Ah Haa Moment: 5-Day Art & Writing Retreat for Women

05 Aug Ah Haa Moment: 5-Day Art & Writing Retreat for Women

Immersion guided by artist Brucie Holler & Word Woman Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Artist Brucie Holler is an abstract painter whose work deepens our understanding of the wonders of nature not by literally representing the thing itself, but the emotions underlying the beauty and wonder she observes. Brucie’s latest series, “Murmurations,” which captured the famous bird ballet performed by starlings in motion, was featured at the Ah Haa School for the Arts’ annual New Year’s Eve gala.

Image, Brucie Holler

South Carolina native Brucie Holler received a BA in painting from Florida State University. She did graduate work at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore before moving to Telluride, Colorado, where she worked for five years, teaching and serving as Director of Exhibitions at Ah Haa.

Brucie studied with a variety of internationally known artists, among them, Richard Smith, Mario Martinez, and Truman Lowe. Galleries in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Colorado have shown her work. Brucie moved back to South Carolina in 1997, where she maintains a studio.

“As a non-representational painter, I am interested in exploring the way we walk through our lives, experiencing day-to-day moments, absorbing beauty, responding through nature or language, and then, for me, translating those experiences into an authentic, personal, and hopefully transcendent work of art. What drives me as a painter is a desire to create moments of contemplation and insight through art.”

Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer embodies the notion of writing beautifully to protect beautiful writing. Poet Art Goodtimes describes her as a “chanteuse of the heart” and she served two terms as San Miguel County’s first poet laureate.

Rosemerry Trommer, aka Word Woman

Rosemerry has authored and edited 13 books, including: “The Less I Hold”; “The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday life with Rumi “(poems); “Intimate Landscape: The Four Corners in Poetry & Photography”; “Holding Three Things at Once,” finalist for the Colorado Book Award; “Charity: True Stories of Giving & Receiving”; “If You Listen,” winner of the Colorado Independent Press Association poetry award.

Rosemerry is widely anthologized and her work has appeared on “A Prairie Home Companion,” in O Magazine, on back alley fences, in her children’s lunch boxes, and on rocks she leaves around town.
In addition to writing, Rosemerry leads writing workshops for hospice, recovery programs, women’s groups, teachers and people who think they hate poetry. She performs with a poetry troupe (EAR), teaches poetry in schools, independently and with Think 360, sings with an eight-woman a cappella group, Heartbeat, and leads (for 15 years) a poetry discussion series, Talking Gourds. For 10 years, Rosemerry served as director of the Telluride Writers Guild and wrote an award-winning column on linguistics for the Telluride Daily Planet. She teaches part time for “Parents As Teachers.” Rosemerry’s master’s degree in English Language & Linguistics is from University of Wisconsin—Madison.

“To witness Rosemerry Trommer’s myriad talents before a group and to hear her message is to restore one’s faith in humanity,” said Mike Nobles, Director of “A Gathering of Writers”

Most recently, Rosemerry embodied Audrey Hepburn at the Ah Haa auction.

Individually, Brucie and Rosemerry are all-Caps talents. Together, at the Ah Haa workshop they plan to lead this fall, they will prove the whole is greater than the sum of their parts, namely fine art and writing.

“Going Out Going In” is a five-day art and writing retreat for women, which takes place Monday, September 22 – Friday, September 26, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. and 3 – 6 p.m. daily. The underlying idea is based on a theory developed by writer William Burroughs about connecting writing and visual art, which he called “The Third Man,” (also the name of a book he co-wrote on the subject). “The Third Mind” is all about what emerges from the confluence of the two art forms. Deadline for sign-ups is August 22, 2014.

In this week-long intensive, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Brucie Holler will guide and encourage women participants in their quest to create something “new”: a third body, a third spirit, even a third mind. Using poetry and painting, participants will explore both inner and outer landscapes, ask questions, and practice embracing paradox. The course is an immersion for women who are ready to be pushed around a little by their art and move more wholly and deeply into the creative process.

The course fee, $850, includes all materials, a continental breakfast each morning, light refreshments throughout the day, and one group dinner at a Telluride restaurant. Lodging packages are available.

To inquire about lodging, please contact Kathleen Cole at 970.728.3886 or kathleen@ahhaa.org.

This workshop is part of our Visiting Artist program, therefore all cancellations must be made at least 45 days in advance.

To learn more, click the “play” button and listen to my conversation with Brucie and Rosemerry.