This year Nancy Barnhart, photographer, and Jean Vavrek, fabric artist and painter, integrate creative photography and fabric work in an October workshop promising exciting links between art and the natural world. Returning to Flick Creek House is local author, Ana Maria Spagna, who conducts writing workshops. This fall she will teach Peeling Back: A workshop on the personal essay . See details below. Each workshop takes place at secluded Flick Creek House on upper Lake Chelan, near Stehekin. Designed and built by the Barnharts, the house offers an ideal setting for comfort, artistic pursuits and expansive views of Lake Chelan and the surrounding mountains. Three miles down the lake from Stehekin, the house lies in a private cove with no other houses in view. Electricity comes from a small water turbine. There are no phones or other distractions of city life, only sound of Flick Creek and waves lapping on the sandy beach. Kayaks and a rowboat are available for your use. For photos and more information on the house go to:   www.stehekinvalley.com and click on Flick Creek House.

October 3-5  Peeling Back: A workshop on the personal essay.  $240  
                       
This workshop will focus on the idea that a writer can create plot in a personal narrative through a "movement toward honesty." The writer may begin with one idea-a perfectly honest observation about everyday life-but then, like peeling back the skin of an onion, moves toward a deeper, sometimes surprising, truth. We'll blend readings, exercises, sharing, with a healthy dose, as always, of free time and the ever popular optional trip to Stehekin on Saturday.
Instructor: Ana Maria Spagna

October 10-12  Shaping Creativity  $240    

Are you normally creative, but one day you try to write or paint and end up with crumpled sheets of paper strewn about on the floor? Or have you felt that creative pursuits are not for you, although you long to be an artist? In this weekend workshop, we will use the beautiful Stehekin valley (imagine Flick Creek, fall color and shimmering Lake Chelan), to seek and find our own creative paths through a variety of activities: photography, fabric art, sensory experiences and pictograph viewings. We will explore the natural world using field guides to help inform our art. No experience in any form necessary. Fabric work, optional.
Instructors: Nancy Barnhart and Jean Vavrek.                                                  

Ana Maria Spagna lives and writes in Stehekin. After fifteen seasons on trail crew, she now teaches writing online and in Stehekin's one room school, a combination that she says suits her well. Her work has recently appeared in Mountain Gazette, Open Spaces, Oregon Quarterly, and in the anthology A Mile in Her Boots. Her first book, Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging and the Cross Cut Saw, was named one of the Best Books of 2004 by The Seattle Times. Ana Maria is a graduate of the University of Oregon and of the M.A. program in fiction writing at Northern Arizona University.
Contact: anamaria@starband.net

Jean Vavrek grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, an industrial city. As a teen she saw the ocean for the first time and was infatuated with it.. She received a BA with Honors in Fine Art from Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. Afterward she lived in various cities doing various jobs until she encountered the Western mountains and fell in love. Her love for mountains inspired her to turn away from cities and head for the hills. Thirty years ago she came to Stehekin with her husband and has enjoyed exploring this landscape, both on foot and through a variety of artistic media, including printmaking, collage, fabric art, oil pastels and brush drawings directly from nature. Her work has been exhibited widely and is included in many private collections. Fifteen years ago she helped found the Golden West Gallery and has served on its board since. She has been a member of the local craft cooperative for thirty years and has worked as a National Park Service interpretive ranger for twelve years. She's an avid gardener, loves flowers and likes to relax by cooking. Contact: jeanvavrek@gmail.com

Nancy Barnhart, longtime Stehekin resident and photographer has eight years of experience leading photography workshops at Flick Creek with her photographer husband. Nancy added photography to her long list of creative pursuits soon after moving to the remote Cascades over 30 years ago. Photography books published with her husband include, Lake Chelan & The North Cascades, Stehekin-A Mountain Community, Holden Village-A Christian Renewal & Mountain community. She has extensive and intimate knowledge of the North Cascades, which is reflected in her stunning artwork. Her attention to detail compliments her knitting, gardening, baking and photography.
Contact: mn@barnhartphoto.com