Arts

Elevenses: A Creative Writing Workshop At the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery

Elevenses will be coming to the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Elevenses? What is Elevenses?’ Well, Elevenses is the time of day.  I believe it’s a Harry Potter thing, but it’s not really why I like it. I like it because it’s a great name for the time of day. We’re going to meet at 11 and really the whole intent of doing this is to spark imagination. It really is not so much about creative writing and preparing something that’s going to come to completion. It’s about a process. So we’re going to enter this evocative  experiential  installation space at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery at 11 o’clock Wednesday, July 24th as a group,” explained Jane Newman, who will lead this creative writing workshop. 

“I will have crafted a number of different prompts and questions for people to respond to in sort of timed writing segments.”

“It isn’t a traditional exhibition where there’s paintings all around the room with labels on them and their price and the name and everything. It’s called an installation and an installation has a different sort of form in the gallery.” 

“It’s a little bit more interactive experiential. It may hit you on an emotional level just as far as the mood of the space. It may be misunderstood. It may be confusing.  It may be that our responses are ephemeral and we don’t really know what we’re feeling, but we’re going to  capture it. We’re going to stop, reflect, write, share, move forward, another prompt,  stop, reflect, write, share, move forward another prompt“.

“We’ll be in that space. We’ll interact with each other just in that we’re in the room together, but really interacting with the installation by Ebony Rose. That’s the intent. That’s the process. This installation will be a little bit of a mystery to begin with for many, and we will meet the muses.” 

“There will be an opportunity to share back too, because that’s always really interesting. If people don’t want to share back, they don’t have to share back.” 

Cortes Currents: What are the muses?

Jane Newman: “Muses are just what inspires you.  So people can have a real spiritual connection that’s a muse, but you could also have an arbutus tree. It could be a lizard or a snake that you saw in your garden that day. It could be the colour that’s resonating for you right then. So that’s another thing about these muses, they really work with us.  We just want to let them know we’re serious and we’re going to show up and we’re going to meet them.”

Cortes Currents: Have you led Creative writing workshops before?

Jane Newman: “I’ve given many because I worked as a creative faculty at the Banff Center  from the early 2000 to mid 2014-2015?, something like that.  Before that, I did a bunch of writers groups and  I taught writing and performing original monologues to five different cohorts in Banff over a number of years.”

 ”Then I did a lot of creative journal work too, where you actually journal write, but you’re creating an art book, but it’s your own journal as well. So that kind of combination.” 

“I’m a visual artist and a human being who communicates with people on a regular basis, but the written word  takes us out of everyday conversation and into a voice that usually is different and very likely when you’ve explored it more, very authentic.” 

Jane Newman – Photo courtesy of Karen McDiarmid

Cortes Currents: How often do you write?  

Jane Newman: “Over the years, I’ve written daily as far as journal entries. I do personal essay and  memoir work right now, but sporadically, especially in the summer, it’s really more of a winter practice for me. I wish I was writing  all the time, because that’s how you really, really hone your craft and keep it moving and keep it growing and developing.”

Cortes Currents: How long have you been writing?  

Jane Newman: “I had one of those little diaries that my mom and dad gave me when I was a kid,  and I had little secrets that I wanted to write in there and then could lock up.  I started to write poetry maybe when I was about 20.  It was really all about my sort of spiritual awakening in the wilderness in Western Canada, exploring the landscape that I was in,  the feelings that I had and the experience of camaraderie that I had with other people and other beings . That’s probably where I really started, I was about 20.”  

Cortes Currents: When were you first published?  

Jane Newman: “I self published my first book  in the mid 90s. It was called The Simplicity of Saxifrage and in a lot of ways the only truly published work that I have. I have magazine articles that are published, but they’re in a different sort of form. They were almost instructional, not creative writing.”

“I did a lot of  what I know as ‘Writing and Performing Original Monologues.’ So I worked with a bunch of people, we would write, and then we would hone our writing to become performance work, and perform for an audience. Whenever you perform for an audience, you really are publishing your work.” 

“It’s in a different form again, it’s unconventional, but I think it might very well be classified as a publication when you put it out to the general public in a performance that you’ve written and it’s original. So I call that also published work.” 

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Top image credit: Pen and eraser on paper – photo by Shawn Campbell via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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