Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends

Art

Plein Air Painting with Gouache at Pendle Hill

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Enjoy the fun of painting “en plein air” (in the open air) using the fun and forgiving medium of gouache (opaque watercolor).

Topics will include choosing a subject and creating a composition; starting a painting; understanding value and edges; creating textures to suggest foliage, tree trunks and other surfaces; working with gouache paint; brush handling; paint mixing; understanding hue, value and chroma; and mixing a wide range of colors from a simple limited palette.

The class will include demonstration by the instructor as well as individual instruction at each student’s level of experience.

Come paint and let the troubles of the world fade away for a few relaxing hours.

Topics will include: painting outdoors with gouache; finding a subject and creating a composition; starting a painting; understanding value and edges; creating textures to suggest foliage, tree trunks, grasses and other surfaces; layering and adjusting the thickness of the paint; brush handling; paint mixing; understanding the color characteristics of hue, value and chroma; and mixing a wide range of colors from a simple limited palette.

The class will include demonstrations by the instructor as well as individual instruction at each student’s level of experience.

Tending Grief Through Song & Art

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There is so much to grieve in these extraordinarily challenging times. How can our voices and hands kindle our connection to the grief held in our bodies and souls? What transformation opens to us as we move within our grief?

Rev. Rhetta Morgan will begin our Grief and Art offering with a Tending Grief Song Circle. To give your grief a voice is to tend your heart and the heart of community. One of the benefits of grieving together is to be reminded that we are not alone.

Our community circle will be a place for whatever is on your heart and mind to express, be it the grief associated with aging, personal loss, political conflict and turmoil, or any other hardship you’re carrying.

During the Tending Grief Song Circle, Lucas Meyer-Lee will interweave small, expressive drawing exercises. Through creative activities such as “outlining our hearts,” we will explore the shape and contours of our grief. Finally, to close the Tending Grief Song Circle, Lucas will offer a sculpture practice to hold our grief.

Come, be present and vulnerable. Express all that you are. Listen and be listened to. Be heard and held as we sing, create, and hold each other in the Light.

This space is open to all levels of musical and artistic ability.

 

Leaders

Rev. Rhetta Morgan is a singing healer, spiritual activist, and interfaith minister who has been gathering tools for healing and inspiration for over 40 years. Through her gifts of prayer, poetry, facilitation, and sermonizing, she cultivates hope and nurtures connection in her community as a pathway back to belonging and wholeness. As a facilitator and coach, Rhetta is known for her ability to support others to be bold, heal their self-limiting beliefs, and integrate their internal healing with their social movement work. This support is essential to cultivate the powerful spiritual activism that is needed in these times.

Lucas Meyer-Lee (he/they) is a current Quaker Voluntary Service fellow, working in this capacity as the Education Associate at Pendle Hill. They are a recent graduate of Swarthmore College, where they studied across a wide range of arts and humanities. Lucas has been guided by a lifelong love for visual and literary arts in particular, leading them toward extended engagements with poetry, printmaking, painting, sculpture, graphic design, and boardgame design. In the coming years, they hope to continue their higher education, researching Arabic comparative literature at the graduate level.

Lucas currently serves on the American Friend Service Committee’s Community, Equity, and Justice Board Committee and as the co-coordinator for Friends General Conference’s Adult Young Friend community.

Sacred Threads: Memory Quilting as Spiritual Practice

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Join us for a transformative weekend workshop where art quilting becomes a sacred practice of honoring and preserving cherished memories of personal her/histories and spiritual journeys. Guided by transformative arts facilitator Asake Denise Foye Jones, participants will explore intuitive design techniques, incorporating personal narratives and meaningful symbols into their textile creations. Through reflective exercises and hands-on techniques, you’ll craft a unique art quilt that serves as a tangible manifestation of your precious memories and spiritual journey. The workshop emphasizes quilting as a meditative process with the potential for healing and spiritual growth. This experience offers a unique opportunity to create a tangible artifact of one’s sacred memories, weaving together the threads of past and present into a tapestry of spiritual expression.

This workshop is suitable for experienced sewers who are confident doing hand and/or machine sewing. This is a process class not an instructional sewing class. To get the most out of the experience you must know how to sew on a sewing machine and/or by hand.

Poetry as Spiritual Practice – FGC eRetreat Series

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The Poetry as Spiritual Practice workshop invites you to experiment with words as a way to deepen your connection with your Inner Guide. Participants are welcome to come to any or all three events in this series. No writing or poetry experience necessary. Just bring yourself and writing materials.

In Poetry as Spiritual Practice you will:

  • Read and listen to poets who have come before, from Rumi to the Psalms to Ada Limon, Mary Oliver and others.
  • Write during the workshop in response to mindful writing prompts, with the option to read aloud.
  • Support positively others’ explorations of words and metaphors, and receive support.
  • Explore writing and reading practices that can deepen your everyday connection to Spirit as you understand Spirit.

Poetry as Spiritual Practice – FGC eRetreat Series

Written on:

The Poetry as Spiritual Practice workshop invites you to experiment with words as a way to deepen your connection with your Inner Guide. Participants are welcome to come to any or all three events in this series. No writing or poetry experience necessary. Just bring yourself and writing materials.

In Poetry as Spiritual Practice you will:

  • Read and listen to poets who have come before, from Rumi to the Psalms to Ada Limon, Mary Oliver and others.
  • Write during the workshop in response to mindful writing prompts, with the option to read aloud.
  • Support positively others’ explorations of words and metaphors, and receive support.
  • Explore writing and reading practices that can deepen your everyday connection to Spirit as you understand Spirit.

Poetry as Spiritual Practice – FGC eRetreat Series

Written on:

The Poetry as Spiritual Practice workshop invites you to experiment with words as a way to deepen your connection with your Inner Guide. Participants are welcome to come to any or all three events in this series. No writing or poetry experience necessary. Just bring yourself and writing materials.

In Poetry as Spiritual Practice you will:

  • Read and listen to poets who have come before, from Rumi to the Psalms to Ada Limon, Mary Oliver and others.
  • Write during the workshop in response to mindful writing prompts, with the option to read aloud.
  • Support positively others’ explorations of words and metaphors, and receive support.
  • Explore writing and reading practices that can deepen your everyday connection to Spirit as you understand Spirit.

2024 Tri-Quarter Gathering

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Tri-Quarter is an annual gathering of F/friends from Haddonfield, Salem, Burlington Quarterly Meetings and beyond at YMCA’s delightful “Camp of the Pines”. It is a valuable opportunity to convene with nature, participate in workshops led by members of our community, and develop new and lasting friendships.

Lean more and register at southjerseyquakers.org/triquarter-gathering/

Altered Books: Making Tangible Our Personal and Prophetic Narratives

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Jul 14 – Sep 8, 2024

An online arts program with Jesse White.

Sundays, 12:30pm-2:30pm Eastern Time (US & Canada) via Zoom.
*Note: no group class the week of September 1. You will have the opportunity to schedule a personal check-in between August 25 and September 7.

Come and join a safe and brave online learning community while you explore a personal narrative that wants to be shared. Altered Bookmaking is an interactive art form where we recreate a book into our own work of art and story. Within us there is that of God and that of ourselves. Making an altered book can hold a truth that comes from our whole self.

As a member of our altered book community, you will learn altered bookmaking techniques, how to dig deep and reflect the integrity of your story, and how sharing your book with others can extend Spirit’s message through you into a wider landscape. We will journey together in this process, practicing skills in pilgrimage, discernment, letting go, crossing a threshold, transformation, and integration.

This program offers opportunities to draw, paint, collage, craft pop-ups and other architectural techniques, journal, and explore creativity in community. While techniques will be taught, participants will have the flexibility and autonomy to choose which experiences are right for them, their books, and their stories.

Altered Books: Making Tangible Our Personal and Prophetic Narratives

Written on:

Jul 14 – Sep 8, 2024

An online arts program with Jesse White.

Sundays, 12:30pm-2:30pm Eastern Time (US & Canada) via Zoom.
*Note: no group class the week of September 1. You will have the opportunity to schedule a personal check-in between August 25 and September 7.

Come and join a safe and brave online learning community while you explore a personal narrative that wants to be shared. Altered Bookmaking is an interactive art form where we recreate a book into our own work of art and story. Within us there is that of God and that of ourselves. Making an altered book can hold a truth that comes from our whole self.

As a member of our altered book community, you will learn altered bookmaking techniques, how to dig deep and reflect the integrity of your story, and how sharing your book with others can extend Spirit’s message through you into a wider landscape. We will journey together in this process, practicing skills in pilgrimage, discernment, letting go, crossing a threshold, transformation, and integration.

This program offers opportunities to draw, paint, collage, craft pop-ups and other architectural techniques, journal, and explore creativity in community. While techniques will be taught, participants will have the flexibility and autonomy to choose which experiences are right for them, their books, and their stories.

Altered Books: Making Tangible Our Personal and Prophetic Narratives

Written on:

Jul 14 – Sep 8, 2024

An online arts program with Jesse White.

Sundays, 12:30pm-2:30pm Eastern Time (US & Canada) via Zoom.
*Note: no group class the week of September 1. You will have the opportunity to schedule a personal check-in between August 25 and September 7.

Come and join a safe and brave online learning community while you explore a personal narrative that wants to be shared. Altered Bookmaking is an interactive art form where we recreate a book into our own work of art and story. Within us there is that of God and that of ourselves. Making an altered book can hold a truth that comes from our whole self.

As a member of our altered book community, you will learn altered bookmaking techniques, how to dig deep and reflect the integrity of your story, and how sharing your book with others can extend Spirit’s message through you into a wider landscape. We will journey together in this process, practicing skills in pilgrimage, discernment, letting go, crossing a threshold, transformation, and integration.

This program offers opportunities to draw, paint, collage, craft pop-ups and other architectural techniques, journal, and explore creativity in community. While techniques will be taught, participants will have the flexibility and autonomy to choose which experiences are right for them, their books, and their stories.

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