The Planning of the ‘Unleash Your Creative Spirit’ workshop

After months of classes on the technical side of Photography, I realized one day that we needed a class that focused on the ‘creative’ side. I started formulating an idea based around “The Artist’s Way”, the purpose of the workshop was to help the participants find their ‘creative self’ and recognize it. I approached Cheryl Bruemmer, who teaches “The Artist’s Way” locally.

I then approached the Skagit Valley Camera Club with the idea. They thought it was a great idea, but maybe a hard sell based on just the Artist’s Way. One of the board members suggested that maybe we should turn it into a weekend retreat. I took that idea and ran with it. It was decided that Padilla Bay would make a great retreat and location. Not too far, remote, inspiring, and a beautiful location. I contacted them and found a date that worked.

I then started recruiting instructors that I felt would fit the theme of the workshop. I knew that Cheryl would start off the weekend. Her lively and fun spirit was a great way to start the workshop. I then asked Dick Garvey to do a class on the creative aspects of photography. Even though this was a workshop for Photographers, I realized I needed a different point of view, so I approached Al Currier about doing a class on a Painter’s point of view on being creative. I was so excited when he agreed. I then needed a headliner, someone that could draw in participants and would still fit our theme, I approached Brooks Jensen of Lenswork Magazine, with the idea and he immediately agreed.

Now we had a location, a fantastic line-up of instructors, caterers, sponsors and a schedule all that was needed was participants. It was decided to cap off at 40 max. I designed an email newsletter and emailed it out to all the local camera clubs from here to Bellingham. I then designed a poster to hang in various locations in Anacortes and Bellingham. The workshop was also added to That Photo Shoppe’s website, the Skagit Valley Camera Club’s website, and Glazer’s Camera Supply in Seattle’s website.

I had 15 people signed up within the first week. All together we had 30 paid participants, 4 instructors, 3 caterers, 4 sponsors, and 4 volunteers. I received very positive feedback, not only from the participants, but also from the instructors, who stayed for the entire weekend. The instructors not only enjoyed it as much as the participants but learned a lot from each other.

Overall, it was a great success. I learned that my ‘creative’ outlet was organizing and planning events such as these. We all have a ‘creative’ side, sometimes it is hard to realize just what that is.