US Trip – Camp Squam

So, on with the travelogue: The reason I headed to the USA this time around was to teach a course that I devised called Very Simple Screenprinting at the famous Squam Art Workshop‘s Fall session.

Last Wednesday, I took the train north from NYC, and joined a bunch of other teachers and students at an amazingly beautiful campsite on Lake Squam in New Hampshire. People were there from all over the US, and some had travelled from as far away as Malaysia and Australia. The Rockywold Deephaven camp was established in the 1800s, is vast, and super crazy beautiful, with chipmunks and squirrels bouncing about, and light glancing picturesquely down through the last green of summertime leaves.

I shared a cottage with some of the other teachers, including the hilarious illustrator Susy Pilgrim Waters, the fabulously glam Kayte Terry of Anthropologie, the sweetheartiest photographers Jen Korff and Helene Dujardin, as well as stitchy maven, Cal Patch. What a bunch of darlings!

I was a little nervous about teaching, and the fact that my box of materials shipped from SA three weeks before had not pitched up in time didn’t help much, but when the classes started, all went well. Did I say ‘well’? Actually, the classes went off a dream, and my students were absolutely brilliant, and whipping up amazing screenprinted yardage with the bare minimum of equipment. I was so proud of them!

Having superstars like Lotta Jansdotter (above) and Susy Pilgrim Waters in my classes was a bit daunting (to say the least), but of course, they were a joy to have in my class, as was every other person there. I think I actually like teaching!

I’m very grateful to have been invited to teach at Squam, and for having got to meet all the wonderful people (and chimpunks) that I did. I won’t forget my experience there, and maybe I’ll even get to go back some time.

Really, I am an insanely lucky person. I’d better go help an old lady cross the street or something, just to keep it all going.