of chopping wood. In the next room, faint laughter. The house itself, a reliquary of souvenirs and family heirlooms, a curious museum that feels both carefully curated and utterly effortless. The walls of each room, lined with elegantly disused collections—guitars, baseball gloves, dusty books—remind me of the cruel beauty of time itself, and the irresistible guile of nostalgia. Upstairs, the VHS tapes of Hollywood movies beside my bed offer to unevenly chronicle a history of American cinema, while pointing opaquely at mythologies that have formed a family ethos—the Nostbakken family—a family I do not know, yet feel some propinquity with. Like them, my family hails from Ottawa, bastion of the federation. I’m reminded of the upcoming election. I’m reading Gore Vidal. Across the room a buzzing fly is throwing itself against a windowpane. I watch without compassion. I’m feeling political.
Another day slices together like an imagist poem. Alternating moments, crisp and languid—the wedding of opposites. My fingers thumb through pages in a magazine. My body ambles through a maze of wooded pathways that surround the farm. I’m a somnambulant protagonist, a willing subject to perpetual reverie. I look upon the valleys of Lanark County and I think about the likelihood that I will one day be buried somewhere in Eastern Ontario, this gentle and unassuming part of Canada from whence I came. All places are distant from heaven alike (I have been told). I glance around: the leaves are brown and brittle here. Autumn is arriving. I tend on mortal thoughts.
Evening approaches and whiskey is poured. The smells of cooking and wood smoke dance together in the kitchen. Amy is chopping large cloves of farmgrown garlic. I open my computer and issue a few perfunctory keystrokes—the sudden compulsion to salvage an hour of good work before dinner. As the sun sets the other residents drift in from various stations—the woodshop, the field, the porch, the parlour. The din of laughter beckons and I turn myself outward. Labour done and revelry begun, we trade stories from the day. We eat and drink and share work. We live out a Decameron tale. It is a tribute to the nourishing powers of communion and narrative. But will it be enough, considering what’s coming?
yan giroux (summer 2019)
Lors de mon passage à la résidence Stoneboat (SBAR) à l’été 2019, j’ai découvert un lieu incroyablement propice à la création, mais surtout une communauté d’artistes inspirants et des organisatrices qui mettent tout en œuvre pour que le séjour soit agréable et confortable.
J’allais à la résidence pour faire évoluer le scénario de mon prochain long-métrage que j’écris en collaboration avec le dramaturge Guillaume Corbeil. Cependant, étant encore aux premières étapes de l’écriture, le moment était propice pour moi de passer du temps seul pour me reconnecter aux enjeux, très personnels, du projet. Dans ce lieu, j’ai pu trouver le calme nécessaire pour poser les bases du scénario qui nous permettent maintenant de compléter notre première version.
La présence d’autres artistes d’horizons diverses m’a aussi permis de pousser plus loin ma réflexion sur mon sujet. Les moments passés en groupe m’ont donné accès à différents points de vue très enrichissants sur mon histoire et les notes prises à l’époque, suite aux discussions, sont encore un terreau fertile pour m’inspirer. Et au-delà de l’aspect créatif, c’est une expérience humaine dont je me souviendrai longtemps.
Liz Peterson & Wildlife (summer 2015)
Inspired by one woman's search for meaning through well-being techniques, Wildlife is a collaborative performance about spirituality and identity. Centred around a talk-show set in an alternate world, two salespeople pitching a new spiritual practice, and re-enactments from nature documentaries, the show combines personal narratives with some impossible propositions.
Our process for making Wildlife began in April 2015, with meetings and dinners culminating in a series of interviews that we shot in Toronto. After a few weeks of hiatus we came back to work in July when we stayed at the Stone Boat Artist Retreat for three nights to figure out how to tie together all the research we had done up to that point. With Norah Sadava of Quote Unquote Collective as our host we were told that anything is possible and everything is at our disposal. We shot a promo video, Norah taught us yoga classes, we worked on an amoeba dance, examined our interview footage, read, wrote, argued, barbecued, jumped into the lake nearby, watched movies, and then got up and did the same thing all over again.
The Nostbakken family who own and operate SBAR left us clean sheets and fruit with the only caveat that we had to write in the guest book. The farmhouse is a beautiful old home with wallpapered rooms and a big farmhouse kitchen. We rehearsed and did yoga in the parlour, which is an amazing time capsule of paintings and furniture and crockery. What a gift to be there. My only regret is that we weren't there longer to fully explore the acres of land around the farmhouse. If you have the chance to attend SBAR at any point, take it!
Angela Lewis (Fall 2016)
We casually drive several hours north in Lucy’s red volvo (my dream road trip car), a week before fall hits, while Stoneboat waits patiently for another week of artists to arrive. The white wooden porch with a roof overhead is the first place I sit after meeting the seven other folks taking part in the retreat. Its colder than I’ve felt in a while, and rain drops are falling all around me. I sit and write in my journal about this very experience; thrilled at the setting I’m in and the clarity I’m feeling. This moment was very impactful and I carried it with me through my entire time at SBAR, as well as when I got back to the city.
During the days I spent most of my time wandering, observing, listening and being alone in the landscape with my camera. Sometimes I felt nervous when I was alone with the expectations to create something, but since leaving SBAR and reflecting on my time there, I've felt very appreciative, focused and motivated to take what I learned in that time and apply it to my process and my self.
Being present in the outdoors and documenting in peacefulness was very necessary to clear my head and move forward. Thanks Stoneboat for the memories, the warm people and meals, and providing a place where I could discover nature’s mysterious ways.
