Aaahh!!!

Don’t you hate it when you become so INSPIRED to create real and tangible and explosive awesomeness and you are READY FOR IT and WANTING IT and DESIROUS of this incredible environment where people interact and engage and cultivate brilliance and make their tiny corner of the world better than it was (!) and then you look around and wonder if maybe you are alone? 

Yes? You hate that, too? THEN BE A PART OF SOMETHING. There are so many opportunities to be a part of something amazing. And yes, Bergamot is one of them! We do things that you can be a part of. You can see what we do here. It’s easy. You show up, make stuff, listen, laugh, enjoy the hell out of life for a couple hours, and then feel like the world might just be worth saving. 

Contact me if this sounds good to you. You are not alone. Now make things happen. 

xo

Shannon

The Terror of Being Brave:

It’s been too long! How are you? I’m happy you’ve finally gotten around to cooking that crazy recipe/ writing that short story/ running that marathon. I’m proud of you. 

We’ve been busy, too. The Bergamots have decided to get really big and brave all of a sudden. We got together with mybrokenheartart.com to help survivors of suicide to create in order to help the healing process.

This was big for me because I am a survivor of suicide myself. I’ve been to the support groups. My world was torn apart by the suicide of a loved one, too. And creating was sometimes the only thing that helped. 

So in a sense, this was one of the purest forms of Bergamot yet. This was how The Bergamot Institute became an idea for me in the first place. It was magical. 

Have you ever shared deep inside-guts type of stuff in front of a room full of strangers before? The way they look right at you, right in your eyes, it just cuts through all the toughness you though you had and it makes you want to cry and to thank each and every one of them. 

You should try it some time. 

We plan to continue to do these survivors of suicide/ grief therapy sessions throughout the future because they are important. If you are a survivor of suicide, I encourage you to participate, as a volunteer or just to create with us. It will make you feel good and raw and true. 

Best of luck,

Shannon

Help Make Cool Things Happen!

This week’s Open Air Bergamot art session features Julie Rist! This is our facebook event page. It has all the details. Come! Tell your friends! Especially your creative friends! And your friends with kids! email shannon@bergamotinstitute.org or call 602.334.0033 for more information. We want lots of people of all ages to participate and we need your help!

Thank you so much for helping to make cool things happen.

<3

Shannon

Orange Flowers and Painting Outside

We’ve held 5 (FIVE!!) sessions of Open air Bergamot already! Can you believe it? It has been amazing so far. We have some great participants, and our artists have been brilliant! We’ve had Michael Leeder, Lalo Cota, Connie Galeener, Denise Fleisch, and Tato Caraveo. These are amazing artists and I truly can’t wait to continue working with them all. Each had their own style, their own special talents, and their own magic that they brought to the park.

We cannot thank Jerry’s Artarama enough, they donated 10 travel easels for this program! I hope everyone will shop there, because they are great. Also, Stardust continues to give us cupboard doors that we sand, prime, and provide for the group to paint on! And just today I filled my entire car with mat boards from Art of Framing! Jenny at Art of Framing is the coolest. Please everyone get your art and photos framed at Art of Framing. Jenny runs a little local framing shop, and she is awesome. She gives us mat boards like nobody’s business, which we use to mat/frame, and also to draw and paint upon! Aaaahhhh I love Phoenix and our lovely friends who keep helping us to do what we do. <3

Now I need YOUR HELP though! We need more participants! I am so happy to have our regular kids, but we need more people! All ages are welcome, you can bring kids, teens, or just yourself and your friends. Donations only, we provide supplies!

We meet outside of our new home at Phoenix Center for the Arts (1202 N 3rd st). This is on 3rd street, just south of McDowell (but north of Roosevelt). Parking is the first right immediately after the I10 if you’re driving south on 3rd street.

We set up near the big brass panda in the park. Please come! Or if you can’t come, please tell your friends! Especially artistic friends! Or friends with artistic kids!

It has been a shock to see what a drastic difference in participation we have seen just because people are required to actually go somewhere. Kudos to those who have left their houses and joined us for totally magnificent creative times out in the park! And to those who have yet to join us: Please do! This week’s class is Saturday, March 10th, 1-3pm, with Julie Rist. Julie is one of Phoenix’s finest professional artists and she will guide our group in creating portraits of our inner selves. Which is going to be fantastic. This is our fb event page! RSVP: 602.334.0033/ email shannon@bergamotinstitute.org

Also did you notice the orange flowers? Me too! I want to eat the air.

Open Air Bergamot art school starts SUNDAY 2/5/12!!!

Our featured artist is Michael Leeder. Michael is a friend and a really great artist. He draws, paints, and is getting a degree in printmaking.

Michael will be leading our group in the park from 11am-1pm on Sunday, Feb 5th. We will provide easels, canvases, paint, and all the supplies needed to create your own sketchbook to take with you!

Meet us outside of Phoenix Center for the Arts:1202 N 3rd Street, Phoenix.

If you are driving south on 3rd street, you will drive south of the I10 and immediately on your right will be the parking lot, on the edge of Margaret T Hance park. Walk towards the giant brass panda statue, and we’ll be there! With easels, supplies, and artistic expertise!

The program is open to Phoenix youth and teens who are interested in learning from some of the best artists in Phoenix and creating outside in the beautiful weather!

We ask for a small donation for each session, to help keep our programs going - Min $5, Max $25 - whatever you can afford.

Cal 602.334.0033 or email shannon@bergamotinstitute.org to reserve your place in the group!

See you in the park!

<3 Shannon

P.S. Jerry’s Artarama in Tempe donated the easels to our Open Air Bergamot art program! You should shop there because they are so awesome!

Breathe In the Open Air.

We’re making an Open Air Bergamot art program! We want to help Phoenix art become better and more supportive of itself as a living thing, so we’re taking a cue from the revolutionary Open Air schools in Mexico City and we’re gathering some great professional Phoenix artists to lead the groups! These outdoor art sessions will be held every weekend throughout February and March, either Saturday or Sunday, depending upon the artist leaders’ preference.

We have some awesome people ready to lead you in Bergamot Open Air sessions. We have artists who specialize in painting, pastels, mural work, drawing, landscape artists, portraitists, abstract artists… Just think of it: You will be outside in central Phoenix, enjoying the perfect weather along with maybe 7 other artists (teens, young adults, adults). We will provide you with an easel and painting/drawing supplies (though you may bring your own if you desire) and one of Phoenix’s brilliant professional artists will help guide you as you work.

This is your chance to work with some great Phoenix artists and help further Phoenix art while supporting a small local arts nonprofit. We will ask for a $10 donation for supplies for your first session, and only $5 for any additional sessions you want to attend (donations are tax-deductible). More details to come, as we finalize the where/when/who for each weekend session. Tell your friends! Plan on this.

You can reserve your spot as early as NOW, by emailing shannon@bergamotinstitute.org and we will have a full calendar to choose from within the next week or so.

Our collaborative art table at The Wellness Community was so much fun! It was a rainy winter day, but everyone we met was in terrific spirits. What a great event!

Did you know it’s 1 week till Christmas?! I still am making things for my family. I can’t post pictures yet, because they might see. :P I hope you are also making things for your family. Handmade gifts are the best!

Also, The Bergamot Institute is working on getting our own space very soon! I wish I could talk and talk and talk about it, but the details are not final yet. So I’ll keep it quiet for now. :)

I hope you are having a nice day! Now get back to work making things for xmas, you’re almost finished!

Love,

Shannon

And Now, After Much Anticipation:

Phoenix is awesome again. We’ve been waiting a long summer for this, folks, and it’s finally here! The weather is brilliant every single day! And with that, we’re doing (and planning) lots of great outside-ish things! Like an Open-Air art program! I want our open air program to be like the revolutionary schools in Mexico and like the Barbizon group. Not exactly the same, but in that vein. Yesyes. But more on that later, we’ve still got to work on the details there.  

We just finished with our participation in this year’s Phoenix Annual Parade for the Arts (P.A.P.A.) which was so much fun! For the two weekends leading up to the parade, we helped with workshops at the Phx Center for the Arts, where we got together with other creatives and made things, ate pizza, told our hopes and dreams, and spoke in our secret language that we made up. You should have come! Join us at the next one, then you can learn the handshake.

In the coming weeks even more cool things are happening!

1: My Birthday is Friday. Which doesn’t have much to do with Bergamot except that I <3 Bergamot and it’s my Birthday Friday.

2: December 3rd, the Bergamots will be participating in the Wellness Community’s annual Cancer Connections walk and Hope Cafe. The Wellness Community is a cancer support organization that lives just around the corner from us. They invited us to have some tables at their event because art helps people! And we’re going to help make a couple collaborative art pieces with the other participants to give to the center. I am really looking forward to this.

The event happens to be on the same day as the Out Of The Darkness walk for Suicide Prevention, which I will also be attending. That’s not a Bergamot event, but it’s very important to our family and close friends, so a few of us will be there.

So December 3rd is for suicide prevention/survivors of suicide support and also for cancer support. December 3rd is a day for humans and to help those who suffer perhaps feel a little better. Or at least less alone.

If you’d like to participate, you just need to show up. I guarantee you will feel better about the world if you do.

<3 Shannon

Hair Pollution is AMAZING. Tad Caldwell (the owner and resident wizard) made me into a sculpture for their annual Art/Hair/Fashion show benefit! Everyone involved, all the stylists and models, were fantastic, beautiful, explosively creative people! We raised money for The Bergamot Institute’s art programs and saw a whole new side of the Phoenix art community.

THANK YOU HAIR POLLUTION <3 <3 <3

Sunday is for ART and THE FUTURE!

So about this Sunday. 10/9. YOU are coming to Hair Pollution (formerly Way Cool Hair), the raddest, hippest, most badass hair salon I’ve ever known. They are having a hair-fashion-art show from 6-10pm and it will be MAGNIFICENT. And FREE.

It will be filled with crazy hairstyles, which the models have no say in, meaning the hairstyles themselves will be works of art! And fashion from local designers! And art from local artists! And live art being made on site, before-your-eyes! And there will be refreshments and drinks, and just an amazing scene. The theme is future Phoenix, and I have a feeling it’ll be a little apocalyptic, naturally.

ALL DONATIONS WILL GO TO THE BERGAMOT INSTITUTE!

And, if you must know, I will be one of the models in the show. Which means *I* will have no say in what is done to my hair. I am nervous about this. I don’t want them to chop it all off.  >_<  And I’ll be wearing crazy future clothes!

You can come and see me! And the other (probably way sexier) models! And take pictures, too! This will really be a great photog event, to all of you folks with that tenacious shutterbug affliction. (My sympathies. It doesn’t go away.)

And Bergamot artist friends will be creating amazing art on-site that you can buy in an auction for Bergamot!

Oh and Alex Djentrification will be donating his famous insanely amazing BURRITOS that you can buy and eat! All proceeds go to help the arts in Phoenix thru The Bergamot Institute. Which is a 501c3 nonprofit. So it’s all deductible and stuff. :)

See you this SUNDAY 10/9 from 6pm -10pm at Hair Pollution. Or at least you’ll see me. With crazy future phx fashion clothes and possibly no more hair? And great music, food, and art for all!

Here’s to Art and to having an awesome Sunday night.

xo

Shannon

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