Taos

Well, since I left my camera behind in Taos and someone else is most likely using it, I have no personal photos to show.  However, the instructor (Jill Badonsky) did send some photos to the participant.  Here are a few to show you our surroundings.

This is the main house that Mabel Dodge Luhan built.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

At the top is the solarium.  It has a fabulous view, but you need to clamber up two sets of stairs, one of which was built to accommodate people under 5'2".  The second is perilously close to being a ladder.

This is the Juniper house, an annex that's about 100 yards from the main house.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

In the center is a large room that we used as our classroom.  My room was on the first floor on the left hand side.  That made it very handy if I forgot something.

One of a couple of fun features of the main house is the pigeon 'hotel' in the front courtyard. 

 

These have been in place since about the same time the house was built as can be seen in some of the old photos.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

 

Then there's this lovely old gate.

According to some information I read while there (and I hope I'm remembering it correctly), the pigeon hotel residents got so lazy, they wouldn't fly out of the way when vehicles drove in through the gate.  Mabel put up a sign telling people not to run over the pigeons.  Finally she just locked the gate to keep the vehicles out.  (Photo taken by Jill Badonsky)

All in all, it was a very lovely setting to be in while trying to jumpstart my creativity.

Papillon

 

Taos and Back

I am a big fan of Jill Badonsky who's an author of books about creativity and the muses who can help you along the way.

I get her e-newsletter and earlier this year she said she was going to have a creativity retreat at the Mabel Dodge Luhan house in Taos, NM.  I thought to myself - I'm just a couple of hours away from there and I've got vacation time - why not?  So I signed up.

I headed to Taos on Tuesday (7/9) afternoon.  There I met up with an amazing group of women.  There were 12 of us in total and it was just the right size.  Enough people to get a variety of viewpoints but not too many that somebody ends up (accidentally) being ignored.

Over the next several days we had a combination of amazing exercises in assorted sessions plus some down time so we could explore in and around Taos.  I had fun in the town plaza looking through and buying from various stores.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan facility is a fun venue.  It's her original house plus an annex a few dozen yards away.  They've done some minor updating (plumbing & that sorts of things), but otherwise it looks pretty much as it did when she was living there.  It's in the Pueblo style with some very low doors and squeaky wood floors.

I stayed in the Nicholai Fechin room in the annex.  Fechin immigrated to the US following the Bolshevik Revolution.  He was a portrait artist.  The room was a good size, but the closet was a bit small.  It did have a nice shower that I enjoyed.

None of the rooms had televisions or phones.  At first there were a few withdrawal symptoms, but I had planned ahead and had brought along some reading material.  I also brought along my laptop since there is a limited Wifi area in the main house.  I got on long enough to check e-mail and otherwise was computer-free as well.

Another nice part of the visit was the rain.  New Mexico has been smack in the middle of a drought for a couple of years now.  This year, it looks like we may actually have rain during the rainy season.
There was enough rain on Tuesday that there was a lovely double rainbow as I headed into town.  Later in the week we had a rain shower that lasted 30 minutes or more.  It started just before we started to do some energy/breathing cleansing exercises.  It lasted through our activities and ended with the sun out as we finished.  Very cool!

All in all, a good time was had.

Papillon