To be able to make truly visionary art, we artists must have in our lives the crucial element called dream time, that is, time when we leave this world and go into our own sacred space, seeking the grace needed to create our work. Dream time holds the turmoil and the trauma of the world at bay and allows the vision to be granted and the healing notes to attune us.
Estelle Conwill Májozo
Click on the date link above to jump to the Ireland retreat info on this page
For inquiries about the retreats, please contact us at: info@spokeart.org
ITALY RETREAT 2027
Italy – April 11 – April 27, 2027
Poetry & Visual Art with Letta Neely and Michael Dowling
You are invited to step out of your day-to-day life and to be part of one of our artistic retreats. The retreats ask you to recognize that the role of the artist is meaningful enough to nurture. They revolve around bringing the creative into our daily lives, permitting life to revolve around the creative self.
Too often we accept daily life as a distraction rather than an invitation to our work as artists to reveal the deeper, often hidden meaning of our existence. Participants will be invited to be mindful that each moment in our lives offers us the material for creation.
During studio time artists work alone or near one another. During the retreat individual conversation will be held as the facilitators visit the artists. The surroundings provide magical settings within which the artist may work with the subject and in the style and form that most engages them. Opportunities abound to consider the landscape, architecture, figure, still life or simply the light as a subject. Artists work in many mediums, poetry, dance, performance, and visual arts. One of the highlights of the retreat is creating a multi-discipline installation in the 12th century chapel, San Jacapo!
Guided conversations are held on two afternoons (Dialogues with Art) and several evenings after dinner (Artist Vision), where the facilitators weave the community of artists together with elements of story, poetry, and the experiences of the day. These conversations may examine issues dealt with by artists such as: experiencing art, learning to talk about each other’s art, our role as artists in our society, accessing and recognizing our vision, special needs we have as artists, and talking about our work with others.
For inquiries about the retreats, please contact us at: info@spokeart.org
Italy – April 11 -April 27, 2027
Depart Boston April 11, 2027
Depart Venice April 27, 2027
Poetry & Visual Art with Letta Neely
and Michael Dowling
Our 24th retreat will be held at a monastery in San Gimignano, a medieval Tuscan village filled with towers and surrounded by rolling hills. The Benedictine Sisters who offer their hospitality have become dear friends during our previous retreats.
In San Gimignano, you will find many beautiful places to work outdoors. The monastery offers their private walled olive garden for working as well. Cafés, restaurants, and shops are all within a short, if hilly, walk. The views are breathtaking, and the light is magical.
San Gimignano is several weeks ahead of our late New England Spring. While evenings and mornings may be cool enough to require a jacket or layers, the afternoons can be warm enough for short sleeves. The grass is green, flowers are blooming, and trees are leafing out.
Fees: $3200
FEES DO NOT INCLUDE AIRFARE ESTIMATED AT $1000.
FEES INCLUDE:
- • Individual and group instruction
- • Lodging, double ensuite rooms with single beds.
- • Continental breakfast, lunch, and seven dinners.
- • Transportation between airport and lodging, upon arrival and departure, available for selected flight only
Key dates:
- • Sign-up opens: June 26, 2026
- • Deposit due: $1600 November 15, 2026 CLICK HERE TO MAKE DEPOSITS
- • Flight booked: to be determined.
- • Balance due: $1600 February 1, 2027 CLICK HERE TO PAY BALANCE DUE
Facilitators
Letta Neely is a poet, playwright, and cultural worker whose art centers Black queer resilience, memory, and collective liberation. She is the author of Juba and Here (both Lambda Literary Award finalists) and the chapbooks When We Were Mud and gawd and alluh huh sistuhs. Her plays—including Hamartia Blues, Last Rites, and Shackles & Sugar—have been produced in Boston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Most recently, her one-woman show Pulling It All Into The Current won Best Drama at the 15th season of the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York City.
Letta’s literary work has appeared in Sinister Wisdom, African Voices, Does Your Mama Know?, The World in Us, Role Call, and numerous other anthologies and journals. Named one of The Root’s Top 30 Black Performance Poets, she has received a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, the Pat Parker Award Scholarship from ZAMI, and grants from NEFA, Live Arts Boston, and the National Performance Network Documentation & Storytelling Fund.
She is Co-Artistic Director of Fort Point Theatre Channel, editor/script writer for Ife Franklin’s The Slave Narratives of Willie Mae, and host of FireWater Poetics at Emerson College. Letta has over 25 years of teaching experience in grassroots, community, and academic settings, and her teaching style is generative, embodied, strengths-based, and deeply relational.
Michael Dowling is known as one of the Commonwealth’s most innovative and courageous artists who produces visually stunning, ambitious public works of art that serve and inspire communities on many levels. His work stems from his heartfelt desire to beautify and make life better for all. Michael holds a BFA and MFA from Boston University, where he studied with Philip Guston and James Weeks.
Leading these artist retreats has become a natural extension of Michael Dowling’s work as a visionary artist and educator, where he has inspired and guided communities and artists of all ages for over thirty years
IRELAND RETREAT 2027
Ireland
September 11 – September 27, 2027
Visual Arts and Writing
Before setting out, remind yourself of the purpose of your journey. From now on, there is no such thing as a neutral act, an empty thought, an aimless day. Travels become sacred by the depths of their contemplations. As in myth, dream, and poetry, every word is saturated with meaning. Now is the time to live your ideal life. – Phil Cousineau
* Departure from Boston, Friday September 10th
For our fifth retreat to Ireland, we will return to the Donegal Thatched Cottages, offering traditional Irish cottages right on the seafront/beach on The Wild Atlantic Way. The cottages are located on Cruit Island right on the Atlantic Ocean. We invite you to warm your toes at a blazing turf fire; taste the salt spray on the sea breeze; experience the warm welcome of West Donegal, where time meets eternity, and the old ways linger on.
Full of character and charm, the cottages are just a stone’s throw away from a beautiful sandy beach and boast picturesque views all-year round. They are an ideal setting for our artistic retreat.
Local playwright and historian Martin Lynch will join us and share his wealth of knowledge about the area. The cottages have a detailed website https://www.donegalthatchcottages.com which you may visit for more information, including some beautiful photographs.
You are invited to step out of your day-to-day life and to be part of one of our artistic retreats. The retreats ask you to recognize that the role of the artist is meaningful enough to nurture. They revolve around bringing the creative into our daily lives, permitting life to revolve around the creative self.
Too often we accept daily life as a distraction rather than an invitation to our work as artists to reveal the deeper, often hidden meaning of our existence. Participants will be invited to be mindful that each moment in our lives offers us the material for creation.
During studio time artists work alone or near one another. During the retreat individual conversation will be held as the facilitators visit the artists. The surroundings provide magical settings within which the artist may work with the subject and in the style and form that most engages them. Opportunities abound to consider the landscape, architecture, figure, still life or simply the light as a subject. Artists work in many mediums on our retreats including painting, mixed media, drawing, or sculpture.
Guided conversations are held on two afternoons (Dialogues with Art) and several evenings after dinner (Artist Vision), where the facilitators weave the community of artists together with elements of story, poetry, and the experiences of the day. These conversations may examine issues dealt with by artists such as: experiencing art, learning to talk about each other’s art, our role as artists in our society, accessing and recognizing our vision, special needs we have as artists, and talking about our work with others.
Last two night will be spent in Dublin !
For inquiries about the retreats, please contact us at: info@mwproductions.org
Fees $1600
FEES DO NOT INCLUDE AIRFARE ESTIMATED AT $1000.
FEES INCLUDE:
- • Individual and group instruction
- • Lodging, double occupancy rooms with single beds in three to four cottages
- • Continental breakfast, lunch, and seven dinners.
- • Transportation between airport and lodging, upon arrival and departure, available for selected flight only. Last two nights in Dublin
Key dates
- • $800 deposit due: February 27, 2027, CLICK HERE TO MAKE DEPOSITS
- • Flight booked: Early May (TBD)
- • $800 balance due: August 1, 2027 CLICK HERE TO PAY BALANCE
Facilitators: TBA