We supply paints, brushes, and have light refreshments. Please bring your own rock to paint.
Art
This Monstrous Law! Robert and Harriet Purvis and the Fugitive Slave Act
he Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and Millicent Sparks Productions invite the public to witness a performance that portrays three legendary Philadelphians from the city’s rich 19th-century Black history.
This Monstrous Law! Robert and Harriet Purvis and the Fugitive Slave Act is a recreation of a historic protest of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which compelled everyday citizens to assist in capturing enslaved people seeking their freedom. Living history performers portray abolitionists Robert Purvis and Harriet Forten Purvis, who boldly responded to the inhumane law by rallying local citizens to defy it. A portrayal of celebrated concert singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, “The Black Swan,” lends melodic power to the production.
Gourd Decoupage Workshop
Environmentally, friendly workshop focused on using natural materials and repurpose unwanted items. All supplies included
If you want to bring your own paper and or fabric for yourself or to share, please do! You may want to commemorate an event or trip with items you have saved
All proceeds support Mt Holly Meeting’s Geothermal System
Please preregister here: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/mounthollygeothermalcampaign/event/quiltingworkshop/
In The Light of Freedom
Come take part in an evening of hands-on art, history, and community engagement on Saturday, October 18, 2025, at Byberry Friends Meeting. In the Light of Freedom will feature two back-to-back programs with Philadelphia-based walking artist and Underground Railroad researcher Ken Johnston, honoring Byberry’s role in the Underground Railroad and movement to abolish slavery.
The evening begins with a Lantern-Making Workshop from 5:00–6:30pm, where participants can assemble and decorate their own LED lanterns for the parade to follow. Johnston will share stories of Byberry anti-slavery leader Robert Purvis and the symbolic role of lanterns in guiding freedom seekers. Space is limited to 25 participants and advance registration is required. There is a nominal $5 materials fee for the workshop.
At 6:30pm, a Historical Reenactment and Lantern Parade will commemorate the 175th anniversary—to the day—of a historic October 18, 1850, meeting in Byberry Hall, led by Robert Purvis and other abolitionist leaders, to protest the newly enacted Fugitive Slave Act. Event participants will be invited to take on the roles of the original signers of a declaration against the Act that the attendees adopted at the 1850 meeting before joining Johnston for a lantern light procession around the Byberry Meeting burial grounds, marking the resting places of local anti-slavery activists and sharing Underground Railroad stories.
“Lanterns are more than light—they’re a way to connect with history, community, and the courage of those who fought for freedom,” said Jack McCarthy, Project Director.
“Today one could say Robert Purvis and his brothers grew up grounded with a sense of cultural competence and social activism,” said Ken Johnston. So it is befitting we commemorate the 175th anniversary of a historic 1850 protest meeting led by Robert Purvis and others against the Fugitive Slave Act.”
Guests may bring their own handheld lights or lanterns—if it glows, it goes!
Making in Community: Handbuilding Ceramic Bowls
This hands-on studio experience will be a guided workshop on building functional bowls for the dinnertable. Bowls are an essential part of the dining experience, and can be used for sharing, serving, or personal soups and salads. Students will have the opportunity to made and keep up to two food-safe bowls each. Techniques will include coil-building, slab-building, and painting with underglazes. The workshop will also serve as a time for reflection on community at the table and what it means to gather for meals and eat with one another.
All clay and tools will be available at the Pendle Hill studio for students, but bringing an apron is encouraged. Participants will be able to pick up finished piece within a month of the workshop, once pieces have been bisque and glaze fired.
This place is open to all levels of artistic ability.
Watercolor & Pastels at Pendle Hill
Deepen your experience of one or both watercolor and pastel painting, either on their own or in combination with each other. Each student will work individually with the instructor to identify an area of growth, a project, or an idiom of painting to develop. Foundational techniques such as color mixing, paint handling, composition, shading, hatching, and blending will be taught as a means for each student to further their development. As needed, we will explore even using acrylic mediums to further both pastel and watercolor language. Experimentation and creative use of the materials will be encouraged.
What you will learn:
1. How/when to utilize pastel pencil, hard pastel, and soft pastel.
2. Color Theory: analogous color, complementary color, contrast, color harmony/cohesion
3. Application Techniques- blending, layering, cross-hatching
4. Linear and tonal modelling
5. Techniques for using pastels in combination with other media (gouache, watercolor, acrylic, charcoal)
6. Approaches to composition
Intuitive Art & Mindfulness with Fleisher Art Memorial
This class merges meditative practices with intuitive art-making to foster mindfulness, self-discovery, and well-being. Through guided drawing exercises, meditation, breath work, intention setting, and body movement activities, participants will explore methods influenced by various meditative traditions. You’ll learn to tap into your innate creativity, trust the intuitive art-making process, and release preconceived ideas about art. This experience encourages deep self-exploration, relaxation, and personal growth, all within a supportive space rooted in empathic understanding, congruency, and unconditional positive regard. No prior experience is necessary—just an open heart and mind.
Plein Air Painting with Gouache at Pendle Hill
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
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
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.
