Your retreat begins on the afternoon/evening of the arrival day with time for settling in, getting acquainted, and enjoying a welcome dinner. This is a great time to relax and take a deep breath. We are so thrilled you are here!

All full-retreat days begin with a healthy continental breakfast so everyone can take the morning at their own pace. Before individual work time, there may also be opportunities for morning meditation and artist pages, yoga, or a brisk walk on your own from our accommodations.

After breakfast there will be time to work on individual projects. (Please bring headphones if you prefer to work to music, podcasts, etc.) Throughout the retreat, there will be a brain-break table with various materials and ideas if you need to switch gears, keep hands busy to refocus your brain, or maybe try something different with a new friend.

Lunch will be put out around noon for folks to help themselves. Afterwards, there will be time to bust through the post-lunch blahs by working on the Grove Collaborative Creation Project*. Like all activities, this is optional, though we hope you will participate so everyone is represented in the final product! After that, it’s back to work on your own projects. So much good focus! You might also want to take part of the afternoon for a little downtime or to go out for a walk to stretch your legs.

Early evening we begin to gather for happy hour followed by a delicious dinner with lively conversation. We will bring interesting questions for dinner conversation, and we encourage everyone to do the same!

After dinner, feel free to hang out, take time for yourself,  do some more work, or tackle a collaborative project. We ask that quiet hours are from 10pm- 7am.

On our last full day together, we will have time to wrap up, and clean up our individual work, and pack for traveling the next day. Late afternoon, we will begin our closing ceremonies/activities and have a wonderful full-circle dinner to honor each of you and the grove we grew together. It’s going to be full of intention, gratitude, and joy!

The last morning we will have a light breakfast before we send you off, but not a goodbye! The Grove Alumni group will continue to grow, inspire, support, and celebrate you on your artistic journey!

One of the most interesting questions we are asking is: What happens if we take a diverse group of creators and make some art together? And, because we think it’s an interesting question, we intend to answer it! To that end, a key part of each retreat is a collaborative creation that we will work on throughout the retreat. Of course, this project is going to be different for each retreat, but the structure of this work will be the same: We will provide a framework for a collaborative project and time in the schedule for participants to work on the project—from there, the collaboration and the end product will become what this unique group determines it should be. After the retreat is over, we will send each participant a copy of the final product. Let’s go make a beautiful mess together and see what happens!