Painting can be a way to slow down, pay attention, and see the world a little differently. Nature has long been a source of inspiration for artist and bestselling cookbook author Erin Gleeson, from the California woods that inspired her Forest Feast cookbook series to the gardens and produce that continue to find their way into her watercolor paintings.

In this lab, Erin will share her journey from food photography to cookbook author and watercolor artist, followed by beginner-friendly exercises in color, brushwork, and painting elements from nature. Together, participants will learn simple techniques and explore how making art can quiet the mind, bring us into the present moment, and create space for new ideas to flow. No previous painting experience is needed—just a willingness to experiment and see where the process takes you.

Suggested materials:

• watercolor paints

• watercolor paper

• a couple different brushes (ideally between size 0-12)

• a cup of water

• a napkin/cloth/paper towel

• a side plate or palette to mix colors on

Wednesday, November 4, 2026
12:00-1:30 PM Central Time
Live online

Second Photo Credit: Erin Gleeson

As we move through difficult times, we lose a sense of the visions and imagery that can tether us to our gifts in this world. In this session guided by Kaitlin B. Curtice, we will work with sections of an essay that author and psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote for The Daily Good called “Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times” written in 2020. Together we will look at her wise words on the power of hope in difficult times, and Kaitlin will guide writing prompts to see what arises in us. Then, we will share in pairs/groups, building a community of resilience and care with our words.

Wednesday, November 18, 2026
12:00-1:30 PM Central Time
Live online

Amid the whirlwind of these times, what’s it mean to let the land, water, and air shape us? What are some practical, creative tools to engage with the speed of this shaping, to grow intimacy with time and motion? And how might peering into the kinetics of language invite us to respond with more resilience, compassion, and creative buoyancy for what’s on the horizon?

In this two-session lab guided by Nicholas Triolo, we’ll explore the power of speed in our writing. We’ll focus on narrative’s guiding pulse: how word choice and rhythm can effectively slow us down to see and savor, or how they can propel, quicken, and jump-start the senses. Because what makes for powerful and embodied narratives is a polaric architecture of both: We need pause and specificity to see the unfolding texture of now, alongside a desire for whiplash, for hearts to race with increasing horsepower, muscles taut and burning as they gallop headlong, peering through watering eyes to conspire with the wind to feel, feel, feel. To be animal. To transform.

How can our writing of home, wayfinding, and spiritual endurance do that? How can it enliven a sense of shared kin with this joy-strange world? In this lab, we’ll combine selections of prose and poetry with short writing exercises to invite each participant into a pilgrimage home—to identify the narrative kinetics that shape our lives. Pulling from a variety of traditions and forms, we’ll explore how language conspires to shape our perception and inspire us to take visionary action for the times ahead. As Dr. Bayo Akomolafe says: “The times are urgent; let us slow down.”

Wednesdays, December 2 & December 9, 2026
12:00-1:30 PM Central Time
Live online

The order of things may well be that there is no order, only constant shifts and transitions. What’s more, these passages from one thing to another often show up quietly before sound and words. We make as we go, sensing the world with our hands, inquisitive eyes, and ever agile hearts. Sometimes we ourselves are the ones triggering the shifts in the energy we witness. Sometimes we only get to watch the great reveal at the end of a long metamorphosis. In this lab guided by Claudia Castro Luna, we’ll practice writing the swelling and waning of things. We’ll explore writing the ineffable, the ephemeral, the long, beautiful wake of changing things.

We’ll approach this writing practice from three vantage points. First, by reading and discussing short works from a variety of writers who’ve taken on the flux and transit of things. These writers come from diverse backgrounds: we’ll read indigenous poets from the Americas, contemporary American writers, and older voices from other continents. Secondly, we’ll strengthen our observation muscle by writing the things we sense in real time. Lastly, we’ll explore the intersection between place and interior weather.

Thursday, December 3, 2026
12:00-1:30 PM Central Time
Live online

Uncertainty is uncomfortable, a space we often skip over, stepping on the next stone in a river crossing to stand on the next known thing. Uncertainty is a cop-out, an avoidance of looking honestly at a difficult truth, particularly when that truth holds our own culpability. But the movement between assertion and perplexity, between clarity and confusion, can also provide a powerful nexus in poems. In this generative workshop guided by Elizabeth Bradfield, we’ll discuss the ethics of choosing to stay in “not-knowing,” considering when it is a fruitful space and when it is avoidant; we will also consider what certainty masks and oversimplifies. We will read and discuss poems that hold crystalline points of truth alongside foggy drifts of fumble; we’ll write and map corners of our own terra incognita.

Wednesday, December 16, 2026
12:00-1:30 PM Central Time
Live online