2024 Black Cat Makerie : Developing a Creative Practice with Annemarie O'Sullivan & Tom McWalter

DEVELOPING A CREATIVE PRACTICE

We are thrilled to announce a very special partnership with Black Cat Organic Farm ~ the Black Cat Makerie: Farm to Craft.  This new set of retreats marries Black Cat’s and the Makerie’s mutual love of creativity, exquisite organic farm-to-table meals, and life on a working farm.  Each unique retreat combines creative learning opportunities led by renowned artists and teachers, and James Beard finalist Chef Eric Skokan’s extraordinary ‘as fresh as farm gets’ Front Range cuisine.  Our retreats vary in scope and scale as we explore different formats to bring you one-of-a-kind experiences on-site at the magical Black Cat Farm located just outside the city of Boulder, Colorado.

Work with Tom and Annemarie to explore how connection with a landscape and materials can develop a practice and impact your life for the better.  No experience is needed.  This retreat is all about play.  We’ll take you on an exploratory journey, walking, making, drawing, foraging, and eating.  You’ll learn how you can create a palette of color, materials and skills which is intimately connected to the land you are on.  We aim to help you to think differently, to embrace failure, and to allow yourself the space to breathe.  Each day we will spend some time being guided by Tom and Annemarie walking, sensitively collecting plant material and inspiration from the land.  We’ll process the plants and examine what they might offer us.  We will prepare simple inks and dyes.  We will make basic brushes and mark-making tools.  Tom will lead drawing, painting, and writing exercises, encouraging a sense of playfulness.  Annemarie will offer basketry sessions where you will learn weaving, binding and wrapping techniques.  These will bring a different kind of focus and will offer a deeper connection with the plants and the fibres they provide.  The retreat will support idea generation, analysis and development. We will look at strategies to help when an idea gets stuck.  Throughout the week we encourage you write, draw, and collect materials in a sketchbook.  To culminate the retreat, participants will design a meal, making utensils and place settings to create a unique shared experience.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Making cordage
• Learning a simple weave-pairing
• Wrapping techniques
• Plaiting and braiding
• Making pigments/ dyes
• Making brushes and mark-making tools
• Drawing and writing
• Connecting with and collecting from the surrounding land
  
  

VENUE
The workshop will be held on Black Cat Organic Farm, the most ambitious farm-to-table operation in the United States. James Beard Award finalist Chef Eric Skokan and his wife Jill have created a 425-acre organic and regenerative farm that supplies the bounty of their farm dinners, the downtown Boulder restaurant Bramble & Hare, the recipient of a coveted and rare Michelin Green Star, which honors restaurants that demonstrate true commitment to sustainability, CSA’s, and a Boulder Farmers’ Market Booth. Depending on the weather, classes will either be held in a renovated 19th-century cozy boutique barn that used to hold a community blacksmith shop, or on a brick verandah surrounded by gardens and acres of fields of vegetables, herbs, legumes, and grains. Mountains capped with snow for much of the year decorate the farm’s western horizon. The setting itself, however, is extremely pastoral, with sloping fields full of vegetables, fruit trees, a broad strawberry patch, and flowers everywhere when in season. Black Cat Organic Farm’s Toulouse geese, Akbash guard dogs, and strutting groups of chickens wander the property all day, evidence of the constant symbiotic relationship of life on a working farm.

CUISINE
Using Black Cat’s Certified Organic farm as a source of creativity, Chef Eric Skokan creates an award-winning cuisine vibrant with seasonality. The culinary team behind Bramble crafts our Black Cat Makerie meals, all of which closely reflect the seasons. The kitchen draws heavily from the farm’s more than 250 varieties of organic vegetables, legumes, grains, herbs and flowers, as well as its large flock of heritage sheep and its robust population of heritage pigs, paving the way for a limitless palette of flavors, colors, and textures from which to build each food experience. From artichokes to chickpeas, tomatoes to arugula, basil to wheat to winter squash and much more, Black Cat Organic Farm nurtures it all, transforming these stellar ingredients into gorgeous dishes. Each day of the retreat begins with a delicious homemade morning snack, followed by a hearty, fresh-from-the-fields lunch, and a delectable afternoon nibble. New this year! One very special farm dinner will be shared with our retreat community as part of the Black Cat Makerie experience. Surrounded by pastoral beauty and pampered with warm hospitality, guests who attend Black Cat Farm Dinners enjoy culinary experiences unlike any other in Colorado. The farm team devotes hours every day to harvesting these ingredients, then crafting them into outstanding dishes that mirror what is thriving in the fields. Many guests dine in private, glass-walled cabanas spread out across the farm, with views of rolling hills, organic agricultural fields and snow-capped mountains. We can’t wait for you to experience it all for yourself.